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Brilliant Jerks in Engineering

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Re: Brilliant Jerks in Engineering

#141

Post by john_moscow »

maehwasu wrote: post #113

Jerk is often just a paraphrase for "mildly autistic." I've had really good results hiring "jerks" and actually taking the time to understand them as people, and then put them into positions to succeed. Calling out others as jerks is very often a power play to gain social leverage over people who aren't good at that game.

It really depends on your business model. Are you selling results, or expectations/head count? Is the engineering work actually vital to company success or is it mostly about maintaining a stable product that doesn't need much change? So what may work for some businesses, would raise terrible issues with others.

Re: Brilliant Jerks in Engineering

#142

Post by MBCook »

vikascoder wrote: post #136
MBCook wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is certainly a problem I’ve seen. One employee was hated by almost all the technical people because he was a jackass and couldn’t work with others. He wanted everything done his way and wasn’t interested in the opinions of others (except as they may bolster how great his ideas were). The truth is he wasn’t very good, at least not to the degree he tried to present. Some of management loved him because he worked s…

There are Jerks and Non-Jerks. Also Brilliant Folks and Averae Joes(?). I dont know why we tend to club two different qualities and consider them as a single entity. The question should be, "This employee is a jerk, what to do about it" rather than, "This employee is a brilliant jerk, should we tolerate it". There are enough brilliant people who are excellent human beings with no failings and plenty of mediocre bulli…

The problem is non-brilliant jerks are usually a lot easier to get rid of. They can be replaced.

When the jerk is brilliant and necessary (or at least perceived so) management can be much more hesitant. ‘Yes he’s horrible but we can’t operate without him’ or ‘we don’t have the slack to pick up that work’ or ‘it will take too long to train someone new right now’.

They get extra excuses that a medium or low performer wouldn’t.

Re: Brilliant Jerks in Engineering

#143

Post by sliverstorm »

fhood wrote: post #57
mars4rp wrote: post #53

I am an Alice and I need some feedback as why is it a bad thing! I work in an environment when very small percentage of people know what are they doing. and people that know what is going on do not speak up because they are frustrated and know probably nothing will change. in this environment I do speak up whenever I get a chance and I've been in arguments with managers 3 4 level above me. everybody else wants to be…

You are wrong because the vast majority of people take criticism personally. It turns out that when you tell people they are wrong and present them with reasons they are wrong, a surprising number of people double down. I'm sure you have heard this before, but you have to make them think it was their idea. Edit Source: I make this mistake all the god damn time, and never realize it until the person breaks and finally…

It also really depends on your delivery. You can shoot down ideas and make counter-arguments in friendly & supportive ways, or smug & arrogant ways.

I can see why you'd think that, I made the same mistake earlier, but see there's this problem here...

vs

No, that's obviously wrong, why would you even think that? Let me show you the right way...

Re: Brilliant Jerks in Engineering

#144

Post by cwilkes »

Veelox wrote: post #107
mars4rp wrote: post #53

I am an Alice and I need some feedback as why is it a bad thing! I work in an environment when very small percentage of people know what are they doing. and people that know what is going on do not speak up because they are frustrated and know probably nothing will change. in this environment I do speak up whenever I get a chance and I've been in arguments with managers 3 4 level above me. everybody else wants to be…

It might be helpful to change your style a little to accomplish the same goal with less conflict. Always always give people a way to save face, this applies doubly in meetings. If people feel like the choices are being right or being responsible for an error they will fight to be right. If you give them a third option (past inexperience, blame someone that left, poor testing, changed requirements) that doesn't hurt t…

I would change “save face” to more like empathize with the other person. Discover why some choices were taken.

Nearly most decisions that seem wrong were taken due to time constraints. Something had to get out the door. Software can be patched later.

So instead of saying “Bob’s team isn’t producing a good product” look into why. Maybe “Bobs team was in crunch time due to 3 people leaving the group and decided to use their own queuing service instead of working with IT to use the company one and that’s causing some problems that I think we can address by spending time on X”

Re: Brilliant Jerks in Engineering

#145

Post by john_moscow »

_xhok wrote: post #128

If someone does something wrong, Alice tells them plainly, and they get offended, whose fault is it? Some people say it's Alice' fault for offending; some say it's the person's fault for doing it wrong in the first place, and for subsequently getting offended. I think we're conflating is and ought here. It's probably a fact of reality that most people aren't happy to be told they're wrong. But arguably people ought t…

>They've found product/market fit, they know what they have to do, they just have to do it, and the correct 10,000 characters of code input into a computer would solve all their business problems.

Or they can get a huge team of pleasant and great-looking people that will leave a very good impression and raise tons of capital to keep burning through cash for years without fixing any of those problems. As long as the investors are OK with this, people will keep on using it.

Re: Brilliant Jerks in Engineering

#146

Post by auggierose »

valuearb wrote: post #125
mars4rp wrote: post #53

I am an Alice and I need some feedback as why is it a bad thing! I work in an environment when very small percentage of people know what are they doing. and people that know what is going on do not speak up because they are frustrated and know probably nothing will change. in this environment I do speak up whenever I get a chance and I've been in arguments with managers 3 4 level above me. everybody else wants to be…

You can't be a superior engineering contributor unless you are honest with everyone, from superiors to peers, to reports. The key is how you present information. I just proactively scheduled a 1-1 with a Sr VP three levels above me for later this month to cover an important topic. This is what I want to tell them: Our core customer facing application is shit. The contractors who wrote it cut tons of corners and the m…

I can't see this meeting ending well. Better in parallel look for a job opportunity with less than three layers of management above you.

Re: Brilliant Jerks in Engineering

#147

Post by DavidWoof »

_xhok wrote: post #128

If someone does something wrong, Alice tells them plainly, and they get offended, whose fault is it? Some people say it's Alice' fault for offending; some say it's the person's fault for doing it wrong in the first place, and for subsequently getting offended. I think we're conflating is and ought here. It's probably a fact of reality that most people aren't happy to be told they're wrong. But arguably people ought t…

Alice is so vaguely portrayed here that I think it's impossible to draw conclusions, let alone call her a brilliant jerk.

As you mention, pointing out when things are wrong isn't being a jerk, it's doing your damn job. "Having little empathy for others" isn't describing behavior, so it's meaningless here. OK, "browbeating" might be bad, but what does that mean anyway? Is she repeating the issue a month later after the problem got ignored, or is she micromanaging it, or what? There's no indication here. Whatever it means, Equifax could have used some browbeating on security issues.

There's no indication about why people try to avoid working with her. Does that refer to other developers, or does HR try to avoid her they go around asking for donations for girl scouts or something? I don't see a real problem with the latter. If somebody had reputation for pointing out problems in code, I wouldn't be avoiding her, I'd be seeking her out.

Re: Brilliant Jerks in Engineering

#148

Post by csours »

alexashka wrote: post #81
csours wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should everything be terrible forever? The article is talking about people who are systematically bad for organizations, not people who have a bad day sometimes.

Things can be terrible because some people don't know how to act. Things can also be terrible because some people don't know how to do the job properly. It is a lot easier to find a yes-man/woman than a brilliant anyone. Companies are ruined by mediocrity far more than they're ruined by 'brilliant jerks' bullying the company into non-existence. Who'd you rather have as your surgeon - a brilliant jerk the nurses have…

> "a brilliant jerk the nurses have to put up with, or a nice guy/lady who screws up sometimes but will feel really bad about it afterwards and will write you a hand-written apology."

The brilliant jerk will have set a precedent in the operating room that leads to people not questioning their decisions, even when they are wrong, leading to uncaught mistakes.

The most brilliant jerk will sometimes slip up. [0]

See also Crew Resource Management: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crew_resource_management

0. https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/book/the-gloss...

Re: Brilliant Jerks in Engineering

#149

Post by draw_down »

Jerks are a problem that everyone feels comfortable discussing because they're jerks! We all don't like jerks. But at least in my experience, not only can you not be a jerk (as it should be), but you can't really say negative things at all without it reflecting on you personally. So keep everything super anodyne, anything you say negative should be extremely blunted in its phrasing, mentioned almost offhand. Don't fancy yourself a truth-teller, just go along and get along.

Re: Brilliant Jerks in Engineering

#150

Post by draw_down »

1001101 wrote: post #63

Google has an interesting philosophy on this: """ Cosgrove asked them to elaborate on the idea: "exile the knaves, but fight for the divas." Rosenberg said maintaining Google's collaborative culture requires weeding out and getting rid of the knaves: Employees who lack integrity, who are jealous of their peers, take credit for others' work, and think only of themselves. "Nice humble engineers have a way of becoming i…

Sounds like a jerk is just a diva we don't like. Which, you know, that's fine, but starting off with the pejorative "jerk" inherently indicates they are not a person worth valuing.
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