Amazing systems knowledge. My previous senior was the chief architect, and a life long C++ developer. His systems knowledge was amazing, unlike all the people i knew previously who were either Java or PHP or Ruby coders. Dynamic language folks have almost no knowledge of the system their software works on which makes them script kiddies at best. Experience isnt enough to be a senior, your knowledge domain should also expand with time. Which for may doesnt and they are still developing in Ruby/Rails or PHP or Java. They havent tried writing or learning any other language. But the C++ guy since had learnt maybe 3-4 new languages. Including elm, js , Haskell etc. I feel that Knowing the latest Ruby/Rails API isnt enough to qualify as an architect because it changes every yr. That isnt an indicative of how good a programmer you are or how you think. I had .NET and Java language colleagues earlier who i had discussions like why are you starting two docker containers when one is enough? And i had a hard time explaining them the purpose of docker or process isolation. I feel a good systems knowledge is crucial to developing software including webapps. The managers with good systems could identify problems quickly while with others i had discussions like lets just deploy 1 docker container to what is docker etc..
Ask HN: What made your favorite manager/supervisor/CEO so great?
41–50 of 248 posts
Re: Ask HN: What made your favorite manager/supervisor/CEO so great?
#42At a previous company, I joined a team that had to deliver something a year before I joined. All previous teams assembled to deliver that had failed and had been fired. That the company didn't have that feature was deeply embarrassing, the competition mentioned having it in the first line of their marketing materials. The most influential engineers on the team didn't give a damn about deadlines and thought that being…
> She told us she didn't care about any of us. Revoked everybody's little privileges, would literally come see if everybody was on their keyboard and typing all the time. Didn't force overtime on anyone but was adamant against people arriving late or leaving early or missing meetings. Started openly taking notes of everybody's failures so she would have ample documentation of who failed what. That sounds pretty horre…
Not within the existing culture. It seems necessary.
Most of that is "blank slate, let's start again" with expectations made clear. Obviously that was lacking in this place.
When you've got people successfully blaming others for their own failures, this manager, with experience on the front lines, did the most effective thing to remedy that. I'm sure nobody got fired for someone else's failings after that.
Re: Ask HN: What made your favorite manager/supervisor/CEO so great?
#43He tore down barriers and made sure interactions with other parts of the organization or external parties were as frictionless as possible. He would take any non-technical chores off our plate where possible. He would give clear and frequent feedback, good and bad, and really cared about where I wanted to go with my career and what kind of projects I wanted to work on. He trusted me when I said I would do something a…
Good managers always connect people, by breaking through silo walls and barriers
Re: Ask HN: What made your favorite manager/supervisor/CEO so great?
#44I work for someone who I can trust when he says something, he does what he can to get it done. He tells me the goal we need to archive, and asks me how we can do it. Then he does everything he can to make sure I have all my stuff ready to do it. If there is a problem he helps me fix it. If something goes wrong he blames himself. If the project goes right and the customer is happy he tells everyone it's my accomplishm…
> I work for someone who I can trust when he says something he does what he can to get it done. He tells me the goal we need to archive, and asks me how we can do it. Then he does everything he can to make sure I have all my stuff ready to do it. If there is a problem he helps me fix it. If something goes wrong he blames himself. If the project goes right and the customer is happy he tells everyone it's my accomplish…
Then you would use the pronouns “she/herself”. Obviously their boss is a man.
Re: Ask HN: What made your favorite manager/supervisor/CEO so great?
#45We were good friends. He knew every one of my strengths and what I could accomplish if given the freedom. And he gave me it in spades, enough to see a shared vision into a very successful end product.
He helped evangelize my work and got people excited about it, and had as much a part in the success as anything because of the barriers he removed, the air cover he gave me to allow the time to fix the biggest issues of it, all while helping me triage bugs and provide end-user support.
He was highly technical, and understood my code. He didn’t step on my toes or try to force any technical direction in any way, he knew well enough to delegate, and trusted my decisions. But provided amazing advice when I needed it.
Eventually he had too many people on his team and needed help managing, and I ended up getting promoted to a manager (still under him) mostly out of a favor to help him out.
That was the beginning of the end though, because eventually a reorg moved my new team to a different side of the larger org. And everything kinda went to shit after that and I left the company.
Lesson learned: Don’t become a manager as a favor to someone if you’re not ready for it.
Re: Ask HN: What made your favorite manager/supervisor/CEO so great?
#46He actually cared about making money. (I'm amazed at how many bosses care about everything except making money, even at hedge funds.) He gave me total autonomy to build whatever I wanted as long as I made money.
I had a sales job like this for a while at a small VAR. We were an HP, Netapp, cisco, etc Gold partner, but my boss didnt care if I sold any of that, only that I generated enough profit to cover my base salary through literally any means.
Ended up writing my own software to interact with the Amazon Marketplace sellers API and all our distributors nightly inventory data and just drop ship stuff in mass, and send a couple product I had the best pricing on to Amazon for FBA.
I got it down to maybe an hour of real work a week and was crushing my numbers. After a year or so of that I got bored and jumped shipped though because I didnt see any additional personal growth to be had at the company.
Re: Ask HN: What made your favorite manager/supervisor/CEO so great?
#47I loved a manager I had who would listen to all arguments and allow himself to be persuaded. He also said sometimes "you're right, but we have to do it my way this time", and had earned so much trust that, when he said it, I knew the reasons were good.
Re: Ask HN: What made your favorite manager/supervisor/CEO so great?
#48I'll name the best manager I ever had, since she unexpectedly passed away nearly three years ago to our team's (and company's) great sadness. Margaret Thielemann was a QA manager for nearly 10 years at Esri (she previously headed up QA at PeopleSoft before its acquisition by Oracle), and I reported to her for all of those 10 years, during which I learned and mastered web development by scoping, designing, and building several internal web apps. She hired me as a kid with little corporate experience, straight out of college, and took me "under her wing" and patiently taught me the ropes of thriving in a corporate environment.
Margaret had all the hallmarks of an incredibly great manager. She hired for potential (not past achievement) and gave employees every opportunity to grow and pursue our passion as developers. This allowed me to pivot and grow into web development, which was not in my job description or past experience. She never micromanaged, even when a deadline was approaching. She never demoed a project or took credit for something she didn't build herself. Like my teammates, I had to demo every product I built -- which was challenging but forced me to grow in public speaking skills (and she coached me the first few times). This also allowed me and other team members to gain recognition throughout the department.
She very effectively protected us from HR and whoever else wasn't on the team so we could focus on our work. A few times someone tried to ask us for help with someone else's project without asking her first--she was furious. She also fought (very effectively) with HR and management to get us raises that better reflected our increasing market value.
I owe my career and present livelihood largely to Margaret and the opportunities she provided me. I'd be remiss not to acknowledge God's obvious provision to me in her. Thanks so much Margaret, and thank you Lord.
Re: Ask HN: What made your favorite manager/supervisor/CEO so great?
#49She helped me with my strengths and weaknesses. She told me my career limiting weakness. She talked about my feelings which is rare in backstabbing C-Level executive country of large enterprises. On top of that she was very bright, very demanding and very analytical.
I would always work with or for her again.
Re: Ask HN: What made your favorite manager/supervisor/CEO so great?
#50He actually cared about making money. (I'm amazed at how many bosses care about everything except making money, even at hedge funds.) He gave me total autonomy to build whatever I wanted as long as I made money.
That sounds amazing. Did you have an equity stake in the projects, or was it just for an hourly rate/salary?