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Debate over 'fake work' and 'lazy management' in tech industry

businessinsider.com

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Re: Debate over 'fake work' and 'lazy management' in tech industry

#111

Post by rqtwteye »

abeppu wrote: post #84
eysquared wrote: post #32

I’m seeing a lot of comments that seem to point to first line management as the problem here. In my own anecdotal experience, I’ve seen a lot more “fake work” come from listless leadership that lacks a true vision for the product. That rolls down to Product Managers that can’t prioritize features and don’t really understand what they’re building or why. Ultimately this leads to engineers and members of the team worki…

I think there's also an issue that execs can create the appearance of being busy (and may indeed spend a ridiculous number of hours in meetings) but it can be hard to see if they're contributing anything valuable. I was at a startup which over a period of years repeatedly had new execs come in, claim that something was wrong with our planning or goal-setting process, "restart" the whole thing in a way which was virtu…

It's always a good sign when an exec comes in and lists things that are working well at the moment.

Re: Debate over 'fake work' and 'lazy management' in tech industry

#112

Post by mrguyorama »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #91
ProfMeowsworth wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d expect from someone making 300kUSD a year to come up with their own ideas instead of spinning their wheels. Reading the article and some of the comments here, that seems to be an unpopular opinion, at least in tech.

Consider that companies like these can afford to pay $300k USD precisely to just spin their wheels, because they simply don't want them going elsewhere where they might compete...

Sounds to me like they aren't paying enough for talent if they can afford to leave it unused. Very similar to landlords being able to afford leaving a property empty rather than lowering the rent.

Re: Debate over 'fake work' and 'lazy management' in tech industry

#113

Post by matrix_overload »

snide wrote: post #19

Maybe I'm missing a core piece from this article, but it leaves out quite a bit of agency from the employee. I never understand pieces like this that rail against employers, but also seem to cast the employees in such a helpless light. If you're stuck in a situation where you're not getting great feedback on what to work on, that seems like a great time to just build things and experiment on your own. Do it within th…

Tried that. Your colleagues, and some managers, will immediately see you as a threat (how dare you have something to show when we don't) and will start treating you as a personal enemy. Sabotaging every thing you are trying to do, trying to blame you for every failure, and overloading you with completely useless work.

Nope, fish rots from the head. If everyone around you is useless, there are good reasons for it, and best you can do is find another place where these reasons won't apply.

Re: Debate over 'fake work' and 'lazy management' in tech industry

#114

Post by shusson »

throwaway1492 wrote: post #70
eysquared wrote: post #32

I’m seeing a lot of comments that seem to point to first line management as the problem here. In my own anecdotal experience, I’ve seen a lot more “fake work” come from listless leadership that lacks a true vision for the product. That rolls down to Product Managers that can’t prioritize features and don’t really understand what they’re building or why. Ultimately this leads to engineers and members of the team worki…

> Gut from the top if you want to get rid of the problem. It’s not the L5 engineer or the first line manager that’s holding any product back. I tend to agree but there's a real danger in leaving engineers to their own devices. I know this will be downvoted, but software engineers are the worst at planning their own work. The vast majority will just go off and do wtf ever they want. There really has to be guard rails…

> software engineers are the worst at planning their own work. The vast majority will just go off and do wtf ever they want

There are successful companies that have senior engineers managing/leading teams and still coding. This idea that software engineers need managers and that somehow being a software engineer means only coding (IC) is a pattern that early American tech companies went with. Originally I imagine it was to reward and empower engineers, these days I feel like more and more companies use it to control and manipulate engineers.

Re: Debate over 'fake work' and 'lazy management' in tech industry

#115

Post by manicennui »

atomicnumber3 wrote: post #76
throwaway1492 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Gut from the top if you want to get rid of the problem. It’s not the L5 engineer or the first line manager that’s holding any product back. I tend to agree but there's a real danger in leaving engineers to their own devices. I know this will be downvoted, but software engineers are the worst at planning their own work. The vast majority will just go off and do wtf ever they want. There really has to be guard rails…

>The vast majority I really don't think this is the case. I think there are a lot of less-experienced developers who will be very sidetracked, yes. But anyone even close to senior should have developed an intuition of when it is time to build carefully and when it is time to "just ship". (this isn't just "go slow at first and then haul ass to hit deadline", you can switch between these two mindsets several times even…

Senior engineers are often good at turning boring problems into more interesting problems (to them) by doing unnecessary rewrites or introducing new technology.

Re: Debate over 'fake work' and 'lazy management' in tech industry

#116

Post by rogerkirkness »

rqtwteye wrote: post #111
abeppu wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's also an issue that execs can create the appearance of being busy (and may indeed spend a ridiculous number of hours in meetings) but it can be hard to see if they're contributing anything valuable. I was at a startup which over a period of years repeatedly had new execs come in, claim that something was wrong with our planning or goal-setting process, "restart" the whole thing in a way which was virtu…

It's always a good sign when an exec comes in and lists things that are working well at the moment.

This is how you do high quality skip levels:

1. What is going well?

2. What is not going well?

3. What can be done to improve?

Pretty much know what's going on. Anyone who BSes the second question needs to be layered or leave.

Re: Debate over 'fake work' and 'lazy management' in tech industry

#117

Post by cmrdporcupine »

ticviking wrote: post #110
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider that companies like these can afford to pay $300k USD precisely to just spin their wheels, because they simply don't want them going elsewhere where they might compete...

That’s been my theory for a long time now. They don’t care what devs do as long as nobody else can hire them

This equation changed this year, I think. The pendulum is swinging the other way. I suspect we'll see a lot more PIPs at Google.

So glad I got out of there before it got ugly.

Re: Debate over 'fake work' and 'lazy management' in tech industry

#118

Post by wahnfrieden »

RankingMember wrote: post #24
wahnfrieden wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Managers usually fire team members rather than take the fall for the team.

I certainly wouldn't dispute the existence of those managers- I'm thankful to have had some good managers who go to bat for their direct reports.

You had managers who "took the fall" for the team? The thread is about accepting blame and sacrifice, not about advocating for people under you

Re: Debate over 'fake work' and 'lazy management' in tech industry

#119

Post by jonfw »

pc86 wrote: post #77
screye wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If someone is being paid more, this person has to work more Given the number of new grads out of college working 60+ hr weeks, I am not sure there is much leeway left for managers to 'work more'. With a manager's job, time invested and outcome is even less correlated than a code-monkey (no offense, I am one too) who at least has a slightly-less-than-linear relationship with work/time. Find yourself a good manager.…

Not sure I'd consider someone not pulling their weight on a team a "different lifestyle." I've worked for taskmasters before and it's not fun but if everyone on the team is working a full 40 hour week, and one person is working 25 or 30, it will become apparent over time and should be handled quickly.

Why would a different number of hours constitute a problem which needs to be solved?

It could obviously lead to a problem, if that person is under performing as a result, but it's not obvious that there is a linear relationship between hours worked and performance.

Re: Debate over 'fake work' and 'lazy management' in tech industry

#120

Post by TheLoafOfBread »

I subscribe to that. I left my previous job just after two months because I was put into a chair as a developer and then ... nothing for two months. I literally got paid to do nothing.

Manager? Product Manager? Team leader? They were all pretending that newly hired people does not exist. But they went great lengths to poach me from a previous job, to do nothing? I am perplexed by this behavior until today. I have quit and set up my own company where I have less money but at least I am working on something.

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