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Principles of Engineering Management

acjay.com

131–134 of 134 posts

Re: Principles of Engineering Management

#131
"Facilitate wellbeing"

This seems like a reasonable goal, but it is not actionable advice. "Prefer one on one meetings" is actionable, and it tends to enable you, as a manager, to facilitate wellbeing.

Forgive me for quoting my book, but this example is worth thinking about:

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Great news! You just raised a round of investment! You are flush with cash! Now you can hit those ambitious goals that you excitedly promised to your investors. In six months, you can go back and tell them that you totally crushed the numbers — not only did you make your milestones, you blew past them. The investors will be so pleased! Now we just need to tell your head of marketing to ramp up the customer acquisition! Luckily she has a genius for this kind of thing. Oh, wait, here she is now, walking over to you, about to say … … oh damn. She just quit? That was unexpected.

One-on-one meetings are useful for many things, one of which is that you aren’t likely to be ambushed by a surprise resignation. There are many personal issues that might cause someone to quit, and these will never, ever be mentioned in a group meeting. Burnout? A divorce? A spouse with a job in a different city? A child failing in school? A parent who is dying? Interest in other kinds of work? No one shouts that stuff in a group meeting, but they might tell you when you are one-on-one.

Re: Principles of Engineering Management

#132
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Put engineers on-call instead of hiring support staff Note that in some jurisdictions (including the USA) this is problematic from a labor law perspective.

I really wish. But it is the standard. 90% of jobs I see involve building some online service. On call is as part of the job as writing code is.

I didn't say you can't put engineers on-call. But if you do that there are labor laws you need to comply with regarding overtime and suchlike. You can't just pay someone a salary then say "oh yeah you need to wear this pager at the weekend".

I also acknowledge that failure to comply with labor laws and other regulations is widespread in the US, whether knowingly or though ignorance.

Re: Principles of Engineering Management

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good feedback here. Do you have any example “smaller forums” that you have found particularly helpful?

teams at work is a good one: https://bunch.ai/slack-community

Is this something you use personally?

Re: Principles of Engineering Management

#134
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really wish. But it is the standard. 90% of jobs I see involve building some online service. On call is as part of the job as writing code is.

I didn't say you can't put engineers on-call. But if you do that there are labor laws you need to comply with regarding overtime and suchlike. You can't just pay someone a salary then say "oh yeah you need to wear this pager at the weekend". I also acknowledge that failure to comply with labor laws and other regulations is widespread in the US, whether knowingly or though ignorance.

> You can't just pay someone a salary then say "oh yeah you need to wear this pager at the weekend".

It seems to be the case in every job I've had. Maybe they ARE adhering to some laws but at the end of the day I get paid a salary, and I have on-call evenings+weekends which I don't select. I can swap shifts, but it's my responsibility to find a substitute. I average 4-5 shifts/months.

As far as I know, all of FANGetc is like this. It may be the case that labor laws permit this. Still miserable.

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