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

Post by hyperliner » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 7:22 PM UTC

potatolicious wrote: post #98

endtime wrote: 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 Left around 2020 so my impressions may be a bit out of date.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…

Post by flashgordon » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 7:44 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…

Post by Spooky23 » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 8:16 PM UTC

alwaysbeconsing wrote: post #179

rogerkirkness wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how you do high quality skip levels: 1. What is going well? 2. What is not going well? 3. What can be done to improve? Pretty much know what's going on. Anyone who BSes the second question needs to be layered or leave.

Isn't the necessity of skip meetings itself a pathological sign? The only thing you legitimately need to talk to your manager's manager about is things your manager can't handle -- i.e. mostly problems with and/or praise for your manager. Everything else should go through your manager, or what are they there for?

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 8:19 PM UTC

flashgordon wrote: post #183

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…

So spot on. You see tons of articles and "thought leadership" on Managers vs Leaders as if managers are holding a company back through incompetence or malice. Oh man. Reality is leadership sets processes because they believe the "last ounce of juice" hasnt been squeezed. I can point you to a whole bunch of leadership rubriks (at faang/maangs) that is all about showing "impact" vs getting actual work down - and they a…

Post by shitpostbot » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 8:43 PM UTC

wnolens wrote: post #153

greatpostman wrote: post #9

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.