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Tech workers say poor leadership is number one cause for burnout

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Re: Tech workers say poor leadership is number one cause for burnout

#71

Post by segmondy »

liftbigweights wrote: post #42

Nah. Tech workers burnout for the same reason nurses, cops, accountants and everyone else burns out. The drudgery of the work not meeting your expectations ( cool hacker vs office code monkey ), the open-ended nature of the work ( you will be doing this for the next few decades ), the awareness of time ( or how much of it you are wasting away at work ) and the pittance you get relative to what the company gets. Goodn…

Well said, the larger the gulf between reality and expectation, the larger the stress and strain. The longer the stress and strain is prolonged, the more likely burnout will be reached.

Re: Tech workers say poor leadership is number one cause for burnout

#72

Post by kabdib »

ganoushoreilly wrote: post #67
bittcto wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe they hire those “lunatics” because it’s believed that engineers can’t understand business. As an engineer that has started businesses this is BS. It’s really easy to learn business skills, sales and marketing are not difficult, finance is laughably easy. But so long as the companies are being formed to sell equity to VCs you will see them led by frat boys who the VC frat boys recognize... and they will abus…

I half agree, the reality is sales is a tradecraft honed over time. If it were as easy as implied, many more of the Tech founders here on HN would have had their businesses succeed. The truth of the matter is, the us vs them mentality is just as damaging as one side being arrogant. The only way for a good team to work is for each to recognize strengths and weaknesses and for leadership to keep things level headed.

I remember being at a startup full of engineers, and us trying to hire a salesperson.

Years at big companies taught me contempt for marketing and sales. But there's nothing like finding good marketing and good sales when you're six months to financial destruction . . .

Re: Tech workers say poor leadership is number one cause for burnout

#73

Post by 0xJRS »

lovich wrote: post #47
throwawayamzn7 wrote: post #35

I know of a team (~20 devs, a handful of managers) in the middle of a fantastic experiment in burning out the developers. First, a new remote senior leader took over. He doesn't visit the team or understand them well. He puts pressure on the managers to deliver projects that make his bosses happy by looking sexy, even if they cause more operational issues for the customers. Operational issues = oncall hell, so more d…

What is with companies denying remote work but then bringing in some level of management that works remotely? I've seen happen it in a few places and it feels like animal farm half the time

Worked a job at a startup once that had a 40hr "butt-in-seat" policy. The PM would be the one to record the exact time you sat down, the exact length of your lunch, and the exact time you left. This also included breaks. There would be a report to management every Friday and then a 1 on 1 with the manager if he didn't "like" what he saw.

Re: Tech workers say poor leadership is number one cause for burnout

#74

Post by 0xJRS »

0xJRS wrote: post #73
lovich wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is with companies denying remote work but then bringing in some level of management that works remotely? I've seen happen it in a few places and it feels like animal farm half the time

Worked a job at a startup once that had a 40hr "butt-in-seat" policy. The PM would be the one to record the exact time you sat down, the exact length of your lunch, and the exact time you left. This also included breaks. There would be a report to management every Friday and then a 1 on 1 with the manager if he didn't "like" what he saw.

Oh, our manager _and_ our CTO lived 2 states away and were flown in every tuesday through thursday.

Re: Tech workers say poor leadership is number one cause for burnout

#75

Post by Raj7k »

vladgiverts wrote: post #33

There are so many articles that blame leadership for all that ails a company. To me, it seems a bit like saying "most program crashes are caused by runtime errors". While both are true, there are deeper explanations that can be more helpful in starting a discussion. In the case of crashing a program, maybe it's because of a misused raw pointer or a type error in an untyped language. As soon as you frame it that way,…

Oh man, I love your explanation. Indeed the burn have many reasons and one of them is company see employees as a code in the system. The business of the business is get business. At the end company want profit so irrespective of whatever they say or do; they have to leave humanity and just be a manager.

Re: Tech workers say poor leadership is number one cause for burnout

#76

Post by lainga »

blitmap wrote: post #28
DrinkWater wrote: post #24

Poor Leadership is also the number one cause for parting ways with a company. For me personally, there was never another reason to leave a company. I never experienced a toxic environment or had colleagues i couldn't stand. It was always the leadership

You've never experienced inconsiderate coworkers? Like coworkers who talk loudly on the phone in a nearby work area, coworkers with hygiene issues, coworkers who don't carry their weight or respond well to training?

Well, there's a big gulf between "toxic" or "impossible to stand" and mere "inconsiderate".

Re: Tech workers say poor leadership is number one cause for burnout

#77

Post by alpeb »

Tech leadership is extremely hard. You either get at one extreme the MBA trained to think producing sugared beverages is equivalent to producing software, and at the other the formerly great coder that couldn't metamorphose himself to be able to manage people. Having all the required qualities is extremely rare.

Re: Tech workers say poor leadership is number one cause for burnout

#78

Post by russdpale »

seanf wrote: post #64
bittcto wrote: post #60

The cause is that “leadership” is generally people who don’t understand technology, and the solution is to stop hiring such incompetence. No car company would allow a CEO who doesn’t understand how cars work, let alone one who has no respect for those who design cars. But most tech companies are lead by tech illiterate MBA types who disdain engineers, and so engineers are managed by people who don’t understand engine…

Amazon is getting close to a $1T market cap which makes this look more like an argument for hiring non-technical managers. You didn't provide any examples of poor management by the prison guard or DMV manager, other than some jealously about salary. Other than the bad feelings, did they get results? When Bezos went ballistic the day before Thanksgiving, did you still fix the bug in time? If not, did it really negativ…

When Bezos went ballistic the day before Thanksgiving, did you still fix the bug in time?

But see, here in lies the problem. Its his own fault for stopping his engineers from working on the issue ahead of time. He had no reason to yell at anyone and it makes him look totally unprofessional. That is not someone I would want to work for, and I would never treat my employees that way.

Re: Tech workers say poor leadership is number one cause for burnout

#79

Post by russdpale »

serversystem wrote: post #23

Goes with the theme that for actual passionate tech workers the reason for burnout is other people and not the tech itself. Hence adage that don't make your hobby your job is nonsense by itself.

This has been my finding. My wife is one of these super doer employee types, and I see her constantly frustrated by the people above her, and the failing processes that they implement that make her job more and more difficult.
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