Ask HN: Engineering managers; what are the problems you face? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Engineering managers; what are the problems you face?

#101

Post by burntoutfire » Wed, May 26, 2021, 8:59 PM UTC

Jemaclus wrote: post #17

(I'm a Director-level with 30 reports in my organization, with a few managers as direct reports. These thoughts below reflect my current problems as well as problems I had when I was "just" an engineering manager. Note that the problems don't go away, just increase in scale...) Number one for first two questions: hiring. Finding solid, dependable people with the right skills and attitude is really, really hard. I pro…

> it's just so hard to hire people and have your team not look like a team of white dudes.

What's wrong with that? I'm not in the US, so I don't know. Is there a law against teams of white dudes? Or is it just about avoiding a possible witch hunt by the media/activist?

Re: Ask HN: Engineering managers; what are the problems you face?

#102

Post by wheelinsupial » Thu, May 27, 2021, 6:37 AM UTC

Jemaclus wrote: post #81

epicureanideal wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that people with disabilities are the only people in that list who are actually discriminated against and marginalized in the tech industry (or in most other areas of life), and yet far fewer resources are dedicated to reaching out to them and encouraging them to join companies than the other groups mentioned. I suspect we would disagree about the facts of who is marginalized or discriminated against, a…

As someone else mentioned, when we say "marginalized" in the context of diversity hiring not just referring to the hiring process. There's value in hiring people who have been marginalized elsewhere. Black people in the United States go through life in a totally different manner than white people. Immigrants face hurdles that citizens are not even aware of. Women face obstacles like harassment and dismissiveness ever…

> Consider a lot of the camera-related fiascos in the tech industry recently.

Serious question. How much of this is due to “move fast and break things” and incompetence as opposed to discrimination and biases caused by white people?

I keep hearing the narrative in podcasts that this is an issue caused by having white people be involved in tech, but I’ve seen many cases where developers just ship something out and expect the users to do testing.

Re: Ask HN: Engineering managers; what are the problems you face?

#103

Post by krenel » Fri, May 28, 2021, 2:26 PM UTC

Jemaclus wrote: post #17

(I'm a Director-level with 30 reports in my organization, with a few managers as direct reports. These thoughts below reflect my current problems as well as problems I had when I was "just" an engineering manager. Note that the problems don't go away, just increase in scale...) Number one for first two questions: hiring. Finding solid, dependable people with the right skills and attitude is really, really hard. I pro…

Wanted to PM you but no contact info, so I'll do it thru here.

> Finding solid, dependable people with the right skills and attitude is really, really hard.

1. What are the soft skills of the candidates that you most value? 2. After 6 months, what the most important aspect that you value to decide if it was a good/great hire? 3. Offtopic: Do you have an all time favourite book for growth/self improvement you could recommend?

Thanks in advance!