I understand that in a research lab or in academia, this is common practice. But in the more menial coding industry that most of us are probably in, how do you find time for this? Do people read papers in their spare time and discuss over lunch, or are there enlightened managers who support this during working hours?
Good question. Most people read the paper on their own time, and we meet over lunch. The meetings themselves are just an hour, so it's not a massive time block. I've found that the people who show up are the ones who are genuinely curious and would be reading this stuff anyway (and sometimes just need a commitment/accountability to do it). Having a group gives them a reason to do it on a schedule.
We usually start with quick overall impressions, then go around with a few prompts: "what's something new you learned?", "what didn't you like?", and "what didn't you fully understand?" (every paper has something, whether it's the evaluation methodology or some algorithm detail). That last question tends to drive most of the discussion because people chime in and build on each other's answers. Sometimes you get lucky with domain expertise in the room. For example, when we read "What Every Programmer Should Know About Memory"[1], one of the attendees was a former Intel engineer who spent their career in memory systems. They answered questions the rest of us wouldn't have even known to ask.
That implies that you have a fixed time for lunch and also chat during lunch. I may be the minority but I prefer to eat when I'm hungry and focus on the food instead of chatting. And there is also allergies, as a celiac, I have big troubles eating together with others - they may accidently contaminate my food
I’m actually curious here, not trying to question your experience but does other people’s food regularly contaminate your food when you eat at the same table as them?
I’ve lived with a celiac sufferer before and I’ve never heard of something that extreme, but everyone’s different.
The degree of sensitivity of allergies varies widely. For example there are people who only have a problem after consuming a large scoop of peanut butter but there are also those who will end up in the hospital from trace amounts that you'd have difficulty spotting with the naked eye.
I dated a woman with celiac sprue (which I guess was extreme.. her mother had to have a bowel resection due to celiac related issues) and she had sudden anaphylaxis at a restaurant that required the use of an epi-pen and an ambulance.
The reaction was caused by the micro-brewery that had opened next door and all the wheat dust in the ventilation system.
It sounds like you could get very high ROI from chilling out a little bit. If one social lunch per month is an unfathomable hardship then you're probably leaving a lot of other opportunities on the table. Do you have OCD or social anxiety or something?
I'm not sure what you mean by menial coding but all my employers have supported this in the past. This was a variety of companies, big tech, startups, etc. I think its more likely your employer is the outlier.
All the companies I've worked at implicitly assume that you're supposed to use your working hours for more than just coding, including learning what you need for the task at hand, although if you're looking at very beginner material that might raise some suspicion.
In the case I mentioned above, the company wanted me to build a search engine before elastic search existed, and before there was full-text search in popular dbs like Postgres or MySQL. The CTO/founder gave me his credit card and told me to buy whatever books I needed. I bought about 5 different relevant books. Work days were about 10-12hrs, they still wanted me to read/research on my own time
In 35 years in the industry, reading and studying during work hours were always supported. Frankly, most places would let us play video games during work hours as long as we met our deadlines.
I've had mandated gaming on Friday after lunch. But this was in the gaming industry so it's "market research"!
We also often played board games. My favourite was playing secret Hitler with my team that one time. That was fun! (I managed to become "untouchable" while also being Hitler. That's a memorable moment!)
Interestingly, the person at Microsoft states in a reply that even most of them have to pick this up in their spare time. Judging from other replies, it seems that there are quite some differences in how companies approach this.
What I meant with "menial coding" is those jobs where people have to submit TPS reports on how much hours they spend for each customer. Reading a paper such as this one [1] is typically not directly necessary for being a good frontend developer, but it might stimulate someone to develop into a more fruitful employee in the long run. Managers would have to explain to their customer why time is being spent on that, and that requires some vision and creativity, which is not always a given.
The groups I ran were scheduled during lunch. Technical management would look the other way if we ran over time or if people spent a certain amount of their work day reading the material.
Even if you have enlightened technical management, it's helpful if you don't force them to spend political capital justifying groups like this. Getting our enlightened CTO to spend a few hundred dollars on books was easy when we were a startup. Once we got acquired, making that argument to unreceptive higher-ups wasn't worth it for anybody.
In my experience it is a lot like finding time to work on "strategy". There's never really explicit time given, you have to make it in the day, and its often the most valuable time spent.
This is a very good question. I also struggle to find a good solution to process various signals (papers, tecniques, etc.) with my co-workers while maintaining proper work-life balance. Either you have to be a full time geek, or be left behind..
I sneak thirty minutes in here and there for it regardless of my manager. If you work, say, 40-45 hours a week, you’re probably doing 20 hours of true focused productivity. It’s easier to borrow here and there from the other half of the time to flip through a paper or two.
If it happens in the office and on the calendar then I can't imagine it being an issue? (vs. an extended jolly at the pub every lunch through the afternoon for unofficial 'reading group'!) Would take quite a micromanaging and anti-L&D employer/manager.
Speaking as a SWE manager who explicitly “mandates” (not actually mandatory but I strongly encourage following your passions and interests in an academic kind of way!) we do exist, I assume I’m not the only one :)
My team almost always can find an hour between tasks organically so I’ve never really had to push
I'm a SWE manager as well. I always tell my team that learning is part of the job, and so it can happen on the job. To be honest, it worked out pretty well. and I lead by example, I'll read something interesting during work and share it with the team.
