Senior Engineers Build Consensus (2019) • Hacker News Board

Re: Senior Engineers Build Consensus (2019)

#11

Post by anonytrary » Sat, Mar 20, 2021, 4:45 AM UTC

whateveracct wrote: post #10

"Build Consensus" - hah, the words of an org chart climber. I've recently joined a BigCo (as a senior+ engineer), and the culture here isn't building consensus (out of authentic building blocks) - it's a toxic "we must be consensus after every meeting." There's always a "champion" idea (but you can bring a "challenger" idea so people feel heard), there's always a need to "be in alignment" after every 45 min chunk of…

As someone who used to work at LittleBigCo, I think this beats having great ideas and then having them given to people who are in the inner circle with the founders. At least BigCo isn't super fratty like LittleBigCo tends to be. Or I could be wrong, please tell me if I'm wrong. I want to be wrong. Lots of LittleBigCo's these days are pushing overhyped products and are mostly just having fun with corporate money.

Re: Senior Engineers Build Consensus (2019)

#12

Post by nullsense » Sat, Mar 20, 2021, 4:46 AM UTC

tootie wrote: post #5

hprotagonist wrote: post #2

https://billwadge.wordpress.com/2019/03/24/laws-of-the-unive... Wadge’s Law (of Meetings). Before every formal meeting there’s a smaller, more exclusive, less formal meeting where all the important decisions are made. This is based on decades of experience in academia and friends’ experience in industry and government. Sometimes there’s an even smaller, more exclusive, less formal pre pre meeting where all the decisi…

I'm a boss type guy and I absolutely do this intentionally but not because it's not really me setting policy as much as I'm focus group testing. I run it past peers or a few influential people who could be receptive. Get them to to think about it and give some feedback. When I bring it up to the group it's because it's been well-received and the other influencers are ready to back it. Similar to how this article expl…

I feel like everyone savvy just does this because they understand the consequences of not doing it and the clueless people always just bitch about there being so much office politics. In my experience it's just the communication protocol that works.

Re: Senior Engineers Build Consensus (2019)

#13

Post by bww » Sat, Mar 20, 2021, 4:49 AM UTC

zaphirplane wrote: post #4

hprotagonist wrote: post #2

https://billwadge.wordpress.com/2019/03/24/laws-of-the-unive... Wadge’s Law (of Meetings). Before every formal meeting there’s a smaller, more exclusive, less formal meeting where all the important decisions are made. This is based on decades of experience in academia and friends’ experience in industry and government. Sometimes there’s an even smaller, more exclusive, less formal pre pre meeting where all the decisi…

That’s called an oligarchy in politics. Can’t say it’s a great operational model

You've probably noticed that there aren't really any successful companies that are run as democracies. There are good reasons for that.

Re: Senior Engineers Build Consensus (2019)

#14

Post by whateveracct » Sat, Mar 20, 2021, 4:50 AM UTC

anonytrary wrote: post #11

whateveracct wrote: post #10

"Build Consensus" - hah, the words of an org chart climber. I've recently joined a BigCo (as a senior+ engineer), and the culture here isn't building consensus (out of authentic building blocks) - it's a toxic "we must be consensus after every meeting." There's always a "champion" idea (but you can bring a "challenger" idea so people feel heard), there's always a need to "be in alignment" after every 45 min chunk of…

As someone who used to work at LittleBigCo, I think this beats having great ideas and then having them given to people who are in the inner circle with the founders. At least BigCo isn't super fratty like LittleBigCo tends to be. Or I could be wrong, please tell me if I'm wrong. I want to be wrong. Lots of LittleBigCo's these days are pushing overhyped products and are mostly just having fun with corporate money.

oh i agree - that's why i left a streak of startup jobs to get paid more to do less at BigCo.

BigCo isn't fratty at all in my limited experience. Be professional, follow whatever 10 commandments the C-suite prints out & laminates for you, and sell yourself once a year in self-review and you'll win out and barely work if you're remote.

Smaller companies have very little org-chart structure - it's a single small tree. There's no equilibrium in the org chart. So a couple bad actors can easily ruin it all. And they did at every startup I was at.

My play is to collect checks and eventually make art with my computer science experience for the rest of my life.

Re: Senior Engineers Build Consensus (2019)

#15

Post by redisman » Sat, Mar 20, 2021, 5:07 AM UTC

whateveracct wrote: post #14

anonytrary wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who used to work at LittleBigCo, I think this beats having great ideas and then having them given to people who are in the inner circle with the founders. At least BigCo isn't super fratty like LittleBigCo tends to be. Or I could be wrong, please tell me if I'm wrong. I want to be wrong. Lots of LittleBigCo's these days are pushing overhyped products and are mostly just having fun with corporate money.

oh i agree - that's why i left a streak of startup jobs to get paid more to do less at BigCo. BigCo isn't fratty at all in my limited experience. Be professional, follow whatever 10 commandments the C-suite prints out & laminates for you, and sell yourself once a year in self-review and you'll win out and barely work if you're remote. Smaller companies have very little org-chart structure - it's a single small tree.…

What do you mean by BigCo? Fortune 500 non-tech? Faang?

Re: Senior Engineers Build Consensus (2019)

#16

Post by jart » Sat, Mar 20, 2021, 5:09 AM UTC

One can use Nemawashi to lay the foundation for consensus. An even more powerful technique is to use Numerology to identify the consensus that already exists. See https://github.com/jart/cosmopolitan/blob/master/libc/sysv/s... and https://justine.lol/ape.html

Re: Senior Engineers Build Consensus (2019)

#17

Post by andrewem » Sat, Mar 20, 2021, 5:12 AM UTC

I used to work with an engineer who would have a loud negative emotional reaction the first time they were told about some new thing that would be happening at our company, and after a little bit would be totally fine with it. After one or two instances of this pattern, the manager learned to talk to the engineer ahead of time, so the upset reaction wouldn’t happen in a big meeting. I suspect that more of us are like this than would like to admit to it.

The manager’s new tactic seems to me both more effective and kinder, because it takes into account the engineer’s need to process a change outside of a public setting.

Re: Senior Engineers Build Consensus (2019)

#18

Post by sgtnoodle » Sat, Mar 20, 2021, 5:14 AM UTC

andrewem wrote: post #17

I used to work with an engineer who would have a loud negative emotional reaction the first time they were told about some new thing that would be happening at our company, and after a little bit would be totally fine with it. After one or two instances of this pattern, the manager learned to talk to the engineer ahead of time, so the upset reaction wouldn’t happen in a big meeting. I suspect that more of us are like…

Sounds like me at work last year when I had to take high dose steroids!

Re: Senior Engineers Build Consensus (2019)

#19

Post by grogenaut » Sat, Mar 20, 2021, 5:21 AM UTC

andrewem wrote: post #17

I used to work with an engineer who would have a loud negative emotional reaction the first time they were told about some new thing that would be happening at our company, and after a little bit would be totally fine with it. After one or two instances of this pattern, the manager learned to talk to the engineer ahead of time, so the upset reaction wouldn’t happen in a big meeting. I suspect that more of us are like…

I personally will react negatively for about 5 to 15 minutes to any new large change idea so I just work to make sure I don't make judgments during that window. It does however let me get into real issues with the idea pretty quickly.

I will often just tell people okay that's a big change give me time to go through the five stages of grieving and I think we'll be good

Re: Senior Engineers Build Consensus (2019)

#20

Post by alexashka » Sat, Mar 20, 2021, 5:24 AM UTC

bww wrote: post #13

zaphirplane wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s called an oligarchy in politics. Can’t say it’s a great operational model

You've probably noticed that there aren't really any successful companies that are run as democracies. There are good reasons for that.

You can't get to a better future by demanding that it have existed in the past.

That doesn't make any sense.

Now I'd really like to hear these 'good reasons' and what makes them 'good'. Before you list them, please try and apply them to 'why should we abandon slavery'. If your arguments work for both instances, please explain why we ever abandoned slavery, since clearly there are 'good reasons' for owning slaves, so much so that Americans fought a civil war over it last I checked.