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Meta to ask many managers to become individual contributors or leave

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Re: Meta to ask many managers to become individual contributors or leave

#131

Post by hdjjhhvvhga »

nerdponx wrote: post #94
flashgordon wrote: post #67

I had cautiously gotten into management because I wanted to learn the skills of delegatin and really building through others and growing/coaching others. I thoroughly enjoyed this. But over time what I had realized was the role had been changing (not sure if it was just for pandering) towards being a mouth piece for leadership and hr - having to relay decisions I didn't believe in (perf seasons, promo rationales, lay…

> As if they were on purely my own Is this actually the expectation at the places you work?

> Is this actually the expectation at the places you work?

Can you imagine a manager saying, "I don't agree with these decisions, but you need to do A, B, C." This might be being frank and open with your reports, but at the same time you reduce their motivation. And if top management learns about this, they won't be happy.

So yes, there is such unspoken pressure to at least not to distance oneself from the things you ask others to do, whether they come from you or from your boss.

Re: Meta to ask many managers to become individual contributors or leave

#132

Post by gabythenerd »

Where I work we just had a round of layoffs and it was almost all middle level managers. I guess now it's the time where individual contributors that directly create value are more important than people who mostly organize and communicate.

Wonder what this will do to what is left of middle management.

Re: Meta to ask many managers to become individual contributors or leave

#133

Post by RjQoLCOSwiIKfpm »

ianlevesque wrote: post #106
RjQoLCOSwiIKfpm wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Okay I'll feed the troll. There are only a few places where if you implemented, for example, an effort to reduce "body dysmorphic disorder", it could instantly improve the lives of 3 billion users worldwide. Meta is one of those places.

> Okay I'll feed the troll.

I'm not trying to troll.

I just genuinely don't understand why someone would consider working there as a positive thing.

So I would like to know!

But I have no way to figure it out as I know zero people who work there, and talking to a human who works at these companies is impossible because their websites are geared towards not allowing you to talk to them.

So now that I just saw someone in the wild to ask, I figured I should use the opportunity to figure something out which I absolutely do not understand.

> There are only a few places where if you implemented, for example, an effort to reduce "body dysmorphic disorder", it could instantly improve the lives of 3 billion users worldwide. Meta is one of those places.

It surely is a zero-sum to fix the problem which your company has created in the first place???

Re: Meta to ask many managers to become individual contributors or leave

#134

Post by zabzonk »

hiddencost wrote: post #125
throwaway4837 wrote: post #111

Zuck has it right. All the worst managers/directors/VPs in engineering I've seen are people who don't contribute anything to the codebase. They actively discourage managers who want to write code from writing code. They instead encourage them to focus fully on process and sprint management. Lots of backwards ideologies in tech perpetuated by B-players who got a little too comfortable with "people management". I would…

My experience is much the opposite: the managers who want to write a lot of code usually are so focused on their contributions they fail their other responsibilities. The ones who are trying to set product direction are usually harmful, too. The managers I've had the best experience with are the ones who focus on helping their ICs navigate the larger organization, dealing with human issues, and helping the ICs unders…

what's an IC? a piece of corporate-speak i haven't come across before.

Re: Meta to ask many managers to become individual contributors or leave

#135

Post by the_af »

ratorx wrote: post #120
the_af wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the EM becomes an IC, how does this help the team grow their own skills and not get distracted by problems the EM should be moving out of their way? When the EM is an IC, what stops them from either interfering with small stuff (I had an EM -- back then we called them "managers" -- stop us for a week trying to determine whether we should use List or Vector in Scala. Nobody was happy) or taking the big interestin…

I don’t really understand the first question, but do you mean that the capacity of an EM to spend time on growing team skills is reduced? There is a limited amount of time a manager can spend on that. If it’s a small team, then they could do a good job at it whilst doing small bits on the side. For the 2nd, I imagine that if you are a manager and an IC on the side, then you don’t have the time to spend on big project…

> do you mean that the capacity of an EM to spend time on growing team skills is reduced? There is a limited amount of time a manager can spend on that. If it’s a small team, then they could do a good job at it whilst doing small bits on the side.

Yes, that's part of what I mean (but also: dealing with red tape, bureaucracy, and removing impediments) and no, the amount of time that can be used for this is basically unlimited: it's a full time job. "Small bits on the side" is not a good use of a senior IC, that's for the more junior members of the team.

Also, playing both roles is less than ideal, see: http://blogs.newardassociates.com/blog/2023/player-coach-fal...

> That’s not really a new failure mode - any manager can be bad.

Agreed that any manager can be bad, but I contend that this is a new failure mode driven by two conflicting goals.

Re: Meta to ask many managers to become individual contributors or leave

#136

Post by posharma »

Things are not as black and white as they seem. It's a spectrum - from people who detest mgmt to people who realize the value of it. You fall somewhere in the spectrum depending on your experience in the industry and depending on your experience with past/current managers. Unfortunately, at some point managers (M1, M2, VPs, etc) take undue advantage of things in an organization and dilute the true picture to an extent that all management seems worthless. Having been on both the IC and management side I can relate to and appreciate the importance of both roles. What Meta is doing is right, but be careful when speaking about management in general.

Re: Meta to ask many managers to become individual contributors or leave

#138

Post by xzel »

zabzonk wrote: post #134
hiddencost wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience is much the opposite: the managers who want to write a lot of code usually are so focused on their contributions they fail their other responsibilities. The ones who are trying to set product direction are usually harmful, too. The managers I've had the best experience with are the ones who focus on helping their ICs navigate the larger organization, dealing with human issues, and helping the ICs unders…

what's an IC? a piece of corporate-speak i haven't come across before.

Individual contributor.

Re: Meta to ask many managers to become individual contributors or leave

#139

Post by eftychis »

zabzonk wrote: post #134
hiddencost wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience is much the opposite: the managers who want to write a lot of code usually are so focused on their contributions they fail their other responsibilities. The ones who are trying to set product direction are usually harmful, too. The managers I've had the best experience with are the ones who focus on helping their ICs navigate the larger organization, dealing with human issues, and helping the ICs unders…

what's an IC? a piece of corporate-speak i haven't come across before.

Individual Contributor.

Don't ask me why in heavens that term makes any sense outside one that is myopic or only works with extremely fresh out of school junior engineers and unskilled workers.

Edit: P.S. Not sure why a couple of people decided to downvote this opinion.

Also to other commenters: it sounds to me less as a be a team player title (like the soldier one suggested) and more like an isolated resource that makes interchangeable contributions.

Anyways, I think that there is a distinction between "(Team) Lead" and Manager with the Team Lead usually classified as an IC says everything for most organizational approaches.

I agree more with the Meta take here.

Re: Meta to ask many managers to become individual contributors or leave

#140

Post by [deleted] »

zabzonk wrote: post #134
hiddencost wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience is much the opposite: the managers who want to write a lot of code usually are so focused on their contributions they fail their other responsibilities. The ones who are trying to set product direction are usually harmful, too. The managers I've had the best experience with are the ones who focus on helping their ICs navigate the larger organization, dealing with human issues, and helping the ICs unders…

what's an IC? a piece of corporate-speak i haven't come across before.

[deleted]
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