Are most corporations preformative? (yes)
Ask HN: Are most corporate SWE jobs performative?
191–200 of 307 posts
Re: Ask HN: Are most corporate SWE jobs performative?
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s an anti pattern of management - the 1-1 shouldn’t be a status update. There are times you want to brief your boss on things that are important to them, but if you’re just going over your tickets, that’s a waste of time (unless you’re using that time to get technical guidance on your tickets). There are lots of lousy managers out there, and you can’t control that - but you can set the agenda of your 1-1 yoursel…
I lead teams of Data Engineers, Data Scientists, and Platform Engineers. My direct reports drive their 1:1s; from the need to have them in the first place to the agenda when we do. We have standups for our team as well as the larger team and we are in constant contact with one another throughout each day via IM. Why would we need to repeat the same shit in a 1:1? I consider their 1:1s THEIR meeting. If they want it,…
> if they don't and want to work, great.
Interesting thought, I had never considered cancelling if they don’t have anything. Thanks for that.
My thought was always, “I want to give everyone that time no matter what, and if they don’t have anything, then I go to a list of questions I have for every 1-1 if we have time. Stuff like, “how are you feeling with ${latest_company_happenings}?” or “how do you think the team is doing?” or “are you interested in the work these days, or burnt out?” or ask them about some problem I’m trying to solve for the team and how they’d approach it.
Ala: https://randsinrepose.com/archives/the-update-the-vent-and-t...
Re: Ask HN: Are most corporate SWE jobs performative?
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
I used to be a believer in daily standup plus bi-weekly sprint planning, but lost faith with the (possibly cargo cult) methodology I was trying to follow. Adding 1:1 in with that would be far too frequent, and probably far too little real content in each meeting. Did productivity actually change dispensing with those meetings? Probably not by much, it's hard to say empirically because task estimation was always a wil…
The general academic lab model is still the best I've seen and experienced. People sign up to present at the weekly lab meeting if they have something to present, 1 person per meeting. There's maybe 10 mins of quick bringing things up at the beginning of lab meeting before the presenter starts, if you have something short to share or general announcements. Specific project groups will have their own direct meetings o…
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Re: Ask HN: Are most corporate SWE jobs performative?
#194Most corporate jobs are performative, period.
Re: Ask HN: Are most corporate SWE jobs performative?
#195The idea that 1:1s with devs adding very little value to the team is… pretty wild. If you think 1:1s don’t add value, your slice of the reality of what even modestly sized teams need to operate smoothly is so far from my experience I don’t think we’re likely to bridge the divide. But to make a good faith effort: what is the job you think line managers are supposed to be doing, if not listening to devs, going to meeti…
With most of my managers 1:1 have always been a way for them to catch up with what I’ve been working on, despite doing a standup every single day so that the team knows what each other is doing.
That’s you, cool no problem I would like chatting with you just to catch a breath.
But there is Mallory who will tell on everyone on the team some dirty stuff.
There is Karen that is trying to undermine Louise because she has bigger boobs than her - yeah she won’t tell it outright but each one on one she would try to indicate she is not doing great job.
There is Henry who thinks he is a fucking rockstar genius implementing features 10X faster than all the pleb and demands rise every freaking one on one but you know that every feature he did had to be scrapped and replaced.
Oh did I mention you cannot just fire them but you have to kind of like of make them continue working. Maybe you can shift someone to other projects, maybe after 3 months or 6 months of documenting them being an asshole you can fire them.
Obviously you can’t offend any of them because ten you will get fired much faster.
Re: Ask HN: Are most corporate SWE jobs performative?
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have standup every day so my manager knows what I am doing so my 1:1s are: - General sentiment about problems with the team and company that bother me but that I don’t have a solution to yet or decided how to bring it up with the team. - Fun / interesting projects I unilaterally decided to dedicate my working hours towards that I never asked permission to work on. Sometimes it ends up being something cool that my m…
So basically useless unless you need to schedule a meeting with them
That's assuming an awful lot, mainly about how we no longer need human connection or context with other people to be able to succeed as a team. When I took over as an engineering manager, it took a couple of 1:1s per person but actually being interested in them as fellow humans made a huge difference. One of my reports, a former teammate who I really liked and got along well with, was carrying serious depression around every day. Learning that gave me a chance to help him out, discuss my experience so he knew he wasn't alone and let me make space for him to breathe.
Which made him a more productive cog in the machine fellow human-bot!
Re: Ask HN: Are most corporate SWE jobs performative?
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
In cybernetics, the first kind of people are devoted to System 1, and the others are devoted to Systems 2-5. Any functioning organization has all 5 systems. Imagine a school with only teachers and no administration. Who hires the teachers, who collects tuition, who schedules classes? Even if the teachers could do those things, now the teachers have to do the administration, which takes away from teaching--and the tea…
The doers can fire the system 5 people.
The doers can't remove the bureaucracy-focused people, because doing so would run counter to Pournelle's Iron Law; it's like crossing the streams. Let's instead replace bureaucrats with AI, since the same pressures that drive bureaucracies toward self-preservation might instead push AI systems toward AGI .
Re: Ask HN: Are most corporate SWE jobs performative?
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
I lead teams of Data Engineers, Data Scientists, and Platform Engineers. My direct reports drive their 1:1s; from the need to have them in the first place to the agenda when we do. We have standups for our team as well as the larger team and we are in constant contact with one another throughout each day via IM. Why would we need to repeat the same shit in a 1:1? I consider their 1:1s THEIR meeting. If they want it,…
> if they don't and want to work, great. Interesting thought, I had never considered cancelling if they don’t have anything. Thanks for that. My thought was always, “I want to give everyone that time no matter what, and if they don’t have anything, then I go to a list of questions I have for every 1-1 if we have time. Stuff like, “how are you feeling with ${latest_company_happenings}?” or “how do you think the team i…
Empowerment of your team is the single most impactful thing you can do for them. This is one small way of making them feel that they truly have autonomy.
Re: Ask HN: Are most corporate SWE jobs performative?
#199> Like the majority of the team is doing useless stuff that management thinks is impressive This is arrogant thinking typical of developers. Most developers I have talked to (including myself 10 years ago) thinks that they or their friends who agree with them about all sorts of random code quirks are the only one that does work and "carries" the team, and everyone else's work is largely useless. The reality is that a…
Twitter had laid off like 75%+ of staff and everyone, including on this site, was convinced it would crash and burn, yet it's still working. Explain?
Twitter had been around for a long time and could very well be considered feature complete and run with a skeleton crew.
They don't own any mission critical software and in the days it went down after Elon started pulling the plugs, the only thing that changed was the people going to reddit to complain about stability.
Re: Ask HN: Are most corporate SWE jobs performative?
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unfortunately, real-world bureaucratic orgs of any meaningful size or age always include a third type of person - dedicated neither to the org's goals, nor to the org itself. In general, one should speak more circumspectly about that third type.
> There was a point of equilibrium in any organization’s middle management, a fulcrum of responsibility that remained still while the upper and lower ranks of the bureaucracy moved around it. Tyren knew from experience that a shrewd official could find this pivot-point within the org chart and, once entrenched, enjoy near-complete autonomy with almost no responsibility. From "Son of a Liche", by J. Zachary Pike.
Do you think this pivot-middle idea is generalizable to other domains?
What is the logic or context that allows them such latitude and autonomy or to even conceptually exist at all? Are they specialized in such a way that they are qualified and expected to focus on higher-quality problems or difficult to hire for or they maybe dont have to deal directly with people in some sense
How does one become sufficiently shrewd to capitalize or orient oneself towards that Golidlocks zone?