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Why Good Developers Are Promoted into Unhappiness (2007)

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Re: Why Good Developers Are Promoted into Unhappiness (2007)

#111

Post by cml11 »

revvx wrote: post #34
burlesona wrote: post #25

I think it has a lot to do with wanting to have your cake and eat it too. Supposing you literally “just write code,” there’s a ceiling to how much impact you can have. One person can only hold so large of a program (or so many small programs) in their head, and if you are on a project that reaches a certain size you have to start working with other humans to maintain it, and thus the need for technical leadership and…

> Supposing you literally “just write code,” there’s a ceiling to how much impact you can have I'm don't see why a single person can't have a ton of impact merely as a coder. I mean, this whole website is dedicated to (mostly) discussing tech startups and how (mostly) software disrupts and help scale outdated business models. Isn't the software-making business model also ripe for that disruption, at least in a smalle…

I agree, but this website was dedicated to startups once upon a time. Now the dogma is that a single coder can do nothing and you need a "force multiplier".

The multiplicand, which can be low or negative, does not matter to the vocal subset of talkers (often with vested interests) that has overrun HN.

Re: Why Good Developers Are Promoted into Unhappiness (2007)

#112

Post by neogodless »

Aeolun wrote: post #51
wjossey wrote: post #22

I’ve been reviewing a lot of career path documents recently for different engineering orgs, and every one is fairly uniform in that you either progress into management, team leadership, or architecture (or some blend of the three). If not, you’ll stagnate at a pretty high level, but stagnate none the less. I’ve been noodling on this for a while, and I think maybe a fourth track at a lot of organizations should be spe…

Since you seem to have some idea of what an Architect is, can you explain this to me? As far as I’m concerned they’re the people that run around flooding every meeting with words that have already been said by the developers, and by extension do not need to be said.

I know different teams assign or utilize architects in different ways. One option is just as team leader/senior developer who evaluates design choices and helps to make final decisions on the plan. But I think it's more helpful when an architect has visibility into multiple systems and can give high level insight into how everything will work together.

Re: Why Good Developers Are Promoted into Unhappiness (2007)

#113

Post by sethammons »

Aeolun wrote: post #52
doppel wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read this article a few months ago about being a Principal Engineer, https://blog.dbsmasher.com/2019/01/28/on-being-a-principal-e... , and ever since it’s been my designated career path / plan. I am in the lucky position of working in a small-but-growing team of developers, so I get to choose my career advancement and have support to follow this road. I think a principal engineer is the right mix of (still) develop…

I thought this was my dream as well, until I found out it basically brings you all the responsibilities of management, without any of the rewards.

Which rewards? If it is salary, at least for us (I work with the author of the referenced article), we strive to keep those levels the same on the technical and managerial track.

Re: Why Good Developers Are Promoted into Unhappiness (2007)

#114

Post by cryptica »

I cannot relate to this article at all. It's the polar opposite of my experience.

I've been desperately trying to get into a management position for years. I started programming at age 14 and am now approaching 30. I created projects using basically every major programming language, created and maintained a complex open source project which now has over 5K GitHub stars and several tens of thousands of weekly downloads.

I have experience managing the community around the source project and doing peer reviews. Feedback from the community is overwhelmingly positive. I can't even make a consulting business around the project because it works too well, the documentation is good and the community is very helpful.

I got passed up for promotion many times - In spite of consistently delivering beyond all expectations and despite my background as a long time open source developer. I've had people younger and less experienced than me get promoted above me twice! First time this happened, I quit the company about 1 month later (they were very upset/regretful when I handed my resignation).

Then it happened to me again at my current company - In spite of the fact that they are using my open source software as the core of their product (since before I joined). Even the biggest competitors of my current company started using my OSS project. Still no promotion. WTF do I have to do to get promoted? I've told the CTO multiple times that I want a promotion so it's not like they don't know.

Re: Why Good Developers Are Promoted into Unhappiness (2007)

#115

Post by mooreds »

blub wrote: post #89
heipei wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but parent mentioned "autonomy" as the driving force for people who'd want this track, and I'm very much in the same situation. Management or architecture won't give you the same level as autonomy as working in one of these small "Tiger teams" (thanks to sibling for pointing out that term)

You really think that you can spend most of your time designing and coding as a contractor or start-up founder? You are literally a one man marketing and finance department.

> You really think that you can spend most of your time designing and coding as a contractor or start-up founder?

Sure, if you don't mind failing. :)

I agree with blub. Coding and designing is part of a startup but if you spend a second more doing that than you have to, you are setting your company up to fail. Instead you should be talking to customers and churning out whatever the absolute minimum code is that will validate your market.

Re: Why Good Developers Are Promoted into Unhappiness (2007)

#116

Post by skrebbel »

aetherspawn wrote: post #84
tomduncalf wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know how it works in the US but in the U.K. becoming a contractor can provide a good half way house between being employed and running your own company. You’re not an employee so no performance reviews or line management and you are responsible for running your own company, but at the same time many contracts will be working with teams of permanent staff for 6 months or more so it’s not like you are off total…

How do you, as a contractor, find this sort of work?

From your network, and everybody has a network. However, you need to make sure that your network knows that you're available.

So: email everyone you know (also non-programmers) a 4-sentence email that you're now a contractor. Explicitly list the domains and technologies you can "hit the ground running" at, and focus on those. People need to be able to see you as "a great Java programmer" or "a great iOS programmer". People have a hard time wrapping their minds around "a great generalist" so don't make that pitch.

Set a high rate from the start. Ask around what's common in your area and go a bit above average - some of your peers are likely charging to little. You'll find that customers don't typically negotiate rates - instead they'll just assume that this must be what a proper contractor costs. You might miss a customer that way, but that's the customer you don't want, the kind of customer that will make you regret contracting. Time-sensitive customers are ok (after all, that's what you sell right? hitting the ground running?). Avoid price-sensitive customers, they're hell.

Sell by the day or week. Not by the project, cause projects always blow up and you don't want to take that risk.

That's it, really.

Re: Why Good Developers Are Promoted into Unhappiness (2007)

#117

Post by danmaz74 »

burlesona wrote: post #50
danmaz74 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If as an individual contributor you produce 8 points per week, as a manager you're not going to get other team members to produce 12 - unless they are much better developers than you were in the first place. What you can do, instead, is allowing your devs to stay at the maximum of their productivity even as the team grows - which is a challenge. And, even more importantly, you should ensure that those "points" that t…

I agree with what you’re saying. When trying to coin an example I was imagining a team of ten with little in the way of focus and leadership, which means a lot of interrupts, conflicts, and changes in direction (ie lost points), compared to the same team with an effective leader clearing the way for them operate as you describe. It’s admittedly a contrived example. The interesting thing is that at that team size you…

Ok, I got what you meant now :)

Re: Why Good Developers Are Promoted into Unhappiness (2007)

#118

Post by option_greek »

cryptica wrote: post #114

I cannot relate to this article at all. It's the polar opposite of my experience. I've been desperately trying to get into a management position for years. I started programming at age 14 and am now approaching 30. I created projects using basically every major programming language, created and maintained a complex open source project which now has over 5K GitHub stars and several tens of thousands of weekly download…

If you don't mind me asking, why do you want to be a manager ? Aren't there promotion opportunities in dev track ?

PS: Please do go with the support plan route for your open source project. You wouldn't know how it will turnout unless you try.

Re: Why Good Developers Are Promoted into Unhappiness (2007)

#119

Post by mooreds »

netmonk wrote: post #57

This is what happens when management is valuated more glorious than any other activity. Systems and hierarchies therefore tend to reward good performances with what they considers as good recompense: management position. This mindset bias is everywhere, first i noticed it in my european university, where the good teachers were promoted to high responsabilities position, meaning more and more administrative workload a…

> This is what happens when management is valuated more glorious than any other activity.

Why might management be more valued by the organization? Perhaps because it produces more value for the organization?

A manager who enables 10 developers to achieve a goal (as mentioned in the post) is going to be more valuable to the organization than the same person who cranks out a bunch of code. That's the reason for the prestige and money.

Now, there are two answers to my argument. Either the organization is correct in valuing managers more highly, in which case if you want to stay an individual contributor, you should accept less pay and prestige.

Or the organization is incorrect. The costs to the organization of people being unhappy or leaving are such that the additional value from them leading a project evaporates (in the long run). In which case this should be revealed and hopefully good organizations will make adjustments. As other people have pointed out in other thread, Google does something like this.

Re: Why Good Developers Are Promoted into Unhappiness (2007)

#120

Post by austincheney »

I actually enjoy management even when it means more administration at sacrifice to writing code.

What I don't like is when I am mentoring a junior on best practices or techniques to increase their performance or the performance of their code and they get defensive to the point of becoming an insubordinate ass. I understand there is a lot of defensiveness in development, but in the corporate world I expect everyone to be an adult. I also expect junior developers can read, write, and follow simple instructions but I have been surprised by that as well.

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