I wonder how Musk's "hardcore" concept intersects with this. Are hardcore coders just doing 80+ hrs of features or are they doing all the work that needs to get done?
Glue Work Considered Harmful
31–40 of 51 posts
Re: Glue Work Considered Harmful
#32With the possible exception of art, all work is glue work. If you believe your work isn't glue work, you're indulging hubris.
The distinction is between glue work that was on the annual mission plan versus what wasn't. I guess it is why it is important to get it on the annual mission plan from the start.
Re: Glue Work Considered Harmful
#33This seems to start from the strange assumption that companies have a clear and correct understanding of what things to prioritize, and then concludes that deprioritizing glue work is actually smart. Historically, companies really don't know what they are doing, especially on issues like this. Glue work often encompasses tasks viewed as feminine and its de-emphasis hurts women's careers (and men who happen to focus i…
> deprioritizing glue work is actually smart.
In defense of deprioritizing glue work, engineers can invent an infinite amount of the it, burning time and salary, if you let them.
Re: Glue Work Considered Harmful
#34Glue work doesn’t get rewarded. That I agree with. However I don’t agree with the conclusion. Do Glue Work for projects that you are leading, projects that you are accountable for. As a senior+ engineer that is all your projects. So should you prioritize glue work for all of them? From my experience, there is a delicate balance. There’s Glue work that you need to get right every time, else risk getting fired. E.g. Te…
As a former “architect” and now a “staff” engineer who is pulled in a million directions, I purposefully don’t pull any stories off the board or assign myself to any work in the critical path of getting something to production. Either I will miss my commitments or working extra hours when everyone else is off of work to get time to do “deep work”. I will do “glue work” that’s important. But not urgent that I can sque…
That's why the riskiest moment in an engineer's career is the jump up from senior: The things that get you a strong senior review and the things that get you promoted to architect/principal/staff are completely different. You can end up in a situation where you've done a little too much glue, but not good enough to claim you were doing architect work, while that time meant you did less than expected of a senior doing heads down work. Try to do this with a bad manager, and you are heading for a Pip.
Which gets us back to the most important rule of a software engineer's career: make sure that the person writing your reviews really likes you.
Re: Glue Work Considered Harmful
#35This is one reason that I like early startups: I can greatly influence how things are done, so that we have a high level of efficiency, so that we can remain on-mission.
Maybe you have influence on trival stuff like which testing framework to use. In my experience working at many small and medium startups is that most of the impactful decisions are still made by the in-group boysclub. For some reason lots of people seem to have this misconception that startups are somehow more meritocratic than big corporates. I found the opposite to be true. Your job working at startup is to get int…
This really triggered a lot of old memories from my early career. I started off as the 7th employee - as a Jr dev in a startup that eventually grew to 100+ and felt like an outsider for years. At some point I became a "senior" dev and the insider at this tiny company. It was quite a bit more stressful actually. I made more important decisions but it was super interesting. After having that insider taste, I kept chasing it at bigger corps for many years by becoming staff and eventually leading teams but never got that feeling again. I was either below a director or VP. To be young again...
Re: Glue Work Considered Harmful
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a former “architect” and now a “staff” engineer who is pulled in a million directions, I purposefully don’t pull any stories off the board or assign myself to any work in the critical path of getting something to production. Either I will miss my commitments or working extra hours when everyone else is off of work to get time to do “deep work”. I will do “glue work” that’s important. But not urgent that I can sque…
That's why the riskiest moment in an engineer's career is the jump up from senior: The things that get you a strong senior review and the things that get you promoted to architect/principal/staff are completely different. You can end up in a situation where you've done a little too much glue, but not good enough to claim you were doing architect work, while that time meant you did less than expected of a senior doing…
I agree with this so much. Too less Glue work for staff+ will get you “Not performing at a Staff level PIP. Do too much Glue Work, you’re suddenly get compared to Senior productivity. You’re on a fast track to PIP unless your manager and your skip likes you. Because doing just the right amount of Glue Work is impossible because the standards are subjective.
Re: Glue Work Considered Harmful
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a former “architect” and now a “staff” engineer who is pulled in a million directions, I purposefully don’t pull any stories off the board or assign myself to any work in the critical path of getting something to production. Either I will miss my commitments or working extra hours when everyone else is off of work to get time to do “deep work”. I will do “glue work” that’s important. But not urgent that I can sque…
That's why the riskiest moment in an engineer's career is the jump up from senior: The things that get you a strong senior review and the things that get you promoted to architect/principal/staff are completely different. You can end up in a situation where you've done a little too much glue, but not good enough to claim you were doing architect work, while that time meant you did less than expected of a senior doing…
Why is Senior to staff such a step change for a software engineer in a product company/department?
To be honest, before 2020 aa a software engineer, I spent my entire career working in unknown companies with no real leveling guidelines.
I fell into my only role in BigTech as an L5 (mid level) cloud application architect at AWS Professional Services in 2020 and now a Staff Software Architect (5th and highest IC) at a smaller consulting company.
The leveling guidelines for a “staff” where I am now are about the same as a “Senior” at AWS ProServe or a similar position at GCP
That being said, the leveling guidelines at AWS for my department were straightforward
- L4 junior - expected to be able to complete tasks/storues with little guidance
- L5 mid level - expected to be able to complete work streams and lead a work stream where the business requirements are well defined. But the technical requirements aren’t and you work with the customer to complete the requirements. You were expected to be a subject matter expert in one or more verticals.
- Senior - more ambiguous - neither the business or technical requirements are well defined and you have to work with the customer to discover the business problems/opportunities, define strategies and then plan an implementation and coordinate multiple work streams with the project manager, customer, etc. They could also be over multiple projects.
- staff - over multiple seniors, usually a team lead and they deal with strategies over a practice (https://aws.amazon.com/professional-services/)
I’ve had one offer as a staff engineer for a product company (as oppose to a consulting company) at the company that acquired the startup I worked at before going to AWS. I would have been over strategy for all of the acquired companies.
I ended up turning it down. I understood the requirements of operating at that level in cloud consulting. But not product development. The technical requirements didn’t bother me as much as the organizational requirements.
Re: Glue Work Considered Harmful
#38Another perspective is that "glue work" is one of the best ways you can generate outsized returns for your effort. Your own efforts scale linearly because you're just one person. Improving everyone's efforts scales multiplicatively, and compounds iteratively.
My previous job was specifically to do glue work for the engineering team and it was my favorite job I've ever had by a mile. I loved doing things to smooth the other engineers jobs and they loved the productivity gains.
Company had to lay most of us off and my current job is similar but a way bigger company so the productivity gains are less apparent. But I will continue to seek out the glue work jobs as long as I can find them.
Re: Glue Work Considered Harmful
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's why the riskiest moment in an engineer's career is the jump up from senior: The things that get you a strong senior review and the things that get you promoted to architect/principal/staff are completely different. You can end up in a situation where you've done a little too much glue, but not good enough to claim you were doing architect work, while that time meant you did less than expected of a senior doing…
I agree with this so much. Too less Glue work for staff+ will get you “Not performing at a Staff level PIP. Do too much Glue Work, you’re suddenly get compared to Senior productivity. You’re on a fast track to PIP unless your manager and your skip likes you. Because doing just the right amount of Glue Work is impossible because the standards are subjective.
I would rather get an anal probe with a cactus than ever go back to BigTech or any large company.
I’m 50 and I just don’t have the shit tolerance to put up with the politics.
I know what my responsibilities and expectations are as a “staff” and as long as my clients (cloud consulting) are happy and the projects I’m leading are done, on time, on budget and meets requirements, everyone is happy.
There is a clear dollar amount assigned to my work and downstream revenue.
Re: Glue Work Considered Harmful
#40> Your job is to execute the mission of your company’s leadership. In a large company, aren't workers incentived to please their immediate manager and whatever higher metrics/appearances they're exposed to. Neither of these guiding incentives necessarily has much to do with the mission of company leadership. Isn't the job whatever the incentives say it is? Maybe the difference between incentives -- and what the autho…
> In a large company, aren't workers incentived to please their immediate manager and whatever higher metrics/appearances they're exposed to.
Your manager alone can’t promote you in BigTech. Your promotion has to be approved by a committee based on a promo doc.
You can both make your manager happy by doing “glue work” that makes them look good and not have anything worthwhile to put on your promo doc that the committee will find suitable for a promotion.
https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/software-engineering-prom...