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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

#301

Post by moduspol »

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…

Most unions in the US seem to have pretty strict rules about titles, who does what, and how much each role gets paid. It's not unreasonable to expect it'd happen with software developers, too.

That said, I always point to the NFL Players Association as one that seems to be able to provide value to highly and diversely paid talent apparently without kneecapping their high performers. Though it's not something I've researched deeply.

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

#302

Post by ryandrake »

evilduck wrote: post #131
tayo42 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As a manager, yeah I’ve seen several of my peers wash out of the role for one reason or another. It happens. Usually it’s self selected though, disliking the inherent drama, having difficult to work with employees, moving up from engineering and realizing that was actually what they loved, etc. But a bad people manager who still manages resources and timelines and expectations isn’t necessarily bad for business. Prom…

I've also seen bad "lower level" managers fail downward. But I think at some point on the manager totem-pole, you become this weird "invulnerable royalty," and always fail upward. You never see VPs get fired and move back down to 3rd-level managers. You never see SVPs get fired and move back down to being mere VPs. They always get fired and then move over to Dell or Intel or something at an even more senior level than they were at their previous company.

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

#303

Post by nebula8804 »

joe_mamba wrote: post #197
nebula8804 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well on a positive note, it may eventually lead to a union or works council for technologists. Will coders be a part of that or will that skill set go the way of carpenter? Remains to be seen. But there is still other roles in tech that could take the place of coders (infrastructure, security etc.). Also remains to be seen how long this process will take. Could take a decade or two but hopefully it will happen. Its j…

>Well on a positive note, it may eventually lead to a union or works council for technologists. Good luck fighting offshoring. > It shows that people are slowly chipping away at the capital class and sooner or later they will have to throw us some breadcrumbs. That means nothing. I'd be surprised if he can implement 10% of what he promised in his campaign or if he's just gonna be another plant of the capital class th…

>Good luck fighting offshoring.

I always wondered why they don't try tariffs on this? American companies that produce overseas get tariffed regardless of origin. It changes incentives and forces production closer to areas of consumption. I suspect we are going to get there eventually, leadership needs to become more left progressive like Mamdani.

>That means nothing. I'd be surprised if he can implement 10% of what he promised in his campaign or if he's just gonna be another plant of the capital class that promises impossible things but then ends up doing nothing when the finances hit the road.

His ideas were not that radical. The fast and free busses came on the heel of a successful pilot they did with one line in each borough so its not like they are starting from scratch. They have an existing model and data from that trial to build on top of.

The grocery stores consist of one store in each borough. That is not an impossible task and it does not risk really affecting bodegas since the majority of income from most bodegas are lotto tickets and cigarettes/vapes.

Universal child care...well that have already passed this in his first week.

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

#304

Post by titanomachy »

tptacek wrote: post #144

We're apparently back to making psychoanalysts out of interviewers: I'll dedicate a post to specific ways you can identify motivation during hiring, but in short, look for: the obvious one: evidence that they indeed exhibited these external signs of motivation (in an unforced way!) in past jobs; signs of grit in their career and life paths (how did they respond to adversity, how have they put their past successes or…

So do you think there's no useful strategies to identify highly motivated prospective employees, or just that these aren't good ones?

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

#305

Post by joe_mamba »

nebula8804 wrote: post #303
joe_mamba wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Well on a positive note, it may eventually lead to a union or works council for technologists. Good luck fighting offshoring. > It shows that people are slowly chipping away at the capital class and sooner or later they will have to throw us some breadcrumbs. That means nothing. I'd be surprised if he can implement 10% of what he promised in his campaign or if he's just gonna be another plant of the capital class th…

>Good luck fighting offshoring. I always wondered why they don't try tariffs on this? American companies that produce overseas get tariffed regardless of origin. It changes incentives and forces production closer to areas of consumption. I suspect we are going to get there eventually, leadership needs to become more left progressive like Mamdani. >That means nothing. I'd be surprised if he can implement 10% of what h…

> that have already passed this in his first week.

It's always easy to pass laws to give people free stuff and it works well initially ... until you run out of money of course. That's how Venezuelan leadership also got popular. Who doesn't want more free stuff? It's how elections are won is most of Eastern/Southern Europe too. Until the bill is due and the next generation has to pay.

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

#306

Post by Herring »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #286
Herring wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When your fascists get done with you, if there's anything left, you'll deeply wish you had spent that wage difference to get rid of them. Inequality is very corrosive to society. Europe had to learn that lesson the hard way too.

While I support mostly liberal causes - I consider myself a liberal not a leftists - like an increased social safety net, universal healthcare etc, unions are just a bridge too far. But me personally, at 51, I have said before that I plan to go by the Ben Kenobi strategy. When things get too bad, my wife and I will just become hermits somewhere and when the evil empire comes looking for us just give up and die. We ar…

lol good luck. Both of those are way harder than paying union dues.

And there's no guarantee the empire won't find you wherever you go. War is an excellent counter to inequality, it works much better than progressive taxation or collective bargaining.

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

#307

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

Herring wrote: post #306
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I support mostly liberal causes - I consider myself a liberal not a leftists - like an increased social safety net, universal healthcare etc, unions are just a bridge too far. But me personally, at 51, I have said before that I plan to go by the Ben Kenobi strategy. When things get too bad, my wife and I will just become hermits somewhere and when the evil empire comes looking for us just give up and die. We ar…

lol good luck. Both of those are way harder than paying union dues. And there's no guarantee the empire won't find you wherever you go. War is an excellent counter to inequality, it works much better than progressive taxation or collective bargaining.

It’s a lot easier when you make 3x the comp of the average developer in the EU and I am not even in BigTech (anymore).

I can absolutely guarantee you that the average enterprise CRUD developer living in a 2nd tier US city is better off than a developer in the EU. Let alone the top 10-20% working in BigTech or equivalent.

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

#308

Post by OhMeadhbh »

hhmc wrote: post #243
OhMeadhbh wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i agree. but. there's something in the behaviour of these unicorns that should be examined. the idea that an engineer can be a ninja, 10x or unicorn independent of the processes of their environment and working group is laughable. i have known several people who were identified as "highly productive" and they all had some individual traits like a) they were very good with individual time management, b) were not afrai…

What is a ‘wicked’ problem?

I think this is for a different domain than software engineering, but it describes the basics, mostly difficult to get consensus on detailed requirements, often due to "personal" or "group political" reasons.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_problem

I sometimes use the term to describe heisenbugs, which is probably incorrect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heisenbug

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

#309

Post by amarant »

dcastm wrote: post #74
amarant wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they? Do you have a source for that? My impression is that it's easier to find engineering work in Stockholm than in silicon valley atm, but I haven't measured objectively.

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.

I've seen that happen at Stockholm companies too.

And then a few years later, when it doesn't work out, I saw them bringing it back.

Outsourcing seems to go in cycles, like fashion

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

#310

Post by pavel_lishin »

johnfn wrote: post #156

> Motivation is a hired trait. The only place where managers motivate people is in management books. This seems entirely false to me. To be honest it is so incorrect it significantly puts into question the rest of the article. 1. I have absolutely had managers motivate me to work harder. I have also had managers completely demotivate me and cause me to quit. How on earth can anyone who has worked in the industry for…

The author seems to be thinking of word "motivate" in the way that someone in the olden days would motivate a donkey - with a whip. Every example they're listing is not "motivation", it's effectively forcing additional work and hours. No motivation is happening there.
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