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No management needed: anti-patterns in early-stage engineering teams

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Re: No management needed: anti-patterns in early-stage engineering teams

#141

Post by nebula8804 »

bob001 wrote: post #121
nebula8804 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Privileged is too generic of a word that does not accurately describe the cohorts. There is the capital class. Occupy was after the Capital class but im not sure if they accurately zeroed in on that. Its been too long since then. Engineers were never part of that class. They work for a living while capital owns assets that work for them. Engineers were part of the "Intellectual Elite" class that made good money but w…

Having talked to Occupy Wall Street people at the time I don't think many on the ground differentiated as much as you think they did. I used a generic word because from my experience that is how they saw the world. I got told I deserved to have everything I own set on fire for saying I spent $100 on a nice dinner once. That was on the more extreme side but the sentiment seemed to not differentiate.

You missed what I said in my first paragraph. Occupy was after the capital class but they did not express it well. Looking back, a common criticism was that the movement was leaderless and thus unorganized. It was the early days of a new generation (Millennials) getting a first taste of the coming disaster their lives were going to be.

The last time there was really a movement like that was the 1999 WTO protests...more than a decade separated from Occupy and it being a pivotal moment for Gen X to realize the same lessons millennials learned in Occupy.

Since Occupy, a movement consisting of many of the same people who were disorganized in 2011 started to learn the ropes and become organized, first in the realignment of Labor (SEIU starting a "Fight for 15$" in 2012/2013), then the emergence of BLM in 2013(Yes they started back in 2013) as a result of death of Eric Garner and the Ferguson rallies among other events, to finally Sanders running in 2015 and the emergence of a semi organized movement combining various progressives groups (economic & social progressives).

This led to the whole saga in 2016 which there is plenty of youtube documentaries about to the wave election in 2018 (of which there is an amazing netflix movie about) to the showdown in 2020 between Bernie and Biden, to winding up wandering the political woods for years after Biden managed to hold on to now finally electing Mamdani as a Democratic Socialist in the largest city and the financial capital where Occupy started. From 2011 starting as a completely unorganized group to running the finance capital of America in just 15 years. Amazing!

Re: No management needed: anti-patterns in early-stage engineering teams

#143

Post by joshcsimmons »

This reads like someone who has mostly had unskilled managers. The force multiplier difference a great manager can have is immense. I worked so much harder as an IC at small startups when I knew someone had my back and cared about my growth.

Re: No management needed: anti-patterns in early-stage engineering teams

#144

Post by tptacek »

We're apparently back to making psychoanalysts out of interviewers:

   I'll dedicate a post to specific ways you can identify motivation
   during hiring, but in short, look for: the obvious one: evidence that
   they indeed exhibited these external signs of motivation (in an
   unforced way!) in past jobs; signs of grit in their career and life
   paths (how did they respond to adversity, how have they put their past
   successes or reputation on the line for some new challenge);
   intellectual curiosity in the form of hobbies, nerdy interests that
   they can talk about with passion
I'm pretty confident that this doesn't work, and that searching for "intellectual curiosoty in the form of hobbies and nerdy interests" is actually an own-goal, though it's a great way to keep your Slack channels full of zesty, nerdy, non-remunerative enterprise during the core hours everyone has to actually ship code together.

Re: No management needed: anti-patterns in early-stage engineering teams

#145

Post by AndrewKemendo »

pyrale wrote: post #27

> I know several top 1% engineers in the Valley who disengage from recruiting processes when 996 or something similar is mentioned. A few years back, on this board, 996 was something people made fun of when it was reported that some Chinese companies did it [1]. And now, the strongest claim this blog can make is that some engineers in the US would disengage from recruiting? That the issue with working on saturdays is…

Sentiment is changing

If you had enough time to look back through my post history, you’ll find back in 2021 2022 I was loud as hell Screaming from as high as I could on this board primarily that we need to be doing everything we possibly could do to unionize, build labor cooperatives etc. and absolutely nobody gave a shit.

I would get roasted every time and that’s fine I know what I’m doing.

but the attitudes are changing and while it’s frustrating to have to deal with that I feel like being a Hector on this topic is just the entry fee.

I’m extremely dissatisfied at the pace and scale and lack of leaders and organization and push back and etc… so I expect the next two years to be really really really bad and the hope is that people wake up at a large enough scale that they actually are able to affect something but I don’t have a lot of hope for that.

What I describe is not real activism imo but at least I can tell you from first hand documentation that sentiment is changing.

Re: No management needed: anti-patterns in early-stage engineering teams

#146

Post by [deleted] »

nebula8804 wrote: post #114
mothballed wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say more precisely, engineers are closer to the managerial or capital wielding class; usually the adversary of the union.

They are closer but they are not part of the class so does it really matter how close they are? Engineer still has to trade their time for wealth in the form of work. Capital class has assets that work for them.

[deleted]

Re: No management needed: anti-patterns in early-stage engineering teams

#147

Post by KittenInABox »

al_borland wrote: post #53
bob001 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until recently American engineers made a lot of money at comparatively cushy jobs. A decent engineer in the US could make 5x their equivalent in most European nations. Staff+ engineers at FAANG could make 5x that. People in a good position tend to not like rocking the boat.

Not just that, but the union would likely end up capping their salary much lower so the wealth can be spread around. How hard is the 10x engineer on the team going to work when the compensation is the same regardless? This is where people end up working multiple jobs, if they can keep up with their peers only working one day per week.

Couldn't unions just follow actors' guilds and the like where there are no salary caps?

Re: No management needed: anti-patterns in early-stage engineering teams

#148

Post by exabrial »

pyrale wrote: post #27

> I know several top 1% engineers in the Valley who disengage from recruiting processes when 996 or something similar is mentioned. A few years back, on this board, 996 was something people made fun of when it was reported that some Chinese companies did it [1]. And now, the strongest claim this blog can make is that some engineers in the US would disengage from recruiting? That the issue with working on saturdays is…

Former Alibaba employee for a season of my life. I have to be careful with my next sentences because on the internet because it's easy for people to read things in a vacuum and interpret in the worse possible way, so don't do that because thats not how I mean it. The 996 hours are not useful work. It's appearance over productivity.

Re: No management needed: anti-patterns in early-stage engineering teams

#149

Post by Aurornis »

tptacek wrote: post #144

We're apparently back to making psychoanalysts out of interviewers: I'll dedicate a post to specific ways you can identify motivation during hiring, but in short, look for: the obvious one: evidence that they indeed exhibited these external signs of motivation (in an unforced way!) in past jobs; signs of grit in their career and life paths (how did they respond to adversity, how have they put their past successes or…

10 years ago I bought into the idea of hiring for nerdy interests and hobbies as a proxy for motivation. I will say I met some excellent people during this time, but looking back those same people would have been hired anyway due to their accomplishments at companies.

> though it's a great way to keep your Slack channels full of zesty, nerdy, non-remunerative enterprise during the core hours everyone has to actually ship code together.

Spicy take, but that's 100% consistent with my experience. Hire a lot of people for their nerdy interests and hobbies and your company comms become full of chatter about nerdy interests and hobbies. Meanwhile the "boring" people who ship code and then go home to their families (or pets, or anything) are trying to ship code and get the job done.

Nerdy interests and hobbies is not a good proxy for work ability. Hiring someone primarily for nerdy interests and hobbies is probably a red herring. Focus on what matters.

Re: No management needed: anti-patterns in early-stage engineering teams

#150

Post by Aurornis »

systemtest wrote: post #10

When I read about 996-style culture I am happy to be European. That would not work here. 40 hours per week max and most engineers prefer to not work more than 32 hours a week. So you have a good work/life balance. I currently work 4 hours a week.

Don't get the wrong impression from this article. 996 is exceedingly rare in the United States.

Most engineers in the US work normal 40 hour work weeks, too.

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