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Big company tale: six months for a list and a button

rachelbythebay.com

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Re: Big company tale: six months for a list and a button

#21

Post by null_object »

siscia wrote: post #17

I keep reading from this author and it always struck me as a very capable technical person, but as an awful person to work with. There was a piece few days ago about picking co-founder using the army way. Beside being a well written piece, it made clear one thing. The role of leaders in an organisation is to get stuff done, despite rules, regulations, hierarchy and all the whistle and bells that an organisation need…

>I keep reading from this author and it always struck me as a very capable technical person, but as an awful person to work with

I have to agree. I’ve always assumed that everyone else knows who this person is, and that she’s some sort of FAANG superstar, but each time I read these pieces, I see someone exhibiting entitlement and always looking for external blame.

I read this particular post thinking about the very first task I was given after switching from an advertising career (making Flash sites with ActionScript) to a software-service company, where I needed to construct industry-grade tools with Js.

My new tech boss gave me the task of building a dashboard that would hook into a secure database and display real-time stats using D3 to track things like number of online users and response latency. This was unlike anything I’d built before, and starting with zero knowledge I had a working dashboard about a month later.

In other words, not rocket-science, and not beyond the capabilities of anyone with even a small amount of frontend/backend experience to build themselves - or in this case spec properly so that another team could understand what was needed, and be able to build it quickly.

Re: Big company tale: six months for a list and a button

#22

Post by Smaug123 »

megablast wrote: post #11

Um so?? It was on the roadmap. They had other work to do. I get you want everything right now, but it first work that way.

I think you may have missed the point: the team with other work to do also insisted on taking on this work, and that team prevented our protagonist from taking the requisite two days to do the work.

Re: Big company tale: six months for a list and a button

#23

Post by leroman »

Had very similar experiences at not even a "big company" it's more of a mentality of a "Big Co.". People hired to just not care, sit at meetings to make managers feel important and provide some pseudo progress to higer-ups to make things look like they are moving somewhere.

In reality, I have not doubt a half decent motivated engineer can replace a group of these unmotivated developers, which I have seen done and did my self in the past.

The real reason unmotivated engineers are there and things work this way in a company, in my experience, is bad management. Good people leave, who ever is left does what ever they can, those who care, suffer.

Re: Big company tale: six months for a list and a button

#24

Post by siscia »

noisy_boy wrote: post #20
siscia wrote: post #17

I keep reading from this author and it always struck me as a very capable technical person, but as an awful person to work with. There was a piece few days ago about picking co-founder using the army way. Beside being a well written piece, it made clear one thing. The role of leaders in an organisation is to get stuff done, despite rules, regulations, hierarchy and all the whistle and bells that an organisation need…

> For instance figure out the resources that was suppose to create the application, pass by its office, offer its a coffee and communicate clearly why the things is important and how important it is and what is the goal of the project and finally reassure the resources by putting in whatever work tracking system all the details. You are assuming that just because the manager can swing by at author's desk, their team…

Of course it was just an example!

But even a chat message or an introduction does wonders.

My point was that, from the tale, I don't think the author did enough to actually accomplish the task and that the complaints on the internet public square is hardly justified.

Said so, I find it a well written piece that may be useful to younger engineers approaching these kinds of dynamics.

I would find extremely interesting a similar article comparing when stuff goes well and when they move at high speed highlighting the differences of approaches and results.

Re: Big company tale: six months for a list and a button

#25

Post by moralestapia »

siscia wrote: post #17

I keep reading from this author and it always struck me as a very capable technical person, but as an awful person to work with. There was a piece few days ago about picking co-founder using the army way. Beside being a well written piece, it made clear one thing. The role of leaders in an organisation is to get stuff done, despite rules, regulations, hierarchy and all the whistle and bells that an organisation need…

>but as an awful person to work with

I see what you mean but keep in mind this is where she(?) vents out, so that should make some things show more than others.

Re: Big company tale: six months for a list and a button

#27

Post by ozim »

siscia wrote: post #17

I keep reading from this author and it always struck me as a very capable technical person, but as an awful person to work with. There was a piece few days ago about picking co-founder using the army way. Beside being a well written piece, it made clear one thing. The role of leaders in an organisation is to get stuff done, despite rules, regulations, hierarchy and all the whistle and bells that an organisation need…

I agree just went on to check couple of posts:

https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2020/03/03/emoji/

This one stands out as "you are all dumb and I am so smart".

Then also that person does not understand that one should keep hers "edgy" stuff for group of her besties. Or at least understand that other people might not be in the same context.

So for the original story posted - well I don't trust the narration. It just seems there was lack of communication.

Re: Big company tale: six months for a list and a button

#28

Post by nicbou »

leroman wrote: post #23

Had very similar experiences at not even a "big company" it's more of a mentality of a "Big Co.". People hired to just not care, sit at meetings to make managers feel important and provide some pseudo progress to higer-ups to make things look like they are moving somewhere. In reality, I have not doubt a half decent motivated engineer can replace a group of these unmotivated developers, which I have seen done and did…

The last line is accurate. You either give up and leave, or stay and become part of them. It's really hard to stay and effect change.

Re: Big company tale: six months for a list and a button

#29

Post by [deleted] »

siscia wrote: post #17

I keep reading from this author and it always struck me as a very capable technical person, but as an awful person to work with. There was a piece few days ago about picking co-founder using the army way. Beside being a well written piece, it made clear one thing. The role of leaders in an organisation is to get stuff done, despite rules, regulations, hierarchy and all the whistle and bells that an organisation need…

[deleted]

Re: Big company tale: six months for a list and a button

#30

Post by axegon_ »

siscia wrote: post #17

I keep reading from this author and it always struck me as a very capable technical person, but as an awful person to work with. There was a piece few days ago about picking co-founder using the army way. Beside being a well written piece, it made clear one thing. The role of leaders in an organisation is to get stuff done, despite rules, regulations, hierarchy and all the whistle and bells that an organisation need…

I agree with most of what you said, however:

> For instance figure out the resources that was suppose to create the application, pass by its office, offer its a coffee and communicate clearly why the things is important and how important it is and what is the goal of the project and finally reassure the resources by putting in whatever work tracking system all the details.

That's far not always possible. An example from my previous job was a situation where the upper management wanted to enforce some changes in order to try and shine in front of the CEO. Changes which no one further down, myself and my direct manager included, agreed with. We warned the upper management that this is a terrible idea and that a lot of people would quit - in a similar fashion - in the office over a coffee (actually over a zoom call, considering the pandemic had started). The response we got was "If they wanna quit, fine, f*ck them, we'll find new people". Needless to say we announced our departure the next morning with 0 room for discussion. And same happened to the rest of the team over the coming 6 months. What I'm saying is that you are right in principle but this does not always work.

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