Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’ve never seen a manager like you describe but I’d sure like to have more of this!
There are twos of us
00000011 of us?
Ask HN: 20% of LinkedIn's recent layoffs were managers
61–70 of 289 posts
Re: Ask HN: 20% of LinkedIn's recent layoffs were managers
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
What company were you at and what were you paying? Did you directly hire or use 3rd party contractors/bodyshops?
If you underpay talent anywhere they'll do their bare minimum.
I've hired and (product) managed Indian employees and they're equally as capable as our Israeli, Eastern European, and SV employees - we just pay them market rate in Bangalore/Gurgaon/Hyderabad.
Depending on the age of your friend, they might just not be as used to dealing/communicating with non-American background people? I remember some assholes like that when I was a kid and my dad was working in the industry in the 90s and 2000s.
It's gotten better but you still see some dicks here on HN.
Re: Ask HN: 20% of LinkedIn's recent layoffs were managers
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
bytedance has 50-200 reports per manager in some teams and are wildly successful my suspicion is lower numbers are more a function of worker power (demand for 1:1s, career growth conversation, offloading more tasks to your manager, etc)
If you have 50-200 direct reports, you’re not a “manager”. You’re effectively either a recruiter or procurement.
I remember interviewing someone once that claimed to have 200 direct reports. I was really blunt and said "nobody has 200 direct reports".
They assured me that they did. So I grilled them on the mechanics of it.
If you had biweekly 1x1s with all of your DRs, you would have to do 100 per week. If 1-on-1s were your fulltime job you could at most do 80 per week (2 per hour x 40 hrs). Thats just rotating through 1x1s. That's not doing anything else.
He claimed "team leads" did 1x1s, which is fine, but its hard to call them a direct report if you're not even aware of their daily work. Theres just no way you can adequately manage 200 people. As mentioned above, you are just a glorified HR person, you're no longer in engineering.
I would never hire a manager below Director level that isn't themselves an individual contributor. I know its possible to have that but I wouldnt hire it, because we expect IC on our teams.
Re: Ask HN: 20% of LinkedIn's recent layoffs were managers
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
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."
Interesting. Parent comment is about 4:1 even. In my career I saw from 5:1 to 20:1 IC to managers on a direct level. However the higher one go the better the ratio, like VP to SVP ratio rarely reaches 10:1 even. Now I'm curious what are the industry 'standard' numbers.
20:1 is terrible. You may not have managers but other ICs then need to burden themselves with management duties. Even if you have 1:1 for half an hour every week, that’s 10 hours of just 1:1s. There is no reasonable way to keep track of it. It’s bad for the manager, it’s bad for the IC. Anything more than 10 is bad, ideal would be 7-8 reportees.
Re: Ask HN: 20% of LinkedIn's recent layoffs were managers
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interesting. Parent comment is about 4:1 even. In my career I saw from 5:1 to 20:1 IC to managers on a direct level. However the higher one go the better the ratio, like VP to SVP ratio rarely reaches 10:1 even. Now I'm curious what are the industry 'standard' numbers.
bytedance has 50-200 reports per manager in some teams and are wildly successful my suspicion is lower numbers are more a function of worker power (demand for 1:1s, career growth conversation, offloading more tasks to your manager, etc)
200 reports per manager means there’s a lot of ICs who are managers on IC salaries doing free added labor.
Re: Ask HN: 20% of LinkedIn's recent layoffs were managers
#66I 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
A good engineering manager is worth their weight in gold. Sadly, a good engineering manager is hard to find.
Re: Ask HN: 20% of LinkedIn's recent layoffs were managers
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Maybe also some had good managers but didn't realize it because you don't notice the lack/lessening of bullshit.
Re: Ask HN: 20% of LinkedIn's recent layoffs were managers
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Software/tech folks have it better than almost anyone else.
We usually get to love our job. We get paid quite well, and work on things that energize and motivate us.
The vast majority of the working population work at jobs that don’t really motivate them. Sometimes, they make a lot of money, but the work is a grind.
Many times, folks work at jobs for the social responsibility of doing stuff. They don’t like what they do, may not get paid that well, but feel like they are stepping up to the plate, and doing their civic duty.
This is a real rabbithole, and there’s a ton of opinions. Also, many managers are, shall we say, less than effective, so if we get a good manager, we should treasure them. A good manager can make difficult jobs bearable, and sometimes even highly motivating.
Re: Ask HN: 20% of LinkedIn's recent layoffs were managers
#69[dead]
Re: Ask HN: 20% of LinkedIn's recent layoffs were managers
#70I 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.
You think someone is leaving honest feedback on those forms? It's trivial for any manager who is not a complete moron to figure out who left a bad review and retaliate as I've seen happen multiple times in my career (mostly to other ICs but sometimes entire teams)