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Ask HN: Are most corporate SWE jobs performative?

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Re: Ask HN: Are most corporate SWE jobs performative?

#301

Post by mstaoru »

I wish my manager's calendar was purely 1:1s.

I switched to a large company from a series of startups (including my own), it is definitely a big change, and "efficiency" is not the thing anymore.

Now I can spend days fighting with some gnarly IT security problem to load an internal Python package cross-org with a Managed Identity token issued to Build Pipeline that is scoped to a Service Principal with a wrong checkbox, or something equally cryptic and useless. Nothing of it would be even remotely possible in a startup. Is it "performative"?.. I think not. Is it efficient or necessary? Probably not, but who knows. Chesterton's Fence and all that.

Re: Ask HN: Are most corporate SWE jobs performative?

#302

Post by Aurornis »

win311fwg wrote: post #293
schmookeeg wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love practical advice on how to say to a manager "I'm not deriving any value from this recurring 1x1 meeting, can we move it to on-demand?" My 30+ year career has not revealed a way to achieve that yet without repurcussions. However much I'd prefer it.

The meeting isn't for you. If it were, you'd have been the one scheduling it. First place to start is to determine what value the other party is deriving from the meeting. Zero in on exactly why they want to have the meeting. From there, you can put your problem solving skills in action to determine if there is a better way to deliver equivalent value. However, keep in mind that it is likely that the value you are de…

> The meeting isn't for you.

Wild how many different definitions of a 1:1 are in this thread.

Most of the other commenters are emphatically saying that the 1:1 is for the employee, not the manager.

The fact that nobody can agree on what the 1:1 is supposed to be is emblematic of all the problems that have been rolled up into the way that 1:1s are being cargo culted in modern business enivronments.

Employees talking to managers is good. The way we've turned it into a cargo cult performance where nobody can agree on what it's supposed to be but people will attack you for suggesting alternatives (see some of the weird comments shaming people in this thread) is why they've become so hated.

It's starting to remind me of the way Agile went from a human-first light touch philosophy to becoming a heavy, process-first ideology that starts replacing good planning with a bunch of rituals.

Re: Ask HN: Are most corporate SWE jobs performative?

#303

Post by ghaff »

DoctorDabadedoo wrote: post #199
dilyevsky wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter had laid off like 75%+ of staff and everyone, including on this site, was convinced it would crash and burn, yet it's still working. Explain?

Twitter had been around for a long time and could very well be considered feature complete and run with a skeleton crew. They don't own any mission critical software and in the days it went down after Elon started pulling the plugs, the only thing that changed was the people going to reddit to complain about stability.

Twitter was also effectively wrecked in a variety of ways and nothing really came in to replace it. Which may well have been OK. But it was the reality.

Re: Ask HN: Are most corporate SWE jobs performative?

#304

Post by mewpmewp2 »

jjav wrote: post #277
mewpmewp2 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have had multiple managers and the thing is I wouldn't expect a truly honest answer from my manager ever, so to me it is also just all performative ritual that I have to go through and would rather avoid. So it does feel like waste of time to me. And I also feel like I have to be careful, because honesty has most of the time just yielded me useless work in the long term. It is easier to pretend everything is good,…

> because honesty has most of the time just yielded me useless work in the long term Are you sure it's useless work, or growth opportunities? A good manager will be handing growth opportunities to you often. I had one employee once who for every new opportunity just rolled their eyes and asked if they have to do it? I'd tell them the work was not strictly required for their current role, but if they wanted to grow th…

I feel like I have got promoted fast enough. More than what is considered a "terminal level". I do say yes to high value growth opportunities so that is not the case. In fact I think because of how I act during 1 on 1s is helping me with that, because I am causing no headaches to my manager with honesty.

Basically I am just trying to figure out how I can cause no extra work to anyone and being optimistic to my manager about everything while really I am not.

But it means that I am brainstorming bulletpoints that I think are best to achieve that beforehand, and it is performative.

Re: Ask HN: Are most corporate SWE jobs performative?

#306

Post by tclancy »

watwut wrote: post #201
tclancy wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's assuming an awful lot, mainly about how we no longer need human connection or context with other people to be able to succeed as a team. When I took over as an engineering manager, it took a couple of 1:1s per person but actually being interested in them as fellow humans made a huge difference. One of my reports, a former teammate who I really liked and got along well with, was carrying serious depression arou…

Nothing says human connection as much as scheduled meeting and necessity to have scheduled meeting to get or provide context. If the general mussings about a company, causual fun project and a little small talk about life require scheduled meething, you dont have those human connections with the team. Did you considered that people understand difference between human connection, relationship and being one of mandator…

Nothing quite says “guy that weirds out his coworkers but doesn’t know it” quite like this. Solid statement.

Re: Ask HN: Are most corporate SWE jobs performative?

#307

Post by win311fwg »

Aurornis wrote: post #302
win311fwg wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The meeting isn't for you. If it were, you'd have been the one scheduling it. First place to start is to determine what value the other party is deriving from the meeting. Zero in on exactly why they want to have the meeting. From there, you can put your problem solving skills in action to determine if there is a better way to deliver equivalent value. However, keep in mind that it is likely that the value you are de…

> The meeting isn't for you. Wild how many different definitions of a 1:1 are in this thread. Most of the other commenters are emphatically saying that the 1:1 is for the employee, not the manager. The fact that nobody can agree on what the 1:1 is supposed to be is emblematic of all the problems that have been rolled up into the way that 1:1s are being cargo culted in modern business enivronments. Employees talking t…

I only see one definition, which is the same definition it has always had: One person talking to one other person. Hence one to one for short.

There is no disagreement about that. The only difference in your case, as opposed to experiences others have had, is the dynamic between those two people. You are not seeking a meeting or want to have a meeting, thus the meeting is being called only for the benefit of the other person.

Let's simplify this: Nobody calls a meeting they don't find any value in. If someone is asking you to join a meeting, it is for them. It might also be for you if you both can see value, but that was said to not be the case in your case. When only the other party finds value, you are going to struggle to cut them off without some pushback, but this is where you can determine what value they are trying to get out of the meeting and see if there is a better way to deliver it.

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