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The Ask

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Re: The Ask

#21

Post by jimbokun »

subygan wrote: post #4

I hate middle management as much as the next guy. but in this case, specifically. who are these career people thinking about orgs and their movement in years? especially in a job economy where employees are expected to be laid off despite "staggering profits". It feels completely orthogonal to the environment I exist in. is there room for lifers in big orgs? without getting the boot or worrying about the boot?

Relationship oriented workers keep their network as they move from job to job. Never know who you might be able to help or be helped by in the future.

Re: The Ask

#22

Post by cweagans »

danjl wrote: post #9
cweagans wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a theory. How close does the following describe you? * You're an engineer with 3-6 years of experience in a primarily IC role * Maybe you've done some tech lead stuff, but you've never actively worked in engineering management. * You feel that management (and HR for some reason?) is constantly in the way of you getting stuff done, and that your life would be easier if you could simply decline every meeting and…

I have 35+ years experience as a manager and engineer at large enterprise tech companies (what the kids now call FAANG, though some of the company names were different back then), and was a Founder, CEO and CTO at a $7M VC funded company and several other "differently-funded" startups.

Ha, excellent. I think you'll appreciate this then: https://imgflip.com/i/aswdth

I had a 50/50 chance of guessing which side of the bell curve you were on and I was wrong. :)

Re: The Ask

#23

Post by atherton94027 »

cweagans wrote: post #7
danjl wrote: post #6

Harsh take: AI should replace most middle management. It is the easiest part of an organization to replace. The people making things should mostly communicate about company strategy, cross-team issues, and job requirements with an AI. There should be a handful of high-level strategy on top of the AI. The AI should have access to all the documents for the company. The middle management should be put in a spaceship alo…

I have a theory. How close does the following describe you? * You're an engineer with 3-6 years of experience in a primarily IC role * Maybe you've done some tech lead stuff, but you've never actively worked in engineering management. * You feel that management (and HR for some reason?) is constantly in the way of you getting stuff done, and that your life would be easier if you could simply decline every meeting and…

Middle-management as we knew it at the turn of the 2010s is probably gone forever. You don't need to coordinate many many teams as you used to. Same as huge frontend team with dedicated support for graphql, etc. AI made most of that redundant.

By extension we're going to need a lot less middle managers as coordination problems decrease.

As for the point I think you're trying to make, the problem with middle management and other chokepoints in general (like PM teams) is that often they become an antipattern. They soak in all the information and then dole it out parsimoniously, so the typical experience as an IC is to be barely able to see the full picture

Re: The Ask

#24

Post by chipsrafferty »

subygan wrote: post #4

I hate middle management as much as the next guy. but in this case, specifically. who are these career people thinking about orgs and their movement in years? especially in a job economy where employees are expected to be laid off despite "staggering profits". It feels completely orthogonal to the environment I exist in. is there room for lifers in big orgs? without getting the boot or worrying about the boot?

Well, nobody said lifers. But you can't really get a management job without already having management experience. You typically have to be promoted internally, not just go look for a management job elsewhere with no experience.

Re: The Ask

#26

Post by busterarm »

andrewmutz wrote: post #12
danjl wrote: post #6

Harsh take: AI should replace most middle management. It is the easiest part of an organization to replace. The people making things should mostly communicate about company strategy, cross-team issues, and job requirements with an AI. There should be a handful of high-level strategy on top of the AI. The AI should have access to all the documents for the company. The middle management should be put in a spaceship alo…

I don't agree with this. But I also found the article really unsatisfying. The idea that middle management should spend enormous amounts of time building relationships because other middle managers got vibes that one day it might be useful is insane. I think the article represents the worst of big, slow tech bureaucracies. Replacing middle management with AI would not work, but using AI to avoid managers needing to h…

> The idea that middle management should spend enormous amounts of time building relationships because other middle managers got vibes that one day it might be useful is insane. I think the article represents the worst of big, slow tech bureaucracies.

If your org has anywhere north of 100 engineers across separate teams, intelligence gathering and relationship/trust-building is the only way to effectively do work that crosses the boundary of your team's area of responsibility. It's also the only way to protect your team from stepping headfirst into hot bullshit cooked up by clueless product managers, junior executives and other engineering teams who've unilaterally decided your area of responsibility is in their critical path.

> Instead of two middle managers needing to do 1:1s with no clear need for years because other middle managers got vibes

This isn't actually how this happens in practice. These 1:1s happen after their teams consistently have to share ownership over something or their work conflicts. It's more of a standup saying what your team is doing and what you're concerned about than a typical 1:1. You also calibrate the frequency as needed. For most of these it's a QBR but for some teams this will be monthly or even weekly. It's not "because vibes".

Re: The Ask

#27

Post by cik »

I've been enjoying Rands for what feels like 2 decades now. Spot on, over and over again. Great advice few newbies, great reminders for people who have been there before - just generally great.

I take this as generally focusing on the what ask (and hence give) becomes. But it reminds me of the business classic Theory of Constraints. To me the laserlike focus, or attempt to get to singular clarity is the point; in this highlight we're seeing the notion of software skills rather then a data-based approach, as it's a soft problem.

Both matter. I appreciate this reminder.

Re: The Ask

#28

Post by sedimannapoleon »

atherton94027 wrote: post #23
cweagans wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a theory. How close does the following describe you? * You're an engineer with 3-6 years of experience in a primarily IC role * Maybe you've done some tech lead stuff, but you've never actively worked in engineering management. * You feel that management (and HR for some reason?) is constantly in the way of you getting stuff done, and that your life would be easier if you could simply decline every meeting and…

Middle-management as we knew it at the turn of the 2010s is probably gone forever. You don't need to coordinate many many teams as you used to. Same as huge frontend team with dedicated support for graphql, etc. AI made most of that redundant. By extension we're going to need a lot less middle managers as coordination problems decrease. As for the point I think you're trying to make, the problem with middle managemen…

[dead]

Re: The Ask

#30

Post by whowasmark »

JSR_FDED wrote: post #2

This is either very profound or not at all. Can’t figure out which.

We never found out who Mark was. Or what the problem with Rachel was. Or what and why behind and ahead of the pressure to meet either were in place. So going with not at all. They've literally described their job as having too much cruft that could have been partially solved by the non-existence of their role.
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