151–160 of 289 posts
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I think even worse than that are Product Managers who want to run their own developers using Scrum.....just no.....
I prefer those because at least a product manager is busy. Scrum Masters are so often bored to tears and end up generating all sorts of meetings as a result.
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There were a lot of videos in this style from the twitter people. Turns out they run fine on 20 % remaining workforce.
Surely this is because Elon is there picking up the slack for the missing 80%.
Yeah I think Elon is almost picking up that slack. But I doubt anyone could find him at an yoga class
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> As the money got bigger we got more grifters / professional manager types. That. Same for all the decorative functions with low value added. > make management non technical This is a big flag to me. I know this is a devisive opinion, but I don't think you can do a good job at managing people without knowing their core business. > making higher level IC engineering roles being “above” coding. There is little that re…
> But I've worked with quite a number of managers, PMs and TPMs who talk down to me the moment I tell something even remotely technical, like I'm some sort of amateurish geek only tolerated at the adult's table. You're working with the wrong people.
I have a long held belief that engineering managers are mostly a scam, and are actually just overpaid scrum masters. This is from working at some top companies
Silicon Valley used to have engineering managers who managed engineering. As the money got bigger we got more grifters / professional manager types. First thing they do is rebrand middle management as “leaders” and the other thing they do is make management non technical. This has even bled into making higher level IC engineering roles being “above” coding. “Staff engineers don’t code, they set high level architectur…
I am also not a particular fan of excessive management structure, but as an architect I have to completely reject your proposition that non-coding roles are toxic or excess. I work with highly brilliant minds, with coding and non coding architects and one thing is very clear: the non coding architects are contribute more value to the end product than the coding principle engineers. And why not: they are a specialization which focus on one part of the engineering while a traditional coder focuses on another part.
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Yes, at least among my colleagues - both in the US and India offices.
> India Ok, so, I have a friend who works big tech and he has no chill for Indians (SWEs, PMs, etc). Is there a grain of truth to the “lazy Indian” trope? I always assumed, especially first generation immigrants, would be working balls-to-the-wall. Am I wrong? Is there some sort of incentive misalignment in the H1B program? Is it cultural (e.g. like “island time”, which I’ve learned is at least partially attributable…
There was a bit of a communication barrier with some of the Indian colleagues, depending on their skill level, but as a rule they worked hard and were approachable.
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Silicon Valley used to have engineering managers who managed engineering. As the money got bigger we got more grifters / professional manager types. First thing they do is rebrand middle management as “leaders” and the other thing they do is make management non technical. This has even bled into making higher level IC engineering roles being “above” coding. “Staff engineers don’t code, they set high level architectur…
I moved over to Silicon Valley fairly late (in 2018), and I was immediately shocked at how frowned upon... even disincentivized technical knowledge was at the management level. To the extent that people started removing hard numbers from their presentations and replacing them with smiley faces. Needless to say, I left and that company TANKED. I think Steve Jobs said something about A people versus C people... well he…
firing entire levels of middle management seems to be a fashion these days, but from experience in my org it has been counterproductive. my current manager now has >60 direct reports so can’t even find the time to handle each of our basic hr tasks, let alone provide any leadership. in theory i can see the board salivating to pretend they are elon but in practice it’s a dysfunctional nightmare. plus it’s bad for ic mo…
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Silicon Valley used to have engineering managers who managed engineering. As the money got bigger we got more grifters / professional manager types. First thing they do is rebrand middle management as “leaders” and the other thing they do is make management non technical. This has even bled into making higher level IC engineering roles being “above” coding. “Staff engineers don’t code, they set high level architectur…
Well with size comes management. Management of money and architecture. I am also not a particular fan of excessive management structure, but as an architect I have to completely reject your proposition that non-coding roles are toxic or excess. I work with highly brilliant minds, with coding and non coding architects and one thing is very clear: the non coding architects are contribute more value to the end product t…
I reject your rejection. In my experience any architect/staff/whatever high level ivory tower guy worth anything will look for every technical opportunity they can and will often bemoan the fact that at their level most of their day involves meetings and powerpoint when they'd really like to be digging into the code.
If a sr. technical leadership position seems happy to have their day full of PowerPoints and committee meetings the most they are ever going to contribute to their field is an amusing/horrifying story on TheDailyWTF.
I see all the comments about how managers are necessary. Let’s assume we can automate more and more HR tasks, what are managers required for besides that?