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Ask HN: What company environment has enabled your best work?

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Re: Ask HN: What company environment has enabled your best work?

#71

Post by rglullis »

axaxs wrote: post #54
temporallobe wrote: post #25

My first software engineering job was with a big aerospace company about 20 years ago. Back then, budgets were big and the culture was completely different. Even the lowest peon had a huge cubicle with lots of desk space and privacy. Standups were not a thing and Agile wasn’t on the radar. We had lots of time to do anything we were assigned and never had to do much reporting aside from weekly meetings. We all had a g…

This reminds me also of my most productive days. Funny how enough people create their own middle management jobs, and jobs like "scrum master", that literally seek to destroy developer time.

If your Scrum Master is destroying developer time, then s/he is "doing it wrong".

The main function of the Scrum Master is to shield the developers from all the non-development crap. I've worked with one guy who was so good at it he would play interference and defend us from outside interruptions almost literally (actually blocking people from coming to our desks, making sure we could focus, holding meetings only if someone on the team expressed some kind of blocking issue that he couldn't solve by himself, etc)

Sure, probably this was more about him being a good manager than the "process" behind it. But no matter the process, if a manager is destroying productive time from the developers the fault is in the individual, not the environment or process adopted.

Re: Ask HN: What company environment has enabled your best work?

#72

Post by winrid »

321yawaworht wrote: post #24
auslegung wrote: post #2

XP: open office, promiscuous pairing, very little remote work, 4-6 teammates, 2-3 30-minute breaks throughout the day to do whatever, regular lunch n learns, honest retrospectives, continuous deployment, powerful tools (Haskell, Elm, postgresql), daily company-wise “standup” with 70 people that averages 5-10 minutes, bi-monthly team get-togethers to play games and watch movies, regular lunches together, good code rev…

Sounds like a nightmare. I'm very social but despise the constant efforts to add extra social fluff (team lunches, movies, etc.), much rather prefer learning on my own and don't like "startup culture". I want to work how I want to, where I want to, whenever I want to, no ridiculous team ceremonies, no useless meetings. I just want to do an excellent job and go home early. It's just work.

You looking for a job? DM me :)

Re: Ask HN: What company environment has enabled your best work?

#73

Post by Huggernaut »

ww520 wrote: post #17
auslegung wrote: post #2

XP: open office, promiscuous pairing, very little remote work, 4-6 teammates, 2-3 30-minute breaks throughout the day to do whatever, regular lunch n learns, honest retrospectives, continuous deployment, powerful tools (Haskell, Elm, postgresql), daily company-wise “standup” with 70 people that averages 5-10 minutes, bi-monthly team get-togethers to play games and watch movies, regular lunches together, good code rev…

> daily company-wise “standup” with 70 people that averages 5-10 minutes. That sounds horrible. Even if half of the people have something to say, that's about 15 seconds per person. Beyond saying, hi, I'm here, I'm not sure what else can be accomplished. It sounds more like a daily pep talk by the leaders to the whole company.

Standup doesn't require everyone to speak, no matter the size.

Re: Ask HN: What company environment has enabled your best work?

#74

Post by kreetx »

noir_lord wrote: post #66

My current one. I work as the only dev for a small manufacturing company. I work alone, in a big quiet office with nice hardware, a comfortable desk and I get to choose all technical choices and set dev priorities. My boss is ridiculously smart (hard science background) and trusts me to do what I’m good at while he does what he’s good at. I work 9-5 every day. It’s basically programmer heaven.

Were you consciously looking for it or did it turn out this way by accident?

Re: Ask HN: What company environment has enabled your best work?

#75

Post by kortilla »

noir_lord wrote: post #66

My current one. I work as the only dev for a small manufacturing company. I work alone, in a big quiet office with nice hardware, a comfortable desk and I get to choose all technical choices and set dev priorities. My boss is ridiculously smart (hard science background) and trusts me to do what I’m good at while he does what he’s good at. I work 9-5 every day. It’s basically programmer heaven.

9-5 absolutely kills me. Is that by choice or because that’s what everyone else does?

When programming I can do my best work with big 10-12 hour sprints when the mood strikes and maybe a couple in a row. Then there are days with meetings or days waiting for QA or other feedback where the right thing is literally to just go home for the day at lunch time.

My best environment is where I’m treated like an adult with responsibilities to deliver software and communicate when I have issues. My worst is one where I’m treated like a child that must show up at certain times and provide constant updates to the adults so they can be sure I’m working.

Re: Ask HN: What company environment has enabled your best work?

#76

Post by xivzgrev »

My current one. The company treats people like...well people. -transparent communication -soliciting feedback often -an ethos of "take care of yourself, your family, then the company", manifesting in flexible WFH situations -lots of investment in personal development / growth -an emphasis on bridging gaps / empathizing / assuming positive intent in working with others

At pretty much every other company I've ever worked at, I've always felt that if I inconvenienced the company at all, it basically wasn't going to happen unless I brought a strong business case. Company always came first. Conversely here, I feel like it's a balance. If I want to do X, my manager / others will make an effort to find a business need that matches that. There's a very generous (paid) maternity leave policy.

When you like your manager and you feel like your interests are aligned with the company's, and you feel like it's a little more relational, that's when I do my best work. I've been looking for this for a long time, and I'm thrilled to be here.

Re: Ask HN: What company environment has enabled your best work?

#77

Post by Aeolun »

aylmao wrote: post #64
muzani wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm very surprised you could have no managers. Personally I always thought it wad good to have a management level person to filter out content from customers or Product.

One of my most productive sprints I ever had at a job was after a couple months working on an internal tool that was going nowhere. After being frustrated for a long time with a project's management, I cut the middle-man and went directly to the customer, did my own user research, brainstormed either on my own or independently with others, and kept direct contact with the users to keep a tight feedback loop when ship…

I think the problem is the middlemen feel compelled to add value somehow, since otherwise people would figure out that their job is pointless.

Re: Ask HN: What company environment has enabled your best work?

#78

Post by blumomo »

aantix wrote: post #51

A top-notch VP of Engineering who knew when and how to reduce scope (because he was an active contributor to the code base) and was also one of the best coders in the room. 1) Pair programming, with the VP stopping by every couple of days asking "where are you guys stuck" and would actively try to solve our problem. 2) Story prioritization - each PM would write product stories for the backlog in an effort to get them…

Sounds like a very good role model for engineers. Thanks for sharing your story.

Re: Ask HN: What company environment has enabled your best work?

#79

Post by Aeolun »

scarface74 wrote: post #7
auslegung wrote: post #2

XP: open office, promiscuous pairing, very little remote work, 4-6 teammates, 2-3 30-minute breaks throughout the day to do whatever, regular lunch n learns, honest retrospectives, continuous deployment, powerful tools (Haskell, Elm, postgresql), daily company-wise “standup” with 70 people that averages 5-10 minutes, bi-monthly team get-togethers to play games and watch movies, regular lunches together, good code rev…

Some of that sounds like a nightmare to me. - open office - impossible to concentrate. - constant pair programming - ughhh - I have a family and friends outside of work. I’ve gone out of my way not to mix my work life and personal life. I have no desire to “play games” and “watch movies” with my coworkers. I come to work to work. I have friends who are former coworkers. - regular lunches together - again, my lunch ti…

All of those things are perfectly fine as long as they are optional.

Re: Ask HN: What company environment has enabled your best work?

#80

Post by speedplane »

kortilla wrote: post #75
noir_lord wrote: post #66

My current one. I work as the only dev for a small manufacturing company. I work alone, in a big quiet office with nice hardware, a comfortable desk and I get to choose all technical choices and set dev priorities. My boss is ridiculously smart (hard science background) and trusts me to do what I’m good at while he does what he’s good at. I work 9-5 every day. It’s basically programmer heaven.

9-5 absolutely kills me. Is that by choice or because that’s what everyone else does? When programming I can do my best work with big 10-12 hour sprints when the mood strikes and maybe a couple in a row. Then there are days with meetings or days waiting for QA or other feedback where the right thing is literally to just go home for the day at lunch time. My best environment is where I’m treated like an adult with res…

I entirely agree that general standards of productive time are not at all productive with many people. But the problem isn't just the time of day people work, it's the compensation they receive for it.

If you're told to build X, you might do it in a day, a week, or a month, many companies or managers wouldn't be able to tell what was appropriate. On the other hand, if you were told that you would receive Y percent of revenue of product X for the next three years, your incentives would totally change. You would be incentivized to work as efficiently as possible. More than just money, you would have an increased level of ownership in your own production, which would build confidence and value over the product you build.

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