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Is engineering management bullshit?

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Re: Is engineering management bullshit?

#261

Post by udev »

bonecrusher2102 wrote: post #6

This is such a tired take. It's part of a steady stream of commentary that reads something like "non-engineering-role X is bullshit." Here, we see engineers reduce the contributions of such common roles as: Product Manger, Program/Project Manager, Scrum Master, Marketer, CEO, etc., as fungible or run by the biggest boogeyman of all, the dreaded MBA. These arguments most typically result from not an inability, but an…

I bet you read the title only, and not the article.

There is way-way more to it than the title. Nowhere did the author reduce the contribution of non-engineering roles.

An excellent read!

Re: Is engineering management bullshit?

#262

Post by alexashka »

ethanbond wrote: post #76
ipaddr wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The core problem sounds like the bullshit paperwork you allude to which is unnecessary and adds time to projects but provides leadership a fake status used to drive other decisions.

And yet it seems nearly every organization of meaningful scale has a large amount of this “cruft.” Why don’t we see companies that “simply don’t” add this cruft, and accordingly sail off into orbit under propulsion of their own excellence?

Because organizations of 'meaningful scale' should be separated down into organizations that do their piece well.

The reason we don't do that, is because we haven't gotten past being in a famine, zero sum mentality where hoarding power/resources is seen as obviously well and good.

Re: Is engineering management bullshit?

#263

Post by jbarciauskas »

It's extremely odd to characterize all modern management as Taylorism from the outset. The post seems to be flogging a strawperson argument and concluding with a summary of what I think is a fairly broad consensus about what modern management of knowledge workers actually looks like: finding competent people, setting rich context and providing frequent and actionable feedback.

Re: Is engineering management bullshit?

#266

Post by sulam »

015a wrote: post #163
sulam wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can justify it quite easily. Take it away and see what happens.

I don't think its possible to just take it away and see what happens, because organizations build the concept of EMs into their entire culture. As an example: I worked in a Big Tech org where the only way to get anything from another team was an org hierarchy jump. ICs could reach out directly; ignored. Some teams didn't even have a way to reach out to them. You had to go EM, then maybe a Director, then it filters do…

There's not a ton of consistency across even relatively similar-looking tech companies in my experience, so you really should expect your mileage to vary. My N=3 large tech companies in my career is not so much better than your N=1 example, but it does allow me to say that these things are not consistent at all, with some notable exceptions, usually constrained by employment law.

Re: Is engineering management bullshit?

#267

Post by johnfn »

bonecrusher2102 wrote: post #6

This is such a tired take. It's part of a steady stream of commentary that reads something like "non-engineering-role X is bullshit." Here, we see engineers reduce the contributions of such common roles as: Product Manger, Program/Project Manager, Scrum Master, Marketer, CEO, etc., as fungible or run by the biggest boogeyman of all, the dreaded MBA. These arguments most typically result from not an inability, but an…

If you have something to explain about the roles of non-eng professions, then do so. All this post does is argue how you’re more mature and superior to everyone else in the thread (without explaining exactly how that is, or giving any particular insight).

Re: Is engineering management bullshit?

#268

Post by t43562 »

015a wrote: post #62
gautamdivgi wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t that true for everything though? More bad devs exist than good one? I guess a manager could make the same claim that devs are making his life miserable.

Its true, but I think the impact is what matters. Even a below average dev produces output; it may be substantially less than a great dev, it may not be of the highest quality, they may require more hands-on reviews and mentorship from other devs on the team, but its still producing output. In comparison, a bad manager can invert the productive output of a team or individuals on that team; high attrition rates, high…

Bad developers write code that has a negative impact on team prouctivity. e.g. by insisting on a wildly overcomplicated implementation or writing poor tests and being aggressive to anyone that questions them, or being highly negative about some decision or other to the point where the team are not sure if that person is in charge or their manager is.

They can also pester everyone with mountains of trivia in PRs and refuse to change anything in their own and so on and on.

My own boss says "the main thing is to hire nice people - everything else can be improved" and that changed my perspective a lot. I think he's right.

A bad EM can do more damage of course. :-)

Re: Is engineering management bullshit?

#269

Post by gerash »

bonecrusher2102 wrote: post #6

This is such a tired take. It's part of a steady stream of commentary that reads something like "non-engineering-role X is bullshit." Here, we see engineers reduce the contributions of such common roles as: Product Manger, Program/Project Manager, Scrum Master, Marketer, CEO, etc., as fungible or run by the biggest boogeyman of all, the dreaded MBA. These arguments most typically result from not an inability, but an…

What is your take then? You seem to have been offended but don't provide any counterpoints

Re: Is engineering management bullshit?

#270

Post by didibus »

The article was so much more interesting than the headline or other commenters seemingly commenting on the headline itself, I recommend people give it a read. It explores a lot more what would make a good manager and what does that mean and what is it supposed to be a good manager does.

> The minority of people who deliver results are drowned out by the people focusing on controlling the narratives. And for those who stick around, the operational overhead of the ineffective management only grows

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