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No management needed: anti-patterns in early-stage engineering teams

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Re: No management needed: anti-patterns in early-stage engineering teams

#261

Post by phendrenad2 »

exabrial wrote: post #148
pyrale wrote: post #27

> I know several top 1% engineers in the Valley who disengage from recruiting processes when 996 or something similar is mentioned. A few years back, on this board, 996 was something people made fun of when it was reported that some Chinese companies did it [1]. And now, the strongest claim this blog can make is that some engineers in the US would disengage from recruiting? That the issue with working on saturdays is…

Former Alibaba employee for a season of my life. I have to be careful with my next sentences because on the internet because it's easy for people to read things in a vacuum and interpret in the worse possible way, so don't do that because thats not how I mean it. The 996 hours are not useful work. It's appearance over productivity.

I've worked with a few coworkers who came from a 996 environment and kept doing it out of habit. As I was young and impressionable, I started doing it also. I'm not going to be careful with my sentence: these people were absolutely NOT getting more work done than others, in fact they seemed to move glacially, because they had so many more hours to fill up. It's a total footgun, and it chases away good people once the rot reaches management and they start promoting based on perception rather than reality.

Re: No management needed: anti-patterns in early-stage engineering teams

#262

Post by setopt »

TuringNYC wrote: post #251

"I know several top 1% engineers in the Valley who disengage from recruiting processes when 996 or something similar is mentioned." Setting this expectation early seems honest and the best thing to do. The worst is when companies sell people on WLB but then flip it to 996 -- you end up with all the wrong people and no one wins. Best to be transparent from the onset. I always encourage candidates to go visit the compa…

> including a visit at 5:30pm or 6:30pm to see the state of the office and attendance

As an academic, I used to work 11am-8pm many days when I was younger thanks to flexible working hours, and I wasn’t the only one working late but not early. I realize this is probably more rare in corporate settings, but keep in mind if the place has flexible hours you might see more people at 6pm despite people not doing 996.

Re: No management needed: anti-patterns in early-stage engineering teams

#263

Post by theshrike79 »

bob001 wrote: post #226
theshrike79 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Finland we have salary bands for some jobs, but it's usually just the minimum. Some have a maximum, but there are always "personal bonuses" the employer can give on top of that. But these are usually "old" professions like teachers, nurses, factory workers. For IT jobs I haven't seen an official salary band anywhere and there basically is no union mandated maximum and the minimum is mostly a suggestion. We also ge…

> The maximum cap sounds just stupid. Conceptually unions are a democracy and people are selfish. Why should I let some other worker make 10x what I do when I can instead have them make 1x and spread out the other 9x around including to me?

This "spread it around" sounds like some trickle down ecodomics madness to me =)

If the company can't pay more to a high performer they surely won't just give thast money to the average folks. It'll just go to C-staff bonuses and conference trips to exotic countries.

(Provided that the average performers are above the union minimum already)

Re: No management needed: anti-patterns in early-stage engineering teams

#264

Post by Aurornis »

KptMarchewa wrote: post #222
Aurornis wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10 years ago I bought into the idea of hiring for nerdy interests and hobbies as a proxy for motivation. I will say I met some excellent people during this time, but looking back those same people would have been hired anyway due to their accomplishments at companies. > though it's a great way to keep your Slack channels full of zesty, nerdy, non-remunerative enterprise during the core hours everyone has to actually…

>10 years ago I bought into the idea of hiring for nerdy interests and hobbies as a proxy for motivation. I will say I met some excellent people during this time, but looking back those same people would have been hired anyway due to their accomplishments at companies. >Nerdy interests and hobbies is not a good proxy for work ability. Aren't you actually describing a great proxy?

What I was trying to say was that having nerdy interests and hobbies isn’t a negative signal. People can have nerdy interests and hobbies and be great at their job.

But it’s not a positive signal for work ability. Having nerdy interests and hobbies doesn’t signal that you’re good at work.

They’re barely correlated, if at all.

Re: No management needed: anti-patterns in early-stage engineering teams

#265

Post by evilduck »

tayo42 wrote: post #130
OhMeadhbh wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we used to say "employees don't quit jobs, they quit managers." i was very happy at Amazon until they moved me under a sub-optimal manager. i quit less than a month later. that manager got promoted. this will tell you everything you need to know about working at Amazon. maybe they were trying to get me to quit. maybe that area's director was incompetent. maybe both.

Do managers ever get fired or fail? All of my worst managers seem to keep moving up the ladder from what I see on LinkedIn. I don't understand it.

Coming back to this with a late reply of more experiences, but it doesn't seem that unique for management from my perspective.

When I was an IC I dealt with a ton of software engineer peers who were pretty bad at their job and managed to stay in the field as a software engineer. I was constantly cleaning up or compensating for them. As a manager I've had to let someone go because they literally could not be demoted to a level commensurate with their abilities (there's nothing below junior, they must be able to perform commits of new work and couldn't despite months of training and support, and they refused an alternate career track in QA before being PIP'd), and yet... after a stint of unemployment that person failed upwards with an even higher engineering title at a new organization, bringing along an obviously lacking skill set and what had to be a pretty falsified resume and career experience discussion with said new employer.

The only complete exit from software engineering that I've witnessed was someone so bad at their job that they became perpetually unemployed and finally called it quits and left the industry after about 7 years of being fired or laid off back to back continuously.

The world's beginning to change but for a long time a verifiable title with the right number of years next to it would get you a long ways in the corporate software rat race.

Re: No management needed: anti-patterns in early-stage engineering teams

#266

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

Herring wrote: post #35
pyrale wrote: post #27

> I know several top 1% engineers in the Valley who disengage from recruiting processes when 996 or something similar is mentioned. A few years back, on this board, 996 was something people made fun of when it was reported that some Chinese companies did it [1]. And now, the strongest claim this blog can make is that some engineers in the US would disengage from recruiting? That the issue with working on saturdays is…

It’s better to look at what didn’t happen: unionization. Americans often remind me of Steve Jobs trying to cure cancer using diets & acupuncture. You know what the solutions are, you just don’t like them.

Exactly how do you think unions would help for tech workers?

Re: No management needed: anti-patterns in early-stage engineering teams

#267

Post by tyre »

appellations wrote: post #153
tyre wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been an early employee (sub 10 and 20) in two unicorns and another (a presidential campaign) that didn't have a valuation but did the equivalent. People did not work 40 hours per week, and I feel comfortable saying that the companies could not have been as successful if people had. The common threads were: - incredible ICs - founders who spiked in the most important areas for that market - a mission that everyon…

Are you saying people worked less than 40 hours a week or more than 40 hours a week in those organizations? I’m assuming over, but it’s unclear to me from the tone of your post.

Over 40 hours and it wasn’t particularly close.

Re: No management needed: anti-patterns in early-stage engineering teams

#268

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

theshrike79 wrote: post #186
al_borland wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just that, but the union would likely end up capping their salary much lower so the wealth can be spread around. How hard is the 10x engineer on the team going to work when the compensation is the same regardless? This is where people end up working multiple jobs, if they can keep up with their peers only working one day per week.

Why the fuck would an union cap anyones salary? Is this an American thing? Over here the purpose of unions is to: Provide a strong enough legal response and guidance to deter companies from trying shady shit, pay better unemployment fees than the government and provide training/networking. They also negotiate collectively with the employers on behalf of everyone for things like paid sick leave, paid vacations etc. I…

Seeing the wage difference in Europe and the UK even for enterprise developers let alone those who work for major (mostly American based ) tech companies, is not a rousing endorsement for unions for developers

Re: No management needed: anti-patterns in early-stage engineering teams

#269

Post by dgxyz »

TuringNYC wrote: post #251

"I know several top 1% engineers in the Valley who disengage from recruiting processes when 996 or something similar is mentioned." Setting this expectation early seems honest and the best thing to do. The worst is when companies sell people on WLB but then flip it to 996 -- you end up with all the wrong people and no one wins. Best to be transparent from the onset. I always encourage candidates to go visit the compa…

Glad I live somewhere that I had to look up 996 because I didn't know what it was.

Re: No management needed: anti-patterns in early-stage engineering teams

#270

Post by ljm »

ragall wrote: post #230
ljm wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. It stands to reason that if a manager can demotivate you, then they must be able to do the opposite. Both building the vibe and killing it can achieve that in terms of extrinsic motivation, culture, the psychological contract, and so on. These are important factors to consider for people who work in highly collaborative teams as opposed to those who prefer to be 10x lone wolves, which is the impression I get fro…

> It stands to reason that if a manager can demotivate you, then they must be able to do the opposite. You share that with no justification. There's no such "reason".

It would be more useful if you explained why the rest of my comment didn't provide a good enough reason (because of your clear dissatisfaction with the first sentence of it), because this is just snark that doesn't further a conversation.

Anyone can quote a subset of a message and drop a remark without substance after all, but I didn't come on HN to read Twitter-quality stuff.

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