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Getting things “done” in large tech companies

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Re: Getting things “done” in large tech companies

#181

Post by NickC25 »

qznc wrote: post #133
NickC25 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was a PM before I went off and started my own non-tech company. My definition of a good PM is someone who can champion both customers/users and developers concurrently, while sticking to the company's value prop and competitive edge. In some cases, it's boiling down the needs of the customer into something achievable before sales gets in the way with over-promising and under-delivering. In other cases, it's telling t…

Trying to make it more like a checklist: * Do the developers know what the customers want? * Do the customers have realistic expectations? If yes to both, then the PM in between is doing a good job. Bonus points if higher management is aware of that.

Exactly.

A good PM should effectively get out in front of the sales team to make sure customers/users feel heard and understood, and also to communicate to the customers/users what is and isn't possible within a given period of time.

A good PM should also know how to communicate a "no" to anyone in the business cycle from anyone else in the business cycle. Their job is effectively to be the firewall/filter from one team to another.

No, customers don't want Feature XYZ even though engineering wants to build it No, engineering can't build Feature ABC even if a customer wants it No, sales cannot promise Feature 123 to customer, especially without checking with engineering first. No, executives can't force engineering to focus on the CMO's pet project, or force sales to hit numbers if the product sucks or isn't what the market wants

And so on

Re: Getting things “done” in large tech companies

#182

Post by mateo411 »

conrs wrote: post #144
whstl wrote: post #3

I don't disagree with the article, but after working in big tech, two HN startups, a couple unicorns and others, in two continents, I don't really find this too actionable. In the last ten years (and even in the 20-people HN startups), the day to day work of engineers has become so incredibly specialised and divorced from the needs of decision-makers and the customers that there is almost nothing I can do to influenc…

I've had a very hard time with the Product Manager discipline. From the books and podcasts like Lenny's, it all makes perfect sense, but it seems like in practice it is as you described - they've inserted themselves in between and often don't represent either side well. It's lead me to develop product management skills myself, which are honestly incredibly useful in avoiding wasted effort. But it does make me wonder…

One of the functions Product Management is to be an intermediary between the business/sales and Engineering. Sometimes you might have issues working with Product Management, but you don't want to interact and build features for a bunch of stressed sales folks, so they can make their quota.

It would be very hard for a company to build a sustainable business that way.

Re: Getting things “done” in large tech companies

#183

Post by akomtu »

Sometimes I think that the big tech corporations are soul extraction factories that only incidentally vacuum money. This article says, in essense, that millions of very bright college grads in the US fly to big tech hoping to make the world a better place, but instead their skill of recognizing truth gets perverted by corporate politics, and the sum of their work simply manufactures and monetizes addiction.

Re: Getting things “done” in large tech companies

#184

Post by _ea1k »

pydry wrote: post #23
_fat_santa wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At least the pay is alright. I don't know why but this part of your comment really stuck out to me. I have a whole different take on getting stuff done specifically at big tech companies, mainly that being "stagnant" is not such a bad thing at a place like Google or MS. Say you're like an L-whatever at one of these big tech companies and you bring home say $300k/yr. You don't live in a HCOL so the pay is astronomic…

That sounds great if you can ride that into retirement but if you get laid off and you start having to justify your existence again in the job market I dont think "I took home $300k for doing nothing and then got laid off" is a great sell.

I don't think the point was literally doing nothing, but rather doing solid technical work with relatively low business value.

This person could move on to do solid technical work with higher business value at a place that used their skills more effectively.

The former isn't great, but it is a reality at many big companies.

Re: Getting things “done” in large tech companies

#185

Post by antognini »

al_borland wrote: post #105

While I understand the point being made, and have experienced this reality first hand, I still object to it. I have seen countless projects spun up, the company declares the problem solved (done), and then the team is disbanded to go work on new problems. What happens next? The product they built has issues, new features are needed, the rest of the company keeps evolving… all the while, there is no one to actually ma…

> If I can use an air conditioning metaphor, it is more efficient to set the house at a temp and keep it there, than to keep turning the AC off, letting the house heat up, and trying to bring it back down from 90.

While I get what you're trying to say, if I can be a bit pedantic this is not more efficient thermodynamically. It is more efficient to let the house heat up and then bring its temperature back down.

Re: Getting things “done” in large tech companies

#186

Post by cubefox »

gwbas1c wrote: post #171
cubefox wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would guess underengineering (quick and dirty solutions) leads to a lot more tech debt in expectation than overengineering.

It's neither: Underengineering will lead to unmaintainable spaghetti code. Overengineering will also lead to unmaintainable code, but it's more like lasagna.

I'd rather live in an overengineered house than in an underengineered one.

Re: Getting things “done” in large tech companies

#187

Post by scrubs »

You want interesting? You want insight? Let's talk to the author here in 20 years, and review this question. In addition to operationally defining "get things done" and our own 20 years we can learn about,

- why done means "some manager is happy" is just a silly definition leading to notions of things like customers, SQA/TQA etc..

- impediments to getting things done, which must be solved first

- on grit: sometimes you gotta hang tough and do the right thing when the people you're helping are morons and reject what you do

- towards defining what "value" is

etc.

Re: Getting things “done” in large tech companies

#188

Post by nitwit005 »

johngossman wrote: post #57

While I generally agree with this, I’d add one thing: to understand what your managers want, you really need to understand the business. At the highest level, how does your company make money, or at least think it’s going to make money? What other things does the company value? It’s surprising how often I find developers who don’t know, either because they aren’t curious, are too busy to learn, or (surprisingly commo…

> to understand what your managers want, you really need to understand the business.

That assumes your manager, and the managers above them, understand the business, and care. This is often not the case.

Re: Getting things “done” in large tech companies

#189

Post by bluefirebrand »

kunzhi wrote: post #173
whstl wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even in the most dysfunctional organizations you can't spend 10 years doing nothing. GP was achieving what their bosses asked of them. It's just that it didn't align with their own professional goals of improving the product they work on.

Sorry, 20 years experience of actually doing things here. I've spent 10 of those years now doing consulting with everyone from 3-person pre-series-A startups all the way up to the Fortune 50. Let me unequivocal: you can spend 30-40 years at a company doing absolutely nothing while getting paid for it. Do not let anyone try to convince you otherwise. I've seen such much unethical bloodsucking in my career that at this…

> Let me unequivocal: you can spend 30-40 years at a company doing absolutely nothing while getting paid for it.

Maybe this was true for 40 years from the 70s to the 2000s, or maybe even the 80s-10s, but I don't think this is true anymore

Certainly not in software engineering, in a world run by JIRA

Re: Getting things “done” in large tech companies

#190

Post by FireBeyond »

whstl wrote: post #38
theK wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, fire the Product Managers?

Or at least hold them accountable for failing to get things done and communicating badly with developers. Which is something that I'm yet to see. In previous companies, as an engineering manager, I had to burn a huge amount of political capital to steer my team in the right direction, several times. My people (engineers) want to achieve their goals and create value, and the higher-ups want working software making mon…

But that can go both ways. As a PM at a previous "engineering-led" company I was on more than one occasions given a prototype that Engineering had been working on for several months (with zero Product awareness, let alone input), and told "here, shoehorn a PRD and PMF around what we already built".

In this case, the failure was my PM leadership.

I said "I'm not sure about this, I think we need to do more research and figure things out", and got called out for "not being a passionate advocate and evangelist for my products".

So I dug in, and with many iterations, and experiments with Engineering we came to something that did have some traction...

"You need to strongly hold your opinion!" (Uhhh...) "Four months ago you weren't convinced about this, now you are!"

It's all about the political capital, whomever you are. Sadly.

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