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How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer

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Re: How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer

#141

Post by ikiris »

jcheng wrote: post #52
the_af wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is working in a small tech company any different?

It's SO different. It doesn't guarantee that life is good, but politics plays a much smaller role, especially at the very small sizes. If you're objectively awesome, the chances of you being sidelined for political reasons is pretty low when there are like 10 people in the whole company. It's just obvious to everyone who is delivering value and who is not. Conversely, if you're mediocre, there's nowhere to hide. Or m…

> Conversely, if you're mediocre, there's nowhere to hide.

This line alone makes me believe you've never worked at small companies.

Small companies are where people who don't have better options go to coast either voluntarily, or involuntarily.

Re: How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer

#142

Post by mcv »

getnormality wrote: post #15

It seems like this post can be summarized as follows: 1. If your manager has something in particular they want you to do, you should do it. 2. If your manager doesn't have something in particular they want you to do, you should figure out what they will want you to do in the future , and make any necessary preparations so that it will be doable when they want it. I'd say it's good advice. The only thing I would add i…

I lean towards telling your manager what they should want. Put issues that you identify as important on the table and draw attention to them. Explain why they're important. Make them benefit from your expertise by being proactive about this sort of thing.

My experience is still fairly limited with this, but I do have some successes.

Re: How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer

#143

Post by varispeed »

getnormality wrote: post #15

It seems like this post can be summarized as follows: 1. If your manager has something in particular they want you to do, you should do it. 2. If your manager doesn't have something in particular they want you to do, you should figure out what they will want you to do in the future , and make any necessary preparations so that it will be doable when they want it. I'd say it's good advice. The only thing I would add i…

If you are not a shareholder, then it is an incredibly poor advice.

1. Only do bare minimum. They key is to keep your manager unhappy, but not unhappy enough to fire you.

2. If there is nothing in particular to do, always spend time on things that will benefit you directly. For instance, upskill to find a better job, read, volunteer or even simply entertain yourself to keep mental health in check.

Before you do something, always ask yourself a question: am I paid enough to do this? Answer is almost always: No.

Re: How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer

#144

Post by varispeed »

codazoda wrote: post #31
getnormality wrote: post #15

It seems like this post can be summarized as follows: 1. If your manager has something in particular they want you to do, you should do it. 2. If your manager doesn't have something in particular they want you to do, you should figure out what they will want you to do in the future , and make any necessary preparations so that it will be doable when they want it. I'd say it's good advice. The only thing I would add i…

I read number 2 more as being ready with your own agenda items. For example, if you want to make a code base more minimal, have a POC and some details worked out for when the opportunity presents itself. If you have something prepared and then there’s a site speed, SEO, or series of bug complaints you might be able to pitch your minimal ideas as part of that solution. I like the concept but I don’t know how well it w…

> if you want to make a code base more minimal, have a POC and some details worked out for when the opportunity presents itself.

Why would you want to do that? You will not get the cream for such work. From experience, you'll never get recognition for these things, you will never get paid more and most certainly they may dump more work at you.

Taking initiative and improving something never pays off to you.

Unless you are the type of person that looks out of the window at the company car park and sees board member in a branch new Lambo and then say to yourself proudly "I did that".

Re: How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer

#145

Post by mrbombastic »

gtowey wrote: post #117
johnfn wrote: post #48

A lot of the frustration I typically hear in this camp is something like “well I shipped a huge refactor that cleaned up all the code, why does no one appreciate that?” One particular interaction that got me thinking was a few years ago listening to an acquaintance telling me how he spent months meticulously cleaning up the data pipeline and making it perfect, and how no one appreciated this work. Like, as an enginee…

Although I agree with this, I can also think of a counter example by analogy. If you're on a construction project and you, say, spend a bunch of time inspecting and maintaining the safety systems so that you prevent any accidents that seriously injure or kill someone, it's an all-too-common problem that management doesn't think you've done anything and doesn't reward the effort. It's a huge failure of management that…

Yep, maybe i am destined to never make staff but I absolutely loathe that everything must be tied to some company wide target metric that moves in a quarter or it is invisible. Many things that are worthwhile and that companies absolutely should be doing are not easily measured on a quarterly timeline.

Re: How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer

#146

Post by [deleted] »

varispeed wrote: post #143
getnormality wrote: post #15

It seems like this post can be summarized as follows: 1. If your manager has something in particular they want you to do, you should do it. 2. If your manager doesn't have something in particular they want you to do, you should figure out what they will want you to do in the future , and make any necessary preparations so that it will be doable when they want it. I'd say it's good advice. The only thing I would add i…

If you are not a shareholder, then it is an incredibly poor advice. 1. Only do bare minimum. They key is to keep your manager unhappy, but not unhappy enough to fire you. 2. If there is nothing in particular to do, always spend time on things that will benefit you directly. For instance, upskill to find a better job, read, volunteer or even simply entertain yourself to keep mental health in check. Before you do somet…

[deleted]

Re: How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer

#147

Post by esafak »

apwell23 wrote: post #112
SeanAnderson wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a staff engineer at my last employer

so am i but i got it through switching jobs. staff at 50ppl startup is just a junior. we had fresh grads with staff title.

> we had fresh grads with staff title.

Your company was doing it wrong.

Re: How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer

#148

Post by apwell23 »

esafak wrote: post #147
apwell23 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so am i but i got it through switching jobs. staff at 50ppl startup is just a junior. we had fresh grads with staff title.

> we had fresh grads with staff title. Your company was doing it wrong.

for sure. but thats not relevant to the point i was making.

Re: How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer

#149

Post by MarkMarine »

anon84873628 wrote: post #105
MarkMarine wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They helped my ideas be “lying around” and picked from when the crisis happened. In the source, the author says that when there is a crisis (an outage or similar) management will come to you and ask for help solving the problem and you should already have a solution ready to go. What I’ve found is that you should pre-seed your solutions with 1 pagers. Identify things that need to be improved, changes to solve tomorro…

Absolutely! I thought this was inherent in the Staff Engineer position in the first place, so was sort of surprised it needed to be stated in the article.

I didn’t get a manual, just sharing what works for me so the next (new) staff and principals have one more data point.

Re: How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer

#150

Post by spdionis »

maccard wrote: post #101
Aurornis wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. If your manager has something in particular they want you to do, you should do it. This point seems obvious, but it's one topics I've had to coach many early career people on over and over again. Many of the people who were having difficulties or heading toward PIP could be turned around by implementing a simple loop where they: 1. Ask their manager for the top priority, explicitly. Re-confirm the top priority e…

I completely agree. I've foudn that skill never goes away no matter how far you get. The trick is as you go higher up, spotting what comes next and knowing how to solve it faster. > They get distracted, go on side quests, take too many tasks from people who aren't their manager, or avoid their manager's requests in favor of a task they find more interesting. I had a great manager when I was fresh and I watched someon…

You can go on sidequests but first you need to accumulate sufficient credibility.
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