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Debate over 'fake work' and 'lazy management' in tech industry

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Re: Debate over 'fake work' and 'lazy management' in tech industry

#151
I heard this theory once that one of the biggest jumps in cellular complexity was when cells started to use mitochondria for energy production. This created so much abundance that organisms could afford to diversify into all kinds of shapes and sizes and ways of life.

Software similarly isn't like farming where the margins are so thin that processes become homogenized. Software companies traditionally have had so much "fat" that the structures built around this cashflow are arbitrary.

Some build temples and monasteries, some create a monarchies or dictatorship, some are anarchist libertarian experiments, etc...

What is common among them though is that the hierarchy revolves around culture rather than pure meritocratic ability.

E.g. if a foreigner goes to work in Japan, he/she might think that it's all fake work meant to keep fax machine companies alive but it's not "fake" when viewed from the perspective of keeping a culture alive. In any institution, there will always be founders and traditionalists who need the culture to stay alive to support their position. This "support" exists in the form of followers which make up the bulk of the org body.

Engineering is an outlier because it's more mercenary, the skills are transferable so there isn't a need to compound loyalty and connections at one single place.

That is... traditional companies are like a national army. Even in times of peace it is held together by nationalism or peacekeeping. Tech companies are like mercenary armies, they are only held together when there is Something to Do.

Re: Debate over 'fake work' and 'lazy management' in tech industry

#152
> In one viral TikTok video, Brit Levy, Meta's former diversity, equity, and inclusion policy analyst, said she had to "basically fight to find work"

The only surprising thing here is that people who work in the DEI space have deluded themselves into thinking there's that much work to do.

Re: Debate over 'fake work' and 'lazy management' in tech industry

#153

The older I get the more appalled I am at what managers are bringing to the table versus senior engineers.

Same. In my experience about 1 in 5 has been some help to the team (the rest hinder or contribute neutrally), but even they have an easier/less stressful job and work far less hours and apply far less mental bandwidth to each task. I'm convinced becoming a manager should mean a pay cut.

Re: Debate over 'fake work' and 'lazy management' in tech industry

#154

Why do we expect to have good managers when we promote based on technical competency rather than leadership ability? Sure, a certain basic level of technical competency is needed, but after that management and development require different skills.

agree, but agree with another reply that it doesn't even seem like technical competency is the skill used outside of potentially engineering. feels like optimizing for "managing up" (which is code for "making people above you happy" and doesn't necessarily correlate with delivering any type of value) is what these managers do. in other R&D roles (design, product) most managers i've met aren't actually gifted at executing in an IC context

Re: Debate over 'fake work' and 'lazy management' in tech industry

#155
>> What do these people actually do? They go to meetings.

This is the biggest problem in industry: pointless meetings with no agenda and no action items. There is a watershed moment for anyone however. Once your calendar is even 40% filled (particularly if meetings are randomly distributed), flow state is pretty hard to achieve. Therefore one is better off to book even more meetings so everyone knows that you can't possibly do any actual work. Then your day is naturally completely void of meaning but you simply clock in at 9am and out at 4pm. Once the day ends you don't have to think about work at all since your work literally is meetings.

If you want to have a pointless meeting, be sure to book it in the evening or weekend so that you pay the same price as people that are actually doing real work.

Re: Debate over 'fake work' and 'lazy management' in tech industry

#157

I’m seeing a lot of comments that seem to point to first line management as the problem here. In my own anecdotal experience, I’ve seen a lot more “fake work” come from listless leadership that lacks a true vision for the product. That rolls down to Product Managers that can’t prioritize features and don’t really understand what they’re building or why. Ultimately this leads to engineers and members of the team worki…

Product managers are at risk of yesterday's business analysts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNuu9CpdjIo

Re: Debate over 'fake work' and 'lazy management' in tech industry

#158
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of why I left Google was poor leadership at the VP level. The org wasn't set up for success and - as far as I could tell - the vision was myopic and incoherent. VP performance was more or less opaque to me for most of my career there, but eventually I got senior and experienced enough to have a real opinion. Really liked my direct manager, but we were in it together, and there was nothing he could have done abou…

+1 on this. Spent 4 years at Google including spending time as a TLM. Left around 2020 so my impressions may be a bit out of date. I spent time in both the Geo and Search PAs, and IMO Google's biggest problem is listless senior leadership. Google's orgs tend to lack product vision - there's a lot of abdication to front-line teams to ideate, come up with their own ideas, and ship features. My VP-levels were AFAIK only…

Having worked under a Google-bred product leader in the past... this explains a lot about the way they ran things.

By the time they left our org, our products were in the same shape (or perhaps slightly worse) as they'd been before this person came aboard. All of the PMs they'd hired ended up leaving not long after, in part because they were essentially yes-men and had no one to say yes to anymore.

Re: Debate over 'fake work' and 'lazy management' in tech industry

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to see an example of such an accepted accountability at least once in my life.

Next time there’s a re-org, look around for managers who net lost reports, or even “decided to move on”.

When I "decided to move on", that included deciding that management was likely not in the cards for me again. Companies that have IC staff+ roles are what attract me now.

Re: Debate over 'fake work' and 'lazy management' in tech industry

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tried that. Your colleagues, and some managers, will immediately see you as a threat (how dare you have something to show when we don't) and will start treating you as a personal enemy. Sabotaging every thing you are trying to do, trying to blame you for every failure, and overloading you with completely useless work. Nope, fish rots from the head. If everyone around you is useless, there are good reasons for it, and…

You are narrating my life back to me right now, and it's creepy and weird. I'm sorry that you've experienced this horrible treadmill of despair, as well. It doesn't get better.

Nah, I'm a tough and a cynical dude. I used my time at BigCo to practice the skill sets I needed, saved some money and jumped ship to running my own business. It's hard, but it's infinitely more rewarding than the rat race.
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