Debate over 'fake work' and 'lazy management' in tech industry • Hacker News Board

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

#161

Post by geodel » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 5:09 PM UTC

threadweaver34 wrote: post #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.

Exactly. It is hilarious but true. A ton of bullshit jobs like DEI Analysts, AI Ethicists and so on, are essentially product of zero-interest rate phenomena. However, it has led to some really believing that they are carrying the weight of earth on their shoulders.

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

#162

Post by ntfAX » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 5:10 PM UTC

11101010001100 wrote: post #26

JamesHinnek wrote: post #16

Just a reminder that lazy managers are the source of burnout for those who are under them. As a manager I can say, there is no easier job than just forwarding requests from directors directly to developers, not planning, and promising crazy deadlines to avoid conflict with higher management. If someone is being paid more, this person has to work more, I have seen so many people becoming managers just to actually avoi…

Work more means what? It's about efficiency in terms of performance metrics.

It might be a combination of efficiency and generating value. If you're efficient enough to generate $1000/hr but the org has no opportunity or product for you that can generate this, efficiency in performance metrics alone doesn't move the company's bottom line.

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

#163

Post by cratermoon » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 5:12 PM UTC

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #145

cratermoon wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the same reason lots of people don't move and change jobs at the drop of a hat: responsibilities outside work. Kids in school, a mortgage, debts, friends, community participation. Once your lifestyle has lined up with a certain pay scale, cutting back is difficult. Upending the lives of your family to go for a more meaningful job that pays ways less? It happens. It's not pretty.

I wasn't only referring to just people who are tied down to one place and one lifestyle. There's plenty of tech people who are in a stage of their lives when they are easily mobile and still live a frugal lifestyle, yet almost everyone chooses the same wealthy and least ethical companies, while complaining their jobs are boring and unethical. Not judging people who take well paying jobs at unethical companies, but th…

> yet almost everyone chooses the same wealthy and least ethical companies, while complaining their jobs are boring and unethical.

I'd like to see some empirical data for that. I don't see how that squares with the numbers of people working for FAANG money vs the numbers working in all of the rest of the tech jobs in the US and world. If I were to take your statement literally, then all the companies paying FAANG money would have tens of millions of employees, when in fact their total headcount is ~2 million out of the ~12 million working in tech in the US.

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

#164

Post by geodel » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 5:14 PM UTC

evo_9 wrote: post #102

Even the laziest manager is 10 times more useful and effective than a scrum master. They are the biggest BS jobs in the tech industry by a mile.

I feel this whole Agile industry is to distribute tech riches to wider group of people who otherwise have no interest or skill to work in IT industry. A nice benefit to companies are improved diversity numbers.

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

#165

Post by screye » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 5:18 PM UTC

harimau777 wrote: post #2

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.

First, it's ego.

Engineers are a deeply opinionated species that will not heed the advice of a man they deem to be inferior to them in technical ability. Technical competency based promotion is about managing hubris and egos.

For the second, I have a hot-take: "All problems in tech are work estimation problems."

And so too is who gets to be manager. Nothing annoys an engineer more than a manager who estimates arbitrary times to tasks. Similarly, nothing annoys a manager than being unable to establish accountability for work effectiveness of an employee. So non-technical managers set up metrics (LOC, Hours worked, tickets moved) for accountability. Average Metrics are bad and bad metrics are disastrous. Metrics are exploited by the politically savvy, set up micromanagement structures and discourage those who are actually well aligned with product success. A good engineer makes work-estimation easier, avoiding the need for some of these toxic structures.

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

#166

Post by manicennui » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 5:31 PM UTC

falloutx wrote: post #8

This article itself represents fake work. Remember what keeps you employed, if we only did necessary things, none of us would be employed.

Doesn't this point to a fundamental problem with our economic systems? It is only going to get worse over time as more jobs can be automated. I also don't think that most people would choose to do "work".

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

#167

Post by oneayy4 » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 5:38 PM UTC

cornercasechase wrote: post #66

Is there really a “debate” over “fake work”, or is that just some made up term a clueless and unethical VC tweeted? There’s been a hard push from capital to put pressure on labor. All these fantasy stories about “fake work”, “people working two jobs”… are all just cover stories for capital and execs to ramp up the pressure and punitive actions. I’m sure BusinessInsider is more than happy to play along. While this art…

its definitely not the billionaires faults, its those damn greedy middle class americans

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

#168

Post by chasd00 » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 5:39 PM UTC

policepost wrote: post #108

antipaul wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Management" definitely seems easier, than having to do technical work, without proper accountability. But it seems it's hard to hold management accountable. For an IC such as an engineer, if you don't deliver code for the deadline or check-in, it's clear you haven't delivered. But how do you judge the performance of managers? Oh, right, by the size of the "empire"...

As a former engineer and now manager, it's not easier. It's different. Like, yes I write much less code, but I also have to show much more empathy and be able to communicate with different people differently. Helping every engineer on the team advance their careers is tough, because everyone heard feedback differently. Combine that with the one on ones where someone tells you about how shitty their life has been rece…

I’m glad you made this comment. I’ve had multiple people lay out very personal and severe problems to me during one-on-ones. I’m in no way qualified nor did I sign up to have someone’s life literally in my hands (suicidal people). It’s disturbing.

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

#169

Post by ravenstine » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 5:57 PM UTC

eysquared wrote: post #32

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…

> Ultimately this leads to engineers and members of the team working on things they don’t believe in or that don’t actually move the needle and are scrapped.

Or the engineers are incentivized to mind-read leadership, since they can only beg leadership for answers to questions so many times in a sitting, which results in engineering time being wasted when it turns out said leadership didn't want a thing after all.

Trying to understand what the owners of a product actually want is of course part of the occupation of an engineer, but it's another thing when owners and leadership are of little help and fail to actually provide the company with a real direction. Too often, they are high on their own supply, and they may even rationalize turnover as just a fact of the business.

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

#170

Post by disgruntledphd2 » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 6:05 PM UTC

kevinventullo wrote: post #100

i_k_k wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another problem is that much of the industry sees getting into management as a promotion. This is something that Microsoft tried, at least, to get right: pay/rank was mostly divorced from job function.

Facebook and Google also have parallel tracks up to very senior levels.

I mean yeah, theoretically. It's nonsense though. Just count the number of individual contributors vs managers at a director level and it quickly becomes apparent that one of the parallel tracks is much, much larger than the other.