Is anyone else so jaded because of bad managers that they don’t want to be managed? That’s how I feel. I’ve seen great engineer manager projects and tasks themselves, and the only use for a manager was to advocate for the promotion
Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise (2016)
191–200 of 212 posts
Re: Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise (2016)
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
The legend scales infinitely. You don't have to pump every gallon of gas, or write every line of code. But if everyone knows that you can, will, and often do...
> The legend scales infinitely. I think that's truer than you mean. The legend can scale, but the reality doesn't. Unfortunately I'm more interested in the latter.
I know what I mean (-:
At a certain point, you've got to stop pumping the gas. You want the company to outlive you. Gas needs to get pumped after you're gone. You fade into the background and replace yourself; others carry on your legacy. You cash out and ski six days a week or whatever.
Edit: some legends are bullshit. Scale that up and it's called "toxic culture".
Re: Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise (2016)
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
I like what you wrote because it makes me feel better about my own short comings. But is it actually true?
Very often when folks describe the ideal manager, they are describing themselves.
I am fairly confident I would agree with myself, so this makes sense.
At the very least our scheduling would start being based on reality, not what we’d like it to be.
Re: Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise (2016)
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
The legend scales infinitely. You don't have to pump every gallon of gas, or write every line of code. But if everyone knows that you can, will, and often do...
> The legend scales infinitely. I think that's truer than you mean. The legend can scale, but the reality doesn't. Unfortunately I'm more interested in the latter.
I’m not quite sure that is true. If I believe that he’s pumping gas every day I’ll be happy. Whether he actually does so is irrelevant (as long as I don’t know, right).
Re: Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise (2016)
#195On the other hand, if your boss thinks he can do your job (and do it even better than you), while in fact he can't – you will get the worst nightmare.
Another nightmare is needing your boss' help & not getting it because your boss simply chooses not to help. Early in my dev career I ended up w/ an smart, unhelpful manager. They were the only person in the company w/ Scala experience, and I needed to touch a Scala service as a fairly green developer. I asked my boss for help, and was denied. I later found out that my boss had recommended against hiring me during my…
I'm sorry to hear about that situation.
Having said that, I am possibly a bit like your boss. I am a major bottleneck to my employees, and they struggle to overcome technical skill gaps between their knowledge and what they need to work on. Frequently I find they are blocked for days or weeks and when I finally get to sit down or spend time with them, their problem is sometimes solved within minutes. Sometimes I resent it because it's clear to me with some basic effort in learning new skills, they could get over these humps but they seem to take an attitude that if they hit something they don't already know, it's perfectly reasonable to stop progressing it and just declare they need help. It's really alien to me because as a young developer I would never have done that, I would just keep acquiring knowledge until I solve it (possibly taking a lot of time). While I'd never outright deny a direct request for help, I will often redirect where I think they can figure out the problem themselves with some investment in their own learning - "you need to learn about X, do some reading and tutorials, I think that will help", etc.
I am curious if you would have advice? Assume you can't solve the problem of actually getting your bosses' help (they simply have too many responsibilities to be helping at a micro level), how could one develop a culture of self-learning and proactive responsibility to progress things?
Re: Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise (2016)
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The legend scales infinitely. I think that's truer than you mean. The legend can scale, but the reality doesn't. Unfortunately I'm more interested in the latter.
I know what I mean (-: At a certain point, you've got to stop pumping the gas. You want the company to outlive you. Gas needs to get pumped after you're gone. You fade into the background and replace yourself; others carry on your legacy. You cash out and ski six days a week or whatever. Edit: some legends are bullshit. Scale that up and it's called "toxic culture".
Yeah...you meant what you meant. I mean your words apply to things like Jesus.
Re: Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise (2016)
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
My perception is that valve has suffered some negative experiences due to bad actors interacting with its radically libertarian labour practices. I don't have insider knowledge, so I could be wrong, but this is the sense I have gotten reading articles over the years about how the IP for VR was handled for instance
Sounds interesting, could you point to some readings on that aspect of Valve?
No I don't keep a curated list of every random article I have ever read to offer hand-picked readings to strangers on the internet, but search engines exist if it's something you're interested in looking into.
Re: Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise (2016)
#198I think the conclusions miss the mark slightly and focus on a symptom of good bosses: they care about tasks from a state of understanding what is required to do them well, they have empathy for the challenges, and respect for the talent in completing them. Obviously the easiest way to get to this perspective is to experience it first-hand, hence the correlation between those who could do the job and being good manage…
> probably not top 5-10%, because they also cared about the non-technical requirements that a good manager needs to cover It sounds like you're saying that top-tier engineers are not generally qualified in terms of non-technical requirements, and I don't know that this assertion is justified. From my perspective, as a relatively new technical manager who also spent years as an engineer working with technical managers…
> It sounds like you're saying that top-tier engineers are not generally qualified in terms of non-technical requirements, and I don't know that this assertion is justified.
True, but your top-10% engineer who's also a top-10% manager is going to be 10x rarer and harder to find.
Re: Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise (2016)
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
Another nightmare is needing your boss' help & not getting it because your boss simply chooses not to help. Early in my dev career I ended up w/ an smart, unhelpful manager. They were the only person in the company w/ Scala experience, and I needed to touch a Scala service as a fairly green developer. I asked my boss for help, and was denied. I later found out that my boss had recommended against hiring me during my…
I'm sorry to hear about that situation. Having said that, I am possibly a bit like your boss. I am a major bottleneck to my employees, and they struggle to overcome technical skill gaps between their knowledge and what they need to work on. Frequently I find they are blocked for days or weeks and when I finally get to sit down or spend time with them, their problem is sometimes solved within minutes. Sometimes I rese…
As their boss, could you ask them to document their problem, in something like Slab, to the point where it is clear what they are requesting (like a good, or great, request on Stack Overflow, rather than "I'm stuck"). Then they tag you, you do the minimum to pass it back to them (in the hope they can take it from there).
You then have documentation for the next guy.
Optionally, you could put an interim step where someone else on the team is given the chance to advance it; might keep it from your doorstep. But I don't know if that'd help in your situation!
I've assumed that the problem is with them, not you, as that's how you wrote it. But if you have (possibly) set a tone where their solutions work but not as well as yours and are switched because it's not done as well as you'd do it, then it's on you (possibly?)! :-)
Re: Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise (2016)
#200People also prefer people of their own race, gender, age group, etc. It would be remarkable if they didn’t prefer people of the same educational and work experience.
> People also prefer people of their own race, gender, age group
Citation needed.