231–240 of 314 posts
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The worst products I have ever seen were when the developers acted like product managers. What you end up with are a bunch of really cool stuff that no one wants to pay for and only a few people find utility in.
Could you elaborate on what you mean by that? Is it the standard scope creep / premature generalization pattern, or something else?
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I don't understand, how do you handle prioritization decisions: if you have a 100+ customers that all want something, how do you create understanding of all needs, how do you distill that to an integrated roadmap, and how do you align the roadmap prioritization decisions across 20+ teams? How do you organize updating of documentation, training materials, enablement of support, pricing decision, updating of price list…
> I don't understand, how do you handle prioritization decisions: if you have a 100+ customers that all want something, how do you create understanding of all needs, how do you distill that to an integrated roadmap, and how do you align the roadmap prioritization decisions across 20+ teams? That does seem to require at least a PHD in prioritization or a totally real role like a Product Manager indeed! A naive approac…
It also sounds like you have a PM on your team, but they actually have the title of SWE or Eng. Mgr. They probably spend > 50% of their time on the above listed responsibilities rather than engineering. Hopefully they don't get docked in their performance reviews for essentially performing the duties of a PM rather than those of an engineer.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The worst products I have ever seen were when the developers acted like product managers. What you end up with are a bunch of really cool stuff that no one wants to pay for and only a few people find utility in.
Could you elaborate on what you mean by that? Is it the standard scope creep / premature generalization pattern, or something else?
Engineers are likely to solve problems that the customer doesn't care about. If you know engineers that say things like "the customer is an idiot" then you understand what I'm talking about. Even if the customer really is an idiot that is the person who needs to use the product.
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>The developers MUST care for the quality, not outsource it to some external team. The desire of large corps to spend huge amount of $$$ to create artificial roles to water down ownership can never cease to astonish me. As a former quality-focused dev, I can tell you that the industry beats it out of you with a club. There is always somebody above you who cares only about their own career ambitions and has more lever…
> I can tell you that the industry beats it out of you with a club. yep, i can say i've seen this over and over; more than anything incentives are for the next okr or whatever to be completed so they can move on to the next one asap. i've seen pr's sent out for review that literally didn't work or crashed immediately on use... as if the expectation is qa will report whatever needs fixing but thats fine cause its "in…
"When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure".
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> I don't understand, how do you handle prioritization decisions: if you have a 100+ customers that all want something, how do you create understanding of all needs, how do you distill that to an integrated roadmap, and how do you align the roadmap prioritization decisions across 20+ teams? That does seem to require at least a PHD in prioritization or a totally real role like a Product Manager indeed! A naive approac…
Almost every PM I've worked with had an engineering degree and/or previously worked as an engineer. This "Josh" sounds like a strawman or you've had bad luck with PMs in the past. It also sounds like you have a PM on your team, but they actually have the title of SWE or Eng. Mgr. They probably spend > 50% of their time on the above listed responsibilities rather than engineering. Hopefully they don't get docked in th…
> Performing the duties of a PM rather than those of an engineer.
The duties of an engineer are to know what to build, prioritize it against their other work, and build it, alon with the other engineer in their team. If you consider the "knowing what to build/prioritize" as PM work, so be it. I consider it engineering work.
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> The developers and sre's incentives are the same as everybody else in the company: have a great, easy to sell, popular and reliable product. The hard part is how do you design a compensation package for a developer or sre worker bee, to incentivize these? How do you make their bonus depend on something as nebulous and hard to measure as "greatness" or "popular"? For most employees, the candy/coal model works. You'r…
I might verging on socialism here, but I think the best way to motivate employees is ownership of the company and direct profit sharing. Unfortunately, only the first part is practiced in my organization (company shares), but I am actively fighting for the second.
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Every time I’ve worked on financial aid, HR, or financials, the PM has been an expert in those areas. I couldn’t do my job otherwise (or, I have to fill their shoes).
Why does the domain expert have to be the PM versus someone the engineers consult directly?
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> The developers and sre's incentives are the same as everybody else in the company: have a great, easy to sell, popular and reliable product. The hard part is how do you design a compensation package for a developer or sre worker bee, to incentivize these? How do you make their bonus depend on something as nebulous and hard to measure as "greatness" or "popular"? For most employees, the candy/coal model works. You'r…
I might verging on socialism here, but I think the best way to motivate employees is ownership of the company and direct profit sharing. Unfortunately, only the first part is practiced in my organization (company shares), but I am actively fighting for the second.
I have equity as part of my comp package, and I know there is zero link between how good a job I do and which way the Wall Street Wind blows today. So to me it's just like cash but with extra steps.
Maybe it's different in the startup world, I don't know. The only startup I was part of, everyone's equity went to zero when the business failed, regardless of how well anyone did their job, so I'm not much of a believer.
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Could you elaborate on what you mean by that? Is it the standard scope creep / premature generalization pattern, or something else?
It's because engineers will build what engineers want rather than what the customer wants. Engineers are more likely to appreciate highly technical details that average customers don't even understand, let alone want to pay for. There is also likely a disconnect between what it should be able to do versus how easy it is to use. Engineers are likely to solve problems that the customer doesn't care about. If you know e…
I’m not sure you can generalize like this. Do the engineers have RSUs or financial incentives where they do better if the firm does better? I’d argue they’d care more then. Also, a lot of engineers intentionally chose to work in market segments they’re passionate about. I’ve been at the same company for over 13 years. I could likely make more elsewhere but I find the domain I work in quite rewarding and interesting.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's because engineers will build what engineers want rather than what the customer wants. Engineers are more likely to appreciate highly technical details that average customers don't even understand, let alone want to pay for. There is also likely a disconnect between what it should be able to do versus how easy it is to use. Engineers are likely to solve problems that the customer doesn't care about. If you know e…
> It's because engineers will build what engineers want rather than what the customer wants. I’m not sure you can generalize like this. Do the engineers have RSUs or financial incentives where they do better if the firm does better? I’d argue they’d care more then. Also, a lot of engineers intentionally chose to work in market segments they’re passionate about. I’ve been at the same company for over 13 years. I could…
They have a larger emotional incentive to work on cool things that they enjoy, as opposed to the relatively small change in company price if their individual product succeeds or fails.