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On Becoming a VP of Engineering

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Re: On Becoming a VP of Engineering

#221

Post by drewcoo »

Aurornis wrote: post #120
wiradikusuma wrote: post #38

I'm a CTO of a venture-backed startup. My observations: - Most people in high positions are smart. I put cunning in the same category :) But there are many equally smart people who are not in high positions, because.. - They don't have the chance (either by design or by choice). - You can have a better chance by starting your own business. Nobody starts a business with the intention of getting a VP job in another com…

These are all great points. One thing I've learned is that when you see companies promoting and hiring executives for a lot of reasons other than merit, it's time to start looking for a new job. I didn't realize during the interview, but my last company's VP and higher positions were almost exclusively held by people who had connections to the CEO, regardless of their qualifications. There were a handful of people wh…

I'm sure their CEO thought they were all smart people.

Re: On Becoming a VP of Engineering

#222

Post by antonvs »

lapcat wrote: post #15

I found this part amusing: "Charity [company founder] has a more intuitive, spontaneous style, often shines brightest in a crisis, is allergic to checklists". It looks like an almost inadvertent admission. In other words, the founder doesn't have the qualifications or characteristics that the underlings assume they need to be in a leadership position. I automatically become CEO, CTO, etc., by starting my own company,…

> These are all written by people whose minds have been thoroughly corporatized, true believers in the hierarchy with an inner need to justify it.

This seems to miss the fact that what’s needed in a startup tends to be very different than what’s needed in a larger, more mature organization.

Hierarchies in larger organizations exist to organize things, and I’ve never encountered an organization other than an early stage startup that has somehow managed to avoid this.

Even in flat organizations (which are invariably fairly small), there are plenty of articles out there about how these tend to involve hidden hierarchies and agendas. A few example links:

https://www.getflow.com/blog/flat-will-kill-you

https://getlighthouse.com/blog/flat-organizational-structure...

https://workforce.com/news/hidden-hierarchies

Re: On Becoming a VP of Engineering

#223

Post by nradov »

lapcat wrote: post #15

I found this part amusing: "Charity [company founder] has a more intuitive, spontaneous style, often shines brightest in a crisis, is allergic to checklists". It looks like an almost inadvertent admission. In other words, the founder doesn't have the qualifications or characteristics that the underlings assume they need to be in a leadership position. I automatically become CEO, CTO, etc., by starting my own company,…

The notion of being allergic to checklists seems so bizarre to me, like being allergic to tying your shoes or brushing your teeth. Does anyone actually think that way? Everyone I have worked with or done sports with has been willing to use checklists where appropriate.

Re: On Becoming a VP of Engineering

#224

Post by lapcat »

antonvs wrote: post #222
lapcat wrote: post #15

I found this part amusing: "Charity [company founder] has a more intuitive, spontaneous style, often shines brightest in a crisis, is allergic to checklists". It looks like an almost inadvertent admission. In other words, the founder doesn't have the qualifications or characteristics that the underlings assume they need to be in a leadership position. I automatically become CEO, CTO, etc., by starting my own company,…

> These are all written by people whose minds have been thoroughly corporatized, true believers in the hierarchy with an inner need to justify it. This seems to miss the fact that what’s needed in a startup tends to be very different than what’s needed in a larger, more mature organization. Hierarchies in larger organizations exist to organize things, and I’ve never encountered an organization other than an early sta…

> This seems to miss the fact that what’s needed in a startup tends to be very different than what’s needed in a larger, more mature organization.

I wasn't talking about how companies should be organized. I was talking about how one should think about hierarchies:

> No matter how much you want to believe [emphasis added] that hierarchy is a "meritocracy", the founding of the hierarchy was undoubtedly chaos.

> I've always felt that hierarchical, subservient thinking [emphasis added] is strange, and I honestly never considered my former bosses to be "better" than me.

As a practical matter, hierarchies are difficult to avoid, as you've said. But they're only a means to an end. The point is to avoid internalizing hierarchical values and making your personal sense of worth depend on your place in them.

Re: On Becoming a VP of Engineering

#225

Post by spencerchubb »

lapcat wrote: post #117
spencerchubb wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't "just" become the CEO of a big company. You become the CEO of a small company (typically 1 to 3 people) Then you make a boatload of money, and the market decides whether you get to become the CEO of a big company.

Everyone knows this. It's unclear why you felt the need to say it.

The parent comment says: "I automatically become CEO, CTO, etc., by starting my own company, and this is true of anyone who started their own companies, including the ones that are now BigCos. Founders don't need any specific qualifications or characteristics to merit their positions."

Re: On Becoming a VP of Engineering

#226

Post by lapcat »

spencerchubb wrote: post #225
lapcat wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone knows this. It's unclear why you felt the need to say it.

The parent comment says: "I automatically become CEO, CTO, etc., by starting my own company, and this is true of anyone who started their own companies, including the ones that are now BigCos. Founders don't need any specific qualifications or characteristics to merit their positions."

Yes, I'm aware of what I said. You have copied and pasted the quote without fail. But it's still unclear what your point is supposed to be.

Re: On Becoming a VP of Engineering

#227

Post by geodel »

rgifford wrote: post #179
borski wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are also a lot of ways a company could fail due to randomness. In fact, many more failure modes than success modes. Startup success definitely includes some luck, but luck alone does not define success. Clubhouse is a great example of that. Lucky, but never found a retention strategy and wasn’t managed well enough to adapt. Startup success requires skill and countless hours of hard work, period, and the leaders…

I agree: Conflict resolution, public speaking, salesmanship -- they're all valuable. They make for better people in this world. When it comes to how these traits translate to the success of leaders or companies? I have no idea. I'd guess causation there is noisy. I bet leaders get a lot of mileage out of bullshit like playing surreptitious games for social capital, managing risk in decision making by offloading it an…

> Never understood why workers collectively put up with that patronizing, condescending nonsense.

Its simple because only few people find it condescending or nonsense. Most people I know either ignore it without judgement or find it valuable at work.

Ignoring soft skills or social graces work fine in some privileged roles where hard skills have some great premium. As one can see in case of top chefs, doctors, movie stars, sports people, high skill engineers etc.

For others listening to corporate leaders sermons is just way of life not some unbearable atrocity.

Re: On Becoming a VP of Engineering

#228

Post by danielvaughn »

icedchai wrote: post #206
danielvaughn wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was founding engineer ("CTO") of a startup a couple years ago, and I completely agree. We had the CEO who had domain expertise in our market, but who had never ran a tech company and was not technically proficient. I on the other hand was technically proficient, but I also never ran a tech company. This lack of execution expertise doomed us; we really needed a strong operations role. We made good progress on the pr…

I was in a similar position, working as CTO under a first time CEO where we built a small team, product, got some limited traction, but follow-on execution completely failed. It was incredibly hard. It depresses me to this day, thinking about where it all went wrong. I probably won't ever do it again.

It’s very difficult. I spent almost 2 years without income, supporting myself with my savings. It’s a tough pill to swallow.

Re: On Becoming a VP of Engineering

#229

Post by starcraft2wol »

no_wizard wrote: post #87
starcraft2wol wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even though currently less popular, I think Zuckerberg is a great example of this. He went from a college kid to a top 20 CEO with no formal training, except running his company.

Perhaps, but never discount someones background. His parents were successful executives and there were plenty of opportunities for him to be exposed to executive leadership (via Harvard, familial connections etc) Not like he went from nobody to somebody here, his background certainly allowed exposure to things many others would not have. I honestly would put Steve Jobs as the best example you can find of someone who…

I wasn't using him as a rags to riches story... by whatever means he acquired those leadership skills, they have been key to his success. This suggests that general leadership is more important for a CEO than credentials, experience, or resume.

Re: On Becoming a VP of Engineering

#230

Post by anchochilis »

lapcat wrote: post #15

I found this part amusing: "Charity [company founder] has a more intuitive, spontaneous style, often shines brightest in a crisis, is allergic to checklists". It looks like an almost inadvertent admission. In other words, the founder doesn't have the qualifications or characteristics that the underlings assume they need to be in a leadership position. I automatically become CEO, CTO, etc., by starting my own company,…

> In other words, the founder doesn't have the qualifications or characteristics that the underlings assume they need to be in a leadership position.

I find this to be an odd take, given context in the article. It sounds like the writer is simply contrasting her own leadership style with her boss's, as an example of how they complement each other.

Hierarchies make us uncomfortable because they challenge our egos. I've noticed this particularly in classic programmer personalities: smart, introverted, highly skilled. Many of us spend our entire careers as ICs, as leaves on the corporate tree. It's easy to become cynical.

"The VP sits around chatting people up all day and droning about OKRs while I just shipped a million dollar feature / resolved an expensive outage / built a tool that will dramatically increase engineering efficiency. What value does _he_ bring to the table?"

Unfortunately this is an enormously unproductive attitude that will kneecap your career. No org is a meritocracy -- but what does meritocracy even mean? We sort everyone by IQ? Or "performance", measured by lines of code committed per week?

On a final note I'll add that hierarchies get things done. Imagine working for a company that functioned as a democracy, with all the attendant discourse, campaigning, checks and balances. I would personally find the inefficiency intolerable. Better to work for a single idiot than a committee of a dozen geniuses.

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