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Ask HN: 20% of LinkedIn's recent layoffs were managers

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Re: Ask HN: 20% of LinkedIn's recent layoffs were managers

#51

Post by Raidion »

ecshafer wrote: post #17
igetspam wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can code. I hate meetings. I like my home office and have been remote for about eight years. I don't think you know what people managers do.

I haven't had a manager before who didn't complain about how many meetings they have, but I think they are a necessary evil for the position. My short stint in management sure saw meeting numbers balloon.

I'm a manager for two dev teams (~10 people) my breakdown per week is:

* 2.5h for 30 minute 1:1s for people that want them once a week

* 1.25h for 30 minutes 1:1s for people that want them every other week

* 2.5h for team standup (15 mins/day * 2 teams)

* 4h for project meetings (status or technical discussions) (4 projects at 1h a day, but might be two 30m)

* 2h ceremonies a week (could be refinement/planning/retro)

* 1h compliance meeting (internal or external as my department is heavily regulated)

* 1h manager sync with my peer managers + director

* 30m 1:1 with my boss (director)

* 30m 1:1 with product

* 30m 1:1 with project manager

* 2h "what's next" meetings with product + staff engineers + mgmt for our rough sizing and product pipeline (not every week, but if we're in the midst of a BIG project, swap this with syncs with other parts of the org working on the same thing)

That's 18h of meetings a week. Add on some recruiting/hiring meetings, ad hoc "let's get in a room and talk about it" risk discussions, random all hands, and some bursty higher level stuff (OKRs/goal setting/etc).

That's >20h a week, and I do feel like people need all of those to be productive. If I cut the 1:1s, attrition rises. If I cut the status meetings, stuff gets off track and fingers start being pointed. I'm pretty aggressive when it comes to cancelling 1:1 or status meetings. We'll do a lot of "we don't need this cross team sync meeting unless someone has something they want to talk about or ask questions on". Any time I spend on people or making sure we know what we're trying to accomplish has huge ROI, IMO.

FWIW: Was a former lead developer with decade plus experience hands on coding, so I believe I can bring at least some developer perspective. I have a CS degree, not a management one.

Re: Ask HN: 20% of LinkedIn's recent layoffs were managers

#52

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

moneycantbuy wrote: post #49
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing new. Middle managers are the traditional food for layoffs. Have been, for decades. For me, I was a "first line" manager of a small, rather high-functioning team, for 25 years. I was quite capable of going up the food chain, but didn't want to. I liked getting my hands dirty, and being directly connected to the product. I was a really good manager. I took the job seriously, and did well for the company (see "2…

if you hated it, how and why did you stay for 25 years? i’m at 7 years as an ic at a fortune 500 co and want out. ideally i’d start my own co without taking vc money, but so far i’ve been too afraid of the risk.

Mostly personal integrity. I know most folks think I’m a chump, but it was the path I chose.

We did good work. It didn’t really have a high profile, but it was really engaging.

Basically, I couldn’t trust anyone else to do the job, and the Japanese had a lot of trust for me.

It is a bit sad, to hear the name-calling and insults, when I talk about it, but I’m not an idiot, and I’m not a chump.

Re: Ask HN: 20% of LinkedIn's recent layoffs were managers

#53

Post by bombcar »

ajcp wrote: post #33
greatpostman wrote: post #11

I have a long held belief that engineering managers are mostly a scam, and are actually just overpaid scrum masters. This is from working at some top companies

You might be right, but that might be because they're just really bad managers. A good engineering manager shouldn't be there to herd engineers. A good engineering manager is there to protect their engineers from the organization, ensure they have the resources required to do the work, and to make sure their organizational goals, development, and wellbeing are being advocated and cared for. Scrum masters shouldn't ca…

I feel some people have never had a good manager, and so they don’t realize just how much bullshit they can insulate you from.

Re: Ask HN: 20% of LinkedIn's recent layoffs were managers

#54

Post by sharmi »

I am really sorry for all those who have lost their job today.

There seems to be a lot of negative view about managers here.

If I had to judge managers by my experience at my first job, I would be first in the line decrying them. But, now I see that is the result of faulty processes, promoting too early and for all the wrong reasons.

In my second job, my manager was my strength. We didn't have much meetings, rather lots of one-on-ones or 3-4 people discussing. Most of us were just out of college. So, when we had strong opinions on the product features, they not only heard us, but helped formulate a proper argument that we could present. He was also a good mentor, helping me reframe my viewpoint, when I didn't agree with one of my very senior colleagues (Later turned out the senior colleague was right. In retrospect, I really pity that colleague for he had to work with a big bunch of naive college graduates with no coding discipline :) )

It helps that the whole environment in the company was one of openness, camaraderie and a real desire to make a difference. But a good manager can always make a great difference in your work and happiness.

Re: Ask HN: 20% of LinkedIn's recent layoffs were managers

#55

Post by upupupandaway »

swader999 wrote: post #48
upupupandaway wrote: post #47

I am dying to leave the management track and go back to SDE. Pretty much every company out there bloated their ranks to include more middle managers and it became an unbearable mess. After 12 years in management, though, I can't get interviews for SDE, so I am kind of stuck. Imagine writing code for a living? DREAM.

Just taylor your experience a bit :)

The worst thing is that I never wanted to be a manager but somehow always got pushed that way by the higher ups. I blame my background as evangelist being able to explain technical things to management. Ugh.

Re: Ask HN: 20% of LinkedIn's recent layoffs were managers

#56

Post by crmd »

alexpotato wrote: post #8
darth_avocado wrote: post #5

Typical ratio of people to managers in a company is about 1:4, so that tracks. And before this becomes controversial, I don’t mean every manager has 4 reports, but because organization is a tree, for every 4 ICs, there’s one manager. For example, you could have 3PMs, 3 designers and 10 engineers, but the org could have 4 managers: 1 PM manager, 1 Design manager, 1 eng manager with 7 reportees and a sr manager with 3…

Every time I see more than 10 direct reports, I think of this quote: "Yasser Arafat had 17 lieutenants (aka direct reports). Why? So he could pit them all against each other: if they were fighting each other and jockeying for position then they were too busy to go after him."

I reported to a CEO who did this selectively. What was quite frustrating was that even when we figured it out it was hard to unite.

Re: Ask HN: 20% of LinkedIn's recent layoffs were managers

#57

Post by moneycantbuy »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #52
moneycantbuy wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you hated it, how and why did you stay for 25 years? i’m at 7 years as an ic at a fortune 500 co and want out. ideally i’d start my own co without taking vc money, but so far i’ve been too afraid of the risk.

Mostly personal integrity. I know most folks think I’m a chump, but it was the path I chose. We did good work. It didn’t really have a high profile, but it was really engaging. Basically, I couldn’t trust anyone else to do the job, and the Japanese had a lot of trust for me. It is a bit sad, to hear the name-calling and insults, when I talk about it, but I’m not an idiot, and I’m not a chump.

i don’t think you’re an idiot, nor a chump. just was wondering how you summoned the strength to persevere even though you didn’t like managing. maybe it’s a generational thing, my parents stayed at the same place for their whole career, but these days we’re expected to jump ship every few years if we want a raise that matches inflation.

Re: Ask HN: 20% of LinkedIn's recent layoffs were managers

#58

Post by upupupandaway »

greatpostman wrote: post #11

I have a long held belief that engineering managers are mostly a scam, and are actually just overpaid scrum masters. This is from working at some top companies

I'm not a scam, I like to believe, because I've always gotten good feedback from my teams. But definitely the job description is quite light and a bit handwavy, so all companies could use fewer engineering managers, not more. I myself would volunteer to go back to IC right now.

Re: Ask HN: 20% of LinkedIn's recent layoffs were managers

#59

Post by xarope »

ajcp wrote: post #33
greatpostman wrote: post #11

I have a long held belief that engineering managers are mostly a scam, and are actually just overpaid scrum masters. This is from working at some top companies

You might be right, but that might be because they're just really bad managers. A good engineering manager shouldn't be there to herd engineers. A good engineering manager is there to protect their engineers from the organization, ensure they have the resources required to do the work, and to make sure their organizational goals, development, and wellbeing are being advocated and cared for. Scrum masters shouldn't ca…

A good engineering manager should be like a warrior in a garden; mentoring and fostering the engineers, and ready to go to "battle" for them at a moment's notice.

Re: Ask HN: 20% of LinkedIn's recent layoffs were managers

#60

Post by killjoywashere »

kubrickslair wrote: post #40
gruez wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>LI has a distinctive lack of chill right now contrary to the company image I don't get it. Did linkedin have an image of being a chill place to work?

Yes, at least among my colleagues - both in the US and India offices.

> India

Ok, so, I have a friend who works big tech and he has no chill for Indians (SWEs, PMs, etc). Is there a grain of truth to the “lazy Indian” trope? I always assumed, especially first generation immigrants, would be working balls-to-the-wall. Am I wrong? Is there some sort of incentive misalignment in the H1B program? Is it cultural (e.g. like “island time”, which I’ve learned is at least partially attributable to the futility of working harder under the tyranny of distance)?

I’m not saying Indians are Lazy. I’m asking is there a perceptual issue due to some factor that’s obvious to the typical Nth-generation American?

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