71–80 of 440 posts
It's too triggering to do any more than skim the article, but having got the general gist of at least some of it, I shall write my top tip here in case it helps anyone (who manages to do it): Negotiate prohibitively high overtime rates.
This is a person that should have never been in a leadership position. I have worked under these types of people that were great engineers themselves but couldn’t lead worth shit. No trust in the team. Always doing shit themselves. No discussion. Backdoor discussions. Always bending to the will of management. Everything is “important”/“critical”. It’s micromanaging to the worst degree. At the same time, I would likel…
And this is an organizational failure, because the organisation has just promoted, without training someone to be a leader. You wouldn't expect a manager (from a non-technical background) to just start coding, so why would you expect a coder to just start managing.
This is a person that should have never been in a leadership position. I have worked under these types of people that were great engineers themselves but couldn’t lead worth shit. No trust in the team. Always doing shit themselves. No discussion. Backdoor discussions. Always bending to the will of management. Everything is “important”/“critical”. It’s micromanaging to the worst degree. At the same time, I would likel…
> This is why I think unions in tech would be great. To set realistic expectations, approach management from a collective point of view. What? The person in this scenario wouldn’t be in the union once promoted. Unions don’t do anything for manager to director dynamics.
This is a person that should have never been in a leadership position. I have worked under these types of people that were great engineers themselves but couldn’t lead worth shit. No trust in the team. Always doing shit themselves. No discussion. Backdoor discussions. Always bending to the will of management. Everything is “important”/“critical”. It’s micromanaging to the worst degree. At the same time, I would likel…
> This is a person that should have never been in a leadership position This is the kind of crap that stops people writing blog posts about vulnerable topics like mental health. I mean really? Author opens up about a terrible shit show and their role in it, and your response is “yeah you suck at that, don’t do it.” I dont think that’s very constructive.
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This is a person that should have never been in a leadership position. I have worked under these types of people that were great engineers themselves but couldn’t lead worth shit. No trust in the team. Always doing shit themselves. No discussion. Backdoor discussions. Always bending to the will of management. Everything is “important”/“critical”. It’s micromanaging to the worst degree. At the same time, I would likel…
> This is a person that should have never been in a leadership position This is the kind of crap that stops people writing blog posts about vulnerable topics like mental health. I mean really? Author opens up about a terrible shit show and their role in it, and your response is “yeah you suck at that, don’t do it.” I dont think that’s very constructive.
I often don't write about things I'm feeling because I can already hear the responses of everyone who will intentionally miss the point in order to draw attention to something else, as if I'm completely oblivious to that other issue.
Being able to express what we're feeling without having our thoughts dismissed or disregarded simply because of how we arrived in our current situation is very important for mental wellbeing.
Don't get me wrong, I do understand the point being made above, it's just doesn't seem very helpful, as you said.
Morale of the story: don’t apply for a CTO position. Apply for CEO: more money, less pressure, and you get to be as incompetent as you want.
> This one time, for example, when our deployment crashed halfway through right before a major release. The CEO emphasized how important this project was, so we were all hands on deck, trying to get it back up, fearing the worst, that the client would go ballistic if he found out we were delaying the release. I was stressing big time, thinking we had to pull off a miracle, and of course we did.
> But you know what? After all that chaos, it turned out the relevant stakeholders were away on vacation that week, and the release wasn't even checked for many days after that.
A CTO should have some power to push back and set priorities. If you're just doing what you're told you're not really a CTO but a team lead with a fancy title.
This a general problem with young people in leadership positions. They don't have the confidence to say no as often as they should nor the perspective to identify what's really important - every setback feels cataclysmic.
This is a person that should have never been in a leadership position. I have worked under these types of people that were great engineers themselves but couldn’t lead worth shit. No trust in the team. Always doing shit themselves. No discussion. Backdoor discussions. Always bending to the will of management. Everything is “important”/“critical”. It’s micromanaging to the worst degree. At the same time, I would likel…
And this is an organizational failure, because the organisation has just promoted, without training someone to be a leader. You wouldn't expect a manager (from a non-technical background) to just start coding, so why would you expect a coder to just start managing.
1. Dual career ladders. You should recognize/reward some level of technical role (i.e. staff or similar) the same as management. Every senior person is a leader; I argue ICs have a tougher job because they don't have the "because you report to me" hammer.
2. Lead mentorship program. Potential managers need experience; you need to coach and validate. They need a chance to manage a single person over time, do a performance review cycle, 1:1s, feedback conversations,etc. Co-ops/iterns are great for this because it's a fixed time period! You need 3 conditions to promote someone into management: 1. the need, 2. the individual's desire, 3. the individual's skills & experience. An LMP gives you signal on all.
I'll add 1(b): People need to be able to move laterally between ladders. This is in everyone's best interest; having an amazing staff dev muddling through as a team lead just means they're going to quit soon.
This is a REALLY LONG way of saying I agree with the parent, but the solution is both known and doable. I'll get down off my soapbox now.
I used to be in (moderate) awe of young college drop-out CEOs. Then I worked for a couple of them. Now I refuse to work for startups that have 20-somethings at the top, because they really do not know how to manage or lead. They are motivated by fear of failure and having accomplished nothing so far they treat others like garbage. Avoid.
The phenomenon of showing up at Stanford and telling some 21-year-old that he's Jesus Christ and that you're going to give him millions of dollars is a wen on the American business culture matched only by corporate raiding. It's the nerd version of college football/basketball recruiting.