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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

#181

Post by busterarm »

upupupandaway wrote: post #55
swader999 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Funny. I always want to put my head down and write code, but because I actually know how systems work and help everyone else out to accomplish the basics, every job ever pushes me into infrastructure roles and I end up being the organization's Brent all the time.

It fucking sucks.

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

#182

Post by eru »

baby wrote: post #155

I see all the comments about how managers are necessary. Let’s assume we can automate more and more HR tasks, what are managers required for besides that?

Managers in most companies are already not doing much HR. Especially in companies with a competent HR department.

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

#183

Post by mnky9800n »

DennisL123 wrote: post #164
SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work for Large Tech Company and I would pretty frequently fly out to San Francisco Suburb for work. One of the more interesting time periods of that phase was when the office building I worked at for Large Tech Company was across the parking lot from LinkedIn in San Francisco Suburb . We frequently played a largesse game of hangman with the LinkedIn employees drawn on the windows across our parking lot. Lin…

That sounds suspiciously like the office location where you‘d see big cargo planes fly overhead once in a while.

Like the unmarked ones going to area 51 filled with engineers on their way to work?

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

#184

Post by fxtentacle »

killjoywashere wrote: post #60
kubrickslair wrote: post #40

Earlier 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…

Yes, I believe perception is skewed due to how people categorize their experiences:

If someone speaks perfect English, gets all the in-jokes and is in general great to work with, you'll think of them as a "team member", even if they happen to be from India. But if someone has problems with the language, doesn't get the jokes, and/or has a vastly different timezone, you'll remember them as distinctly "Indian".

That means if someone asks you to remember experiences with Indian coworkers, you might be more likely to recall the people that didn't work out well, because they stood out more strongly.

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

#185

Post by xorcist »

ditonal wrote: post #82
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

Silicon Valley used to have engineering managers who managed engineering. As the money got bigger we got more grifters / professional manager types. First thing they do is rebrand middle management as “leaders” and the other thing they do is make management non technical. This has even bled into making higher level IC engineering roles being “above” coding. “Staff engineers don’t code, they set high level architectur…

This is true for every tech company outside of Silicon Valley as well.

I doubt the process is even specific to tech companies. Code is work, and the one thing that signals moving up the social ladder is not having to work. That has been true for a large part of history.

Programming is often a bit of a special case when in the context of work because we it so completely isolated from the physical process of work. Programming fundamentally is describing processes at multiple abstraction levels all at once, and therefore inseparable from software architecture. This is also why it can be hard to humans to learn.

(This, incidentally, is also why I despise each and every one using the term automation in a programming context. Running a command and clicking a web interface is conceptually identical, one is not more automated than the other.)

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

#186

Post by dilyevsky »

thekrowndnf wrote: post #78
dilyevsky wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I started my career it was pretty common to have a team of ~12 under one manager with a couple of TLs. Nowadays it's more like 1:4 or even 1:3 - that's 3x management bloat for mostly bureaucratic reasons and with no obvious improvement in productivity or retention. Then there's the thing you said - people with "manager/lead" in title but no obvious managerial responsibilities.

Leads are expected to do technical work. I wouldn't call them bloat.

In many shops managers are now doing TLs work like designs and technical vision except they dont actually write any code. This goes about as well as one would expect…

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

#187

Post by midasz »

throwawaysleep wrote: post #96
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

Scrum masters are the real scam. Let some non technical with neither a background in engineering or tech or management run things.

Scrum masters don't really need to be super technical right? They just need to make sure the rituals work and eventually make themselves redundant. I'm an IC and thinking of following some courses so I can fill that role in my team but only because it may give some credence to the rituals, not because my technical insights make it better. I think the rituals can add value but only if they're taken seriously - otherwise they're a waste of time.

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

#188

Post by smugma »

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

AFAIK This isn’t true at any FANG-like companies. Engineering managers I’ve seen either code or at least do technical reviews. This is true for senior managers and often still true regarding technical direction at the director level.

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

#189

Post by conradfr »

jwond wrote: post #117
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?

I am reminded of this video of a young woman showing a "day in the life" of a LinkedIn employee https://youtu.be/X5TZVhKDwpk

I never understood how much of these videos was parody.

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

#190

Post by forty »

quadrifoliate wrote: post #80
killjoywashere wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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? Indian here. First generation, naturalized American, et cetera. I'll be honest and say that my initial response was, “Ugh! Your friend is a big old racist”. Moving on from that reflexive thought, I'll attempt to answer your question of: > I’m asking is there a perceptual…

Thank for your comment, it's important to call out this kind of racist remarks, even it if hides behind a "it's not for me, it's for a friend".
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