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Is engineering management bullshit?

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Re: Is engineering management bullshit?

#291

Post by feoren »

namdnay wrote: post #56
candiddevmike wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That abstraction layer doesn't add value IMO, it modifies the message like a game of telephone.

it's more like protecting the team from being shut because some asshole somewhere managed to convince an exec that there was overlap with their team, or raising warnings when some product idiot has a new idea that's obviously going to end up having a last-minute dependency on the team, hustling to get licences to use Circle instead of Jenkins or whatever, etc

So middle managers are important because upper managers are fucking awful? That's the idea? We need the middle-management tier because of the upper-management tier? And why is the upper-management tier there? To protect middle-management from the C-tier? I think you're kinda making our point here.

Re: Is engineering management bullshit?

#292

Post by titzer »

giantg2 wrote: post #260
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…

When it comes to managers, it's hard not to say their role is BS for many of us. I've never had a truly good manager (19 in 10 years). Many of their perceptions don't match with mine or the other team members.

A good manager is often invisible. If you forgot they were there, you were either lucky that everything in the org was going right (or was so far away it didn't matter), or they were really good at shielding you from the fact that everything was not going right (and making it seem like that didn't matter). :)

Re: Is engineering management bullshit?

#293

Post by osigurdson »

johnbellone wrote: post #206
rco8786 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sure it's a spectrum but half of that spectrum (from average to god awful) have power over your career/work, to your detrement. It is always your responsibility to advocate for yourself, your career, and your work. If you are an engineer you should view your manager as a marginal value add only. Some managers add more value to your career than others, for sure, but it's still marginal relative to the effect that YO…

If your manager is only adding a marginal value to your career it is time to have a conversation with them. A manager that isn't advocating for their team isn't a good manager at all. They're something else.

This view makes it seem that the manager is compensated directly by the team.

Re: Is engineering management bullshit?

#294

Post by vajrabum »

royaltheartist wrote: post #193
aniforprez wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even as an engineer, I hope FFS no one notices my vacations. It means everything is running smoothly and I actually get to have a little down time and not think about work

Every job I've worked at, when a co-worker goes on vacation, it's up to the other engineers and laborers to compensate. When the manager goes on vacation there's no extra work leftover

Engineers generally don't take over the manager's responsibilities unless they're technical or reporting responsibilites. Generally it's another manager. Most companies require management involvement in P0 incident response for an example. At most companies I've worked at an engineer generally wouldn't be an acceptable substitute. A peer or the manager's boss usually takes it in their absence. It's not unusual that a significant portion of management responsibilities aren't visible to their individual contributor direct reports.

Re: Is engineering management bullshit?

#295

Post by feoren »

elnygren wrote: post #287

Oh my sweet summer children. Feels like the author has perhaps never worked on a complex, big product or with any capable engineering management. The worst and biggest messes in software engineering that I've seen have been situations where there was not enough engineering management. And those situations were fixed by... introducing proper engineering (and product!) management. That being said, it is perhaps possibl…

Similar to the other top comment, you're saying everyone who believes this must be naive and/or immature. Except that's the opposite of my experience: the most capable, longest-tenured technical people are the ones who are generally most jaded about management. Myself included.

I believe that there are probably a lot of problems out there that can be fixed by "proper engineering management". The problem is that 95% of what's out there is improper engineering management, which makes everything even worse. The whole point is not that engineering management is completely unnecessary, it's that in actual reality it's a trumped-up support role with false authority and completely swamped with utter bullshit. It's not done properly; that's the whole point.

Re: Is engineering management bullshit?

#296

Post by bearjaws »

This reads to me like a spiteful piece due to a manager thinking this particular engineer was under performing, and maybe they were or maybe the manager is wrong.

To then declare that all engineering management is bullshit because measuring isn't a discrete number really makes me think less of the author.

I've had both good and bad managers, the good ones are able to identify dead weight, provide career growth and balance company needs against staff needs. The bad ones are yes men or never fire anyone.

Some of this may be company culture, I left my last job because firing people who didn't even show up to work was a 2 month process (amongst other culture problems).. HR only wanted discrete numbers in terms of performance, which to this articles point, is not 100% accurate.

Clearly some are able to measure, and sure its not a discrete number but its possible and currently its a skill, which is why most good managers are also engineers.

Re: Is engineering management bullshit?

#297

Post by radicalbyte »

spiderice wrote: post #79
radicalbyte wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most are about average. That is not how averages work. It depends on the distribution.

To answer your nitpick with a nitpick, averages can work that way. Do you know the distribution of engineering managers well enough to say that most aren't "about average"? GP was making a claim about engineering managers.. not about all averages. But regardless, that's missing the point. The point is that the distribution of engineering manager quality is likely pretty similar to that of any other role. So claiming…

> To answer your nitpick with a nitpick, > averages can work that way. Do you know > the distribution of engineering managers > well enough to say that most aren't > "about average"?

Sorry it hit a sore spot; especially in a community such as this we should at least try to speak accurately regards statistics.

That's not what I'm saying. The OP is stating that it holds for averages. It doesn't. It might in this case but we don't have the stats.

The statement just doesn't make sense - you can say exactly the same about a random value. It will hold in some cases. Average too. However it will not hold in all cases.

Re: Is engineering management bullshit?

#298

Post by giantg2 »

titzer wrote: post #292
giantg2 wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it comes to managers, it's hard not to say their role is BS for many of us. I've never had a truly good manager (19 in 10 years). Many of their perceptions don't match with mine or the other team members.

A good manager is often invisible. If you forgot they were there, you were either lucky that everything in the org was going right (or was so far away it didn't matter), or they were really good at shielding you from the fact that everything was not going right (and making it seem like that didn't matter). :)

They've all been very visible.

Re: Is engineering management bullshit?

#299

Post by bumby »

halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #13
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…

Oh please, there's a reason why those comments exist - because more terrible managers exist than those "good ones" that you allude do. I would posit a guess that most, if not all, engineers on HN have had to live through at least one terrible manager that has soured/tainted the position. Speaking for myself, I've lived through many and it's a miserable experience to be under these people. Nobody is saying that the fu…

>because more terrible managers exist than those "good ones" that you allude do.

The irony is that I've heard the same said about engineers. It's easy to take the cynical point of view, but probably not wise or accurate. Like the OP, in my experience the people making those types of claims tend to have an overly simplistic view of the problem.

Re: Is engineering management bullshit?

#300

Post by bumby »

rco8786 wrote: post #225
johnbellone wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your manager is only adding a marginal value to your career it is time to have a conversation with them. A manager that isn't advocating for their team isn't a good manager at all. They're something else.

A manager can only add marginal value to your career. ONLY. You spend 40+ hours a week on you and your career. Your manager spends a small fraction of that directly on your career. 100% agree that they need to be advocating for you/your team, finding the right projects for you/your team, etc, etc. But at the end of the day your career is your responsibility, and it's only a fraction of your manager's responsibility.

I'm not sure I agree here, because the manager has the ability to impact all those other hours.

A good manager helps remove the hurdles that will make those 40+ hours immensely more productive. A bad manager adds to those hurdles, potentially whittling productive hours to nothing.

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