No management needed: anti-patterns in early-stage engineering teams • Hacker News Board

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

#291

Post by TuringNYC » Wed, Jan 14, 2026, 3:39 PM UTC

setopt wrote: post #262

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.

I think that is great if you want flexibility, and I used to do that also!

What i'd assess at 6:30 is whether people are on meetings or on focus time. If you have monitors with zooms full of 5-6 people, I wouldn't think that is flex hours, i'd assume that is a meeting being scheduled at 6:30.

On the other hand, if you have people focus working, you cannot draw any conclusions from that.

Personally, I stay at work late. But there is a difference between me being obsessed with a problem and working thru the evening trying to solve it (awesome for me) vs meetings that are being scheduled at 6:30pm or 7pm

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

#292

Post by ta-asdo989 » Wed, Jan 14, 2026, 3:45 PM UTC

bob001 wrote: post #43

Herring wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Until recently American engineers made a lot of money at comparatively cushy jobs. A decent engineer in the US could make 5x their equivalent in most European nations. Staff+ engineers at FAANG could make 5x that. People in a good position tend to not like rocking the boat.

I had a job in twenty-nine When everything was going fine I knew the pace was pretty fast But thought that it would always last

When organizers came to town I'd always sneer and turn them down I thought the boss was my best friend He'd stick by me to the end

Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay! Ain't got a word to say He chiseled down my pay Then took my job away "Boom" went the boom one day It made a noise that way I wish I had been wise Next time I'll organize

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

#293

Post by dcastm » Wed, Jan 14, 2026, 3:54 PM UTC

Yokohiii wrote: post #216

dcastm wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Spain. I’ve been in the industry for the last 10 years. I’ve seen from a very close distance several European companies move a big part of their operations to India. Have had close friends laid off recently and seen them struggle for months to find a new jobs. Plus, I see tighter freelance market these days. This was unthinkable not long ago.

My former company had the brilliant idea to outsource native app development to india. This was mabye 2015 in germany and they tried to roll out the app for several years. There were severe communication and quality problems. Our company wasted massive time on it, until they finally added a single native app dev and we started making progress. We already had like 30 people in tech department and adding a single posit…

I’ve worked with great engineers from India/Pakistan. I didn’t hire them, so don’t know too much about the process of how to find them but they were definitely as good as anyone I’ve seen in Europe.

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

#294

Post by friendzis » Wed, Jan 14, 2026, 3:54 PM UTC

n4r9 wrote: post #228

friendzis wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A good manager understands this, and motivates by helping you understand how the things you are doing are actually critical to the success of the team and the company Your definition of a "good manager" is essentially "does not actively sabotage work of subordinates". That's not motivation, that's merely absence of active demotivation. A person knowing how and in what ways their work contributes to the success of t…

Disagree. This is explicitly active: "helping you understand how the things you are doing are actually critical to the success of the team". It could include building out a team dashboard that tracks the consequences of bugfixes, for example.

Sorry, I do not understand which part do you disagree with.

> This is explicitly active

Is merely being active (hopefully towards eventual success) automatically places a manager among "good managers"? What defines an "average manager" then?

I have explored this in more detail in a reply to a sibling. I see "helping you understand how the things you are doing are actually critical to the success of the team" as a critical work of any manager, therefore I find it strange when such duties are attributed to "good" management.

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

#295

Post by bsoles » Wed, Jan 14, 2026, 4:00 PM UTC

nerdponx wrote: post #287

bsoles wrote: post #284

> Intellectual curiosity in the form of hobbies, nerdy interests that they can talk about with passion Although I know that a lot of people would argue for "what's wrong with doing your day job well and going home to your family, friends, etc?", in my experience, it is also true that the best software engineers I've seen during my 25 year career are the ones that made their job also their passion and hobby. I think i…

You can make your job in general a passion/hobby/craft but that doesn't mean you have to work more than your fair share for your employer to be a competent craftsperson.

> that doesn't mean you have to work more than your fair share for your employer

I would never argue for that. My meaning was more about having a passion/hobby in the field that you are working in.

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

#296

Post by crazygringo » Wed, Jan 14, 2026, 4:09 PM UTC

jt2190 wrote: post #282

crazygringo wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has nothing to do with motivation or competence. Teams don't just work together magically and "organically". They're made of diverse human beings, every one of us, who come from different backgrounds with different expectations about when and what to communicate and when and what not to and around what is who's responsibility when. Different levels of experience, having worked at different places with different pr…

> Teams don't just work together magically and "organically". This is the “employees are resources” mentality, and is common in mature companies. In a startup, however, you need to hire for individuals that will “make it rain”, and not wait around for some process or manager to tell them to communicate or do work. If your employees are not coming together as a team and figuring things out without your handholding you…

People aren't mind readers.

It's not "handholding". And it's not about a "resources" mentality or wanting to "make it rain".

The best engineers can have wildly different and incompatible communication styles at first. Nobody is wrong, just different.

I don't know what to tell you, except that your approach is basically wishful thinking, in my experience.

And things like standups and retrospectives are where your employees come together as a team.

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

#297

Post by n4r9 » Wed, Jan 14, 2026, 4:26 PM UTC

friendzis wrote: post #294

n4r9 wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. This is explicitly active: "helping you understand how the things you are doing are actually critical to the success of the team". It could include building out a team dashboard that tracks the consequences of bugfixes, for example.

Sorry, I do not understand which part do you disagree with. > This is explicitly active Is merely being active (hopefully towards eventual success) automatically places a manager among "good managers"? What defines an "average manager" then? I have explored this in more detail in a reply to a sibling. I see "helping you understand how the things you are doing are actually critical to the success of the team" as a cri…

It is critical. Done well, it motivates people. Some managers are better at it than others; some are great at it. Such managers are actually motivating rather employees rather than avoiding demotivation.

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

#298

Post by Izkata » Wed, Jan 14, 2026, 4:42 PM UTC

theshrike79 wrote: post #263

bob001 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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)

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

Trickle-down would be giving him the full 10x salary, then by his own choice he'd be doing something with it that benefited everyone else.

Forcing it by spreading it around instead of paying him is more like socialism or communism.

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

#299

Post by jayd16 » Wed, Jan 14, 2026, 4:46 PM UTC

marcus_holmes wrote: post #137

jayd16 wrote: post #15

I think its clearly false that motivation is an inherent trait. That would imply that demotivation is also inherent, which I think is even more obviously wrong.

I think demotivating people is incredibly easy, see any Dilbert cartoon featuring the PHB ever. That doesn't mean that motivating people is also easy. They're not equivalent. Motivating people requires understanding their psychology, their values, what they want from their life, etc, and then applying that knowledge to create a workplace culture that feeds all of that. Demotivating them just requires not understandin…

Certainly it's easier to destroy than to build but if you tell yourself "my teams motivation is entirely intrinsic" you might, for example, think you can abdicate the duty of removing demotivations.

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

#300

Post by joe_mamba » Wed, Jan 14, 2026, 4:49 PM UTC

Izkata wrote: post #298

theshrike79 wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

> This "spread it around" sounds like some trickle down ecodomics madness to me =) Trickle-down would be giving him the full 10x salary, then by his own choice he'd be doing something with it that benefited everyone else. Forcing it by spreading it around instead of paying him is more like socialism or communism.

>Forcing it by spreading it around instead of paying him is more like socialism or communism.

THat's how a lot of companies in Austria apply wage increases per union mandates. Take a budget and spread it around so that workers bicker amongst themselves for not receiving what they think they deserve.