221–228 of 228 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You haven't been on LinkedIn in the last few years, then.
unfortunately I have. It is indeed a hellscape of, as the kids say, "aura farming". Microsoft really seem to want to turn it into Instagram for some reason. I still use it as a job board, personally.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
A few years later I found structural issues in a different part of the house.
But, because I spent more money on overengineering one part of the house, there's less money to fix real problems.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
any concise introduction into those skills you could recommend?
- Embracing the idea of a manual valuable process is a great one - as engineers we often want to start by automating and/or building, and dive right in - only to realize later we either didn't understand the product, or our stakeholder didn't and now wants changes once they've seen what it does. (Deeper dives here: "Escaping the Build Trap"[1], "The Minimalist Entrepreneur"[2]
- Understanding negotiation is extremely helpful as you are often operating under constraints, and need to get those across to your stakeholders such that you can both move forward together. Negotiation is basically about aligning two stakeholders with different goals and arriving at an arrangement they can both live with. (Highly recommend "Negotiate without Fear"[3])
- Another excellent concept surrounds the theory of constraints and getting good at recognizing bottlenecks, and subordinating all other processes to them. Essentially, if work is piling up somewhere, look at where it is coming from, and attempt to re-route those efforts to something productive (the bottleneck moves the same speed regardless of how much work is piled up in front of it). The classic book on this matter is "The Goal"[4] but a fun retelling more oriented around an IT department is "The Phoenix Project"[5].
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Escaping-Build-Trap-Effective-Managem... [2] https://www.amazon.com/Minimalist-Entrepreneur-Great-Founder... [3] https://www.amazon.com/Negotiate-without-Fear-Strategies-Max... [4] https://www.amazon.com/Goal-Process-Ongoing-Improvement/dp/0... [5] https://www.amazon.com/Phoenix-Project-DevOps-Helping-Busine...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
That makes me think. I never really worked with a PM that was good at preventing wasted effort. Or even mediocre at it. Most assumptions I saw them making were incorrect, unless it was a VERY SIMPLE product. To me this is something that engineering should be doing, just like splitting tasks and double-checking designs. Of course not every engineer can do it, but some of us have been doing it, negotiating deadlines an…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the other hand, I've seen engineers make unilateral decisions that had completely unacceptable UX or ops impacts, that didn't align to the original design spec, and that they didn't think to tell anyone about until way down the road. Everyone needs a counterpart to "trust but verify". At my company, engineering managers are ultimately responsible for the deadlines and deliverables. It's an anti-pattern for PMs to…
Sure, but my point is that certain tasks that people believe to be the responsibility of PMs is better done by engineers, IME. And your example is also a good one, I totally agree, PMs managing deadlines is also not a good idea.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
IMO a lot of the product managers inserting themselves and being useless is good old school project managers pivoting to the new thing and doing the same old stuff. Likewise I do think product management should be part of the senior engineers skillset. Its incredibly useful. Conversely, there are also tons of engineers that dont have this mindset and want a PM to tell them what to do and a barrier from the rest of th…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
any concise introduction into those skills you could recommend?
I forgot to follow up here, so apologies for the delay. Honestly, concise is a challenge here. Here is a lot of words, and they barely scratch the surface, but just in case they might be helpful: - Embracing the idea of a manual valuable process is a great one - as engineers we often want to start by automating and/or building, and dive right in - only to realize later we either didn't understand the product, or our…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think this world exists anymore. A lot of people I know are stressed out of their minds for the last few years by being way overworked and under constant threat of a layoff. I'm not talking about startups, I'm talking about Big Tech Corp. But I guess the mythical coasting engineer making a big tech salary that everyone talks about will never go out of style.
It definitely exists, but it's in the $120,000-$170,000 range