The 10x Engineer and Delegated Responsibility

i've been more and more inclined to write about engineering management myself.

if you think about this post, it's is essentially how big open source software projects work.

some open source projects have the responsibility to read commit logs once you gain commit access. that way the more you get involved into the project the more your responsibility to review your peers grows.

other projects like linux have people that are responsible for certain subsystems. oftentimes a BDFL can veto commits if he chooses to, but seldom does this ever happen, because he didn't like someone.

the thing strikes me as so interesting, because here you have hundreds, sometimes thousands of people working on high quality software together in a completely distributed, but not independent fashion, sometimes with people that can't even stand one another.

what you're describing here is very similar to this.

on the other hand we have big organizations explaining their hiring techniques, some only want people with a positive attitude, only a certain development methodology, and whatnot.

"They take ownership..."

Reminder: Unless you have an actual stake in the company, you do not own anything you produce for the company. Keep that in mind the next time code you worked on causes a 2am production server crash or is responsible for increasing revenue x10. It is not your code that caused the events but the owner's of the company.

I disagree - the distinction is still significant in that it's important not to let the responsibilities of ownership land on your plate when you're not getting any of the benefits.

You're not. It's two different meanings of the word. You aren't "responsible" for the running of the business because you've "taken ownership" of the autocomplete widget on the search page. You're getting paid for your ownership of the autocomplete widget, you're not getting paid for your ownership of the corporate direction.

If you're getting paid, you do need to be getting paid because of some responsibility you're discharging, after all.

You can tell it's two different "ownerships" by what happens if you quit. One you retain, the other is simply redistributed to some other developer. They're not the same thing.

I disagree. I think its important to take 'ownership' of your work. Its the best way to obtain visibility in your organization and (for me at least) creates a sense of satisfaction and pride.

If I was just a cog in the machine of the corporate wheel churning through small tasks on a daily basis it would be hard to keep motivated. In fact a lack of ownership for work is what allows large companies to carry so much dead weight for so long. Employees stagnate and start coasting.

I do however take your point to heart and realize taking ownership does not mean I am up til 2am frequently trying to meet unrealistic deadlines.