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Meta to ask many managers to become individual contributors or leave

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Re: Meta to ask many managers to become individual contributors or leave

#341

Post by tpolm »

xtracto wrote: post #284
cletus wrote: post #192

This is long overdue. Years ago playing Civ 4 I distinctly remember hearing Leonard Nimoy's voice say "The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy". That's what management in these companies is like. It became a meme that every 6 months you'd get an email saying "your manager's manager's manager's manager now reports to a new manager". You'd never seen, heard of or let alone met any of…

By that structure, the maximum number of people that such a company should have is 7×7×7×7×7 = 16807 Given the best practices of number of direct reports [1]. How would you deal with the rest 30,000+ Full time employees that Facebook has? [1] https://www.inc.com/jim-schleckser/how-many-direct-reports-s...

simple: more layoffs

Re: Meta to ask many managers to become individual contributors or leave

#342

Post by snowwrestler »

hdjjhhvvhga wrote: post #131
nerdponx wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As if they were on purely my own Is this actually the expectation at the places you work?

> Is this actually the expectation at the places you work? Can you imagine a manager saying, "I don't agree with these decisions, but you need to do A, B, C." This might be being frank and open with your reports, but at the same time you reduce their motivation. And if top management learns about this, they won't be happy. So yes, there is such unspoken pressure to at least not to distance oneself from the things you…

I’ve been a manager for decades and this is the way to handle it sometimes. Life is full of things that suck but you have to do them anyway, like paying taxes or cleaning your bathroom. Why should we try to pretend that work, of all places, is exempt from that?

Wrapping it in pink wrapping paper fools no one but kills personal credibility, which is the most important asset a manager has.

Top management often does not give a shit if people are happy about the thing (who is happy about layoffs?), just that it gets done satisfactorily. So yeah, sometimes I tell my team “this sucks but just get it done and then we can get back to the interesting work.”

Re: Meta to ask many managers to become individual contributors or leave

#343

Post by [deleted] »

deltree7 wrote: post #293
indigochill wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if you were CEO and you wanted to, how would you engineer the incentives such that actually productive managers succeeded? Or is there something about corporate structure that makes it impossible?

I know HN hates him, but Elon Musk has figured this out and that's why he will always deliver outstanding returns compared to others.

[deleted]

Re: Meta to ask many managers to become individual contributors or leave

#344

Post by rippercushions »

stuff4ben wrote: post #311
deltree7 wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know HN hates him, but Elon Musk has figured this out and that's why he will always deliver outstanding returns compared to others.

How exactly has he figured this out? I see an egomaniac that drives his employees as if they're just cogs in a machine.

Per this thread, this seems preferable to letting managers spend all their time building empires.

Also, if you're working for any large company, you are a cog in the machine.

Re: Meta to ask many managers to become individual contributors or leave

#345

Post by arcticbull »

wrigby wrote: post #213
zabzonk wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what does TLM mean? i wish that all you folks out there would understand that nobody outside your bubble knows what these daft abbreviations stands for, much less mean.

TLM (at Facebook) stands for Tech-Lead Manager - it’s a hybrid role, with engineering duties and people management duties. From what I remember, it wasn’t intended as a long-term position, but was used in stop-gap circumstances (manager quits, tech lead temporarily takes on some people management duties) or for when an engineer was considering transitioning to the management track.

Yeah, it's an "M0" role. Generally folks who transition from senior engineer into management become TLMs. Staff engineers transition to "M1" or a full-fledged manager.

TLMs still have individual contributor responsibilities. M1s don't. The reason for that is generally that (especially junior) ICs aren't likely to push back against poor technical decisions knowing that the person they're pushing back against is also in charge of their rating. This feels quite fair based on my experience and as such I'm quite skeptical about TLMs in general.

Re: Meta to ask many managers to become individual contributors or leave

#346

Post by TheMagicHorsey »

I've held a number of roles in tech from IC to sales to engineering management to product management and now back to IC. The problem with engineering management is that its difficult to quantify the things that make someone a good technical manager. I'm not even sure its always the same set of things in every organization. So its very easy for there to be many really bad EMs hiding in plain sight at places like Google and Meta. Its just really difficult to tease apart what an EM's contributions to team success actually are, and whether a team's failures and successes are even properly laid at their feet when there are so many confounding factors.

I went back to being an IC because its so much easier to take the blame and praise for my work when I'm just coding. I wouldn't mind doing sales again either. But I don't ever want to manage a large team again. There's just too much bullshit ... and I'm also old now (nearly 50) and I feel like a lot of new engineers don't understand what having a job means within an org. Yes, I know you want to work on interesting things all the time, but sometimes all you get to work on is unexciting stuff. Its a job.

Re: Meta to ask many managers to become individual contributors or leave

#347

Post by rippercushions »

scarface74 wrote: post #300
rippercushions wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Building empires is quite standard in management. I work at $BIGCO as a manager and have been told that, in practice, if I want to get a promotion to the next level, I'll need to grow my team large enough to have other managers reporting to me first. So my primary target is to convince the powers that be to give me headcount, and what my team actually does is strictly secondary. Now I'm a mere peon, but this replicat…

You act as if this behavior is unique to management. Every leveling guideline I’ve seen for any big tech company (including the one I work for) requires you to demonstrate “scope” and “impact”.

For ICs those are usually measured with product metrics, not butts in seats.

Re: Meta to ask many managers to become individual contributors or leave

#348

Post by dasil003 »

stuff4ben wrote: post #311
deltree7 wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know HN hates him, but Elon Musk has figured this out and that's why he will always deliver outstanding returns compared to others.

How exactly has he figured this out? I see an egomaniac that drives his employees as if they're just cogs in a machine.

I think both you and the GP are missing the essence of what Elon is. He is neither an amazing operator and businessman, nor is he a slave driving demon. He does have a huge ego and need for attention, I'll give you that, but fundamentally he is someone who cares more about solving big problems than he does about money or people. The push to deify or villify him is all about satisfying ones own judgement, but personally I find those reductive opinions to be far less interesting than actually looking at the various things he's done and evaluating them on their own merits.

Re: Meta to ask many managers to become individual contributors or leave

#349

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

posharma wrote: post #228
fdgsdfogijq wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I experienced the exact same thing, and have watched the mediocre engineers that went straight for management move up the chain. IC engineering just doesnt have that good of career advancement. The cynical career advice is to just move into management as soon as possible.

Exactly. IC career is not as sexy as HN makes it to be. People pursuing IC careers are doing it for personal reasons, definitely not for growth. Compared to management it takes an order of magnitude more time, influence and energy to get promoted in the IC ladder beyond staff.

I mean, I don’t know. What people like about IC careers is that it’s even an option for an ambitious, hardworking person to not have to spend their time in management. Staff engineers have a ton more responsibility and authority than an IC could ever get in, like, insurance claims adjusting.

Re: Meta to ask many managers to become individual contributors or leave

#350

Post by tchalla »

zabzonk wrote: post #191
sbrother wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TLM is the term I've heard for that more often.

what does TLM mean? i wish that all you folks out there would understand that nobody outside your bubble knows what these daft abbreviations stands for, much less mean.

It’s honestly getting out of hand. It’s almost as if one requires a dictionary to communicate these days. Even though I know these abbreviations it’s just off putting.
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