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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

#331

Post by watwut »

friendzis wrote: post #289
watwut wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your definition of a "good manager" is essentially "does not actively sabotage work of subordinates". This is not even remotely what that person said. They said "motivates by helping you understand how the things you are doing are actually critical to the success of the team and the company". That is not nearly "does not actively sabotage". > A person knowing how and in what ways their work contributes to the succe…

> They said " ". That is not nearly "does not actively sabotage". We seem to be misaligned on some fundamental level here. We are in a thread countering the notion that motivation is primarily intrinsic. My stance is that understanding the impact of individual contributions is crucial to net positive contribution towards overall success and is a tool in IC toolbox. Therefore, I value lack of such alignment as demotiv…

Different IC define useful differently and the same discussion with two of them will lead to different understanding of whether they do useful work. Not every IC is motivated just or primary by that either. Many are more of about social recognition, validation, proving themselves on something they perceive as difficult.

Obviously useful teams with obviously useful members who fully understand they are useful frequently end up demotivated because they lack what they actually need to be motivated and perceive it unfair considering they are useful.

> If you include every single thing managers do then you will simply end up shifting the definition so that every manager is "good". What's so suddenly wrong with being everyday average Joe?

Why cant average Joe manager be a good manager? Or a good programmer or what have you? In well run organizations, they are. I have worked in teams where everyone or nearly everyone was good programmer and manager was good.

Also, in most companies, the quality of hardware is not on lower lever manager. These budget decisions are made closer to CEO levels.

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

#332

Post by Nemi »

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 point is that the 'maximum motivation level' for an employee is an inherent trait. It is a ceiling. Some people have high ceilings and some don't. If an employee has a low ceiling, no manager can motivate that employee higher.

But if someone has a high ceiling, the most a manager can do is create an environment that allows the employee to achieve their max potential. A bad manager on the other hand, can very easily bring a normally high-potential motivated employee down to mediocre levels.

If you are one of those self-aware leaders that knows how to create an environment where people can excel, then hiring highly motivated people is the winning strategy.

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

#333

Post by 1-more »

mothballed wrote: post #71
bob001 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Engineers were the privileged class. They were part of the group occupy wall street wanted to bring down. Not hard to guess why they didn't want that.

I would say more precisely, engineers are closer to the managerial or capital wielding class; usually the adversary of the union.

Usually lumped in with labor aristocracy along with lawyers and doctors. Can go either way when it pops off.

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

#334

Post by epolanski »

erikerikson wrote: post #329
epolanski wrote: post #213

The whole thing about motivation is non sense. 1. Motivation is a feeling, it's an emotion, it comes and goes, it's a bonus. It's discipline and professionalism that make the huge difference. Many people have the motivation and dream to "create their own programming language", "launch their startup", "make it to the NBA", "lose 40 pounds and get fitter" but this motivation, a feeling, will consistently fight the emot…

I disagree. Motivation is not just an emotion but an inherent desire. For a motivated engineer the balance between the work with pleasures and dreams is already won and pre-balanced for sustainable achievement. I find the work itself rewarding and I find world improvement results reinforcing of my enjoyment. I want to code and I'm happy to direct that energy largely according to my employer's needs and our shared ben…

> Motivation is not just an emotion but an inherent desire

Desires change as we grow up and life changes us.

The people you hire today, aren't going to be the same 3/6/9/12 months from now when a parent gets sick, a partner leaves, a child is born, when something suddenly changes their priority, etc.

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

#335

Post by [deleted] »

bob001 wrote: post #227
Buttons840 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminder that unions don't have to do anything about salary. I'd love a tech union that simply says: Every time an on-call engineer has to work during off-hours, they get compensated 4x that time in PTO, and that PTO must be used during the next 30 days, or it is paid out at 20x their normal hourly rate. This ensures everyone shares in the burden of off-hours work. If off-hours work is happening often, then engineers…

Unions aren't about what you want them to be about but what the average member wants them to be about. More or less.

[deleted]

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

#336

Post by erikerikson »

epolanski wrote: post #334
erikerikson wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Motivation is not just an emotion but an inherent desire. For a motivated engineer the balance between the work with pleasures and dreams is already won and pre-balanced for sustainable achievement. I find the work itself rewarding and I find world improvement results reinforcing of my enjoyment. I want to code and I'm happy to direct that energy largely according to my employer's needs and our shared ben…

> Motivation is not just an emotion but an inherent desire Desires change as we grow up and life changes us. The people you hire today, aren't going to be the same 3/6/9/12 months from now when a parent gets sick, a partner leaves, a child is born, when something suddenly changes their priority, etc.

Surely so. Also, for me it's been more than two decades and a partner has left, a child had been born, and parents are getting sick and starting to die. I still love coding.

That said, I'm working on transitioning to farming to get away from the psychology the industry seems committed to and has gotten worse while also I've become more aware as I have acted with greater scope and influence.

I'd love to find a place that would let me peacefully employ my love of coding and solving important problems in society but in a manner that also fit my life.

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

#337

Post by kasey_junk »

tptacek wrote: post #313
titanomachy wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'm not optimistic about scalable strategies to identify "motivated" employees, but I'm not certain. I am pretty certain these strategies are bad. They're what everybody did in the mid-2000s.

One of the problems is the idea that "motivated" or even "capable" is some sort of intrinsic property of a person. Those things ebb and flow based on tons of variables, from stuff going on at home to decisions made by management.

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

#338

Post by rcbdev »

joe_mamba wrote: post #195
theshrike79 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>Why the fuck would an union cap anyones salary? Is this an American thing? No, it's a thing in most of Europe like France or Germany for unionized trades. All trades there have publicly documented salary bands based on education and YoE per job, where the negotiations starting point for a wage for a position must not be below the minimum threshold but also can't exceed a certain upper threshold. In some cases, the c…

In Austria, salary is absolutely NOT capped by collective agreements. At a certain cap salaries are just not valorized anymore, that's all.

We here live in an eco-social free-market economy, where a company can pay an employee however much they want. In union terms, the collective agreements only regulates the minimum an employer has to do.

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

#339

Post by rcbdev »

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…

How is an increased social safety net a liberal policy? Most liberal parties in Europe want to lower taxes / social-security payments. (see FDP, NEOS, etc.)

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

#340

Post by theshrike79 »

joe_mamba wrote: post #300
Izkata wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

In here the unions negotiate a flat percentage raise for everyone, usually 0-2% "index raises" they call them.

All others are performance based and determined by the employer.

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