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How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer

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Re: How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer

#41

Post by bradlys »

codazoda wrote: post #31
getnormality wrote: post #15

It seems like this post can be summarized as follows: 1. If your manager has something in particular they want you to do, you should do it. 2. If your manager doesn't have something in particular they want you to do, you should figure out what they will want you to do in the future , and make any necessary preparations so that it will be doable when they want it. I'd say it's good advice. The only thing I would add i…

I read number 2 more as being ready with your own agenda items. For example, if you want to make a code base more minimal, have a POC and some details worked out for when the opportunity presents itself. If you have something prepared and then there’s a site speed, SEO, or series of bug complaints you might be able to pitch your minimal ideas as part of that solution. I like the concept but I don’t know how well it w…

To flesh out things to where you could actually make a reasonable pitch with things like realistic time estimates and documents that would be useful to read then you'd have to have already done it, it'd be trivial, or you apparently have plenty of spare time to do serious spikes in your day to day. You'd also have to have the spare time to update these project ideas as the months pass, the product and codebase changes, etc.

I'm often convinced people extrapolate their insane luck with teams+companies and assume every other company/team can replicate their results. I have a hard time finding people in high level positions who give the slightest of fucks about engineering focused tasks but I am someone who works on product teams. The target goal is always about making money - not saving money or improving velocity.

Re: How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer

#42

Post by codazoda »

posix86 wrote: post #40

The biggest political capital that you can build up is your technical understanding & skills. But they are only useful insofar as you put them into the context of the broader company strategy. Giving appropriate advice, and delivering, in the interest of the company, will give you capital, i.e., people listening to you & relying on you, trusting you, which gives you power to steer. Preparing contingency plans & pitch…

> Preparing contingency plans & pitching then, then executing them, is the best way

I’m interested in hearing more about how you execute on this. Where/how do you keep your plans in wait?

Re: How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer

#43

Post by softwaredoug »

IMO the best you can do:

- Ship often to prod (don’t do theoretical work).

- Ship wins (as defined by generally acceptable metrics.)

- Have someone in management or a PM who is good at selling your wins

Even here, though, you will run into problems. There is always a new VP or leader looking to make an impact. Because you maintain the current systems your team is engaging in WrongThink and new VP has shiny new RightThink (AI, etc). As soon as your code hits prod you have “legacy” code.

New VP can make promises of future, theoretical riches that you can’t compete with, as you maintain the boring, current reality. Reality is not sexy or interesting. You’re in the old guard now.

A lot simply boils down to patronage. Making your higher up VP look successful and being in a position to move with them to their new company.

Re: How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer

#44

Post by gjgtcbkj »

softwaredoug wrote: post #43

IMO the best you can do: - Ship often to prod (don’t do theoretical work). - Ship wins (as defined by generally acceptable metrics.) - Have someone in management or a PM who is good at selling your wins Even here, though, you will run into problems. There is always a new VP or leader looking to make an impact. Because you maintain the current systems your team is engaging in WrongThink and new VP has shiny new RightT…

This could not be more true, however the id like to add the patronage goes farther up the chain. They are all just saying want they need to to clear the checks. It an executive has ever actually invented a successful business model I have yet to meet one.

Re: How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer

#45

Post by apwell23 »

glad to see someone being real and not parroting infuriating "politics is just learning how to interact with other humans narrative" .

politics at work isn't any different than any other politics. Its not a spl breed of politics thats more pure and noble.

succeeding at workplace politics requires the same skills of identifying who to suck up to, who to eliminate and who can be trampled over to get where you want.

Re: How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer

#46

Post by mewpmewp2 »

SeanAnderson wrote: post #13

Man, I must not have worked at dysfunctional enough companies. I can't relate to the opening remarks in this article at all. I'm used to really open communication from the top down and, even when we build in a direction I disagree with, we've discussed things enough that I'm at least interested in seeing why someone else I consider intelligent sees the world so differently. Perhaps it has to do with only working for…

What size companies have you worked at?

Re: How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer

#47

Post by mewpmewp2 »

tamimio wrote: post #20

This is usually in big corps, so if you like working in these hellholes, then proceed with all these shenanigans. I worked there before and it's not really good for engineering, let alone engineers' mindset, because in addition to the actual technical stress, now you have to deal with all this bs from people who do nothing all day but these games. Small companies are the best for me, and I remember one time in a smal…

The only problem is that big corps can pay so much more...

Re: How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer

#48

Post by johnfn »

A lot of the frustration I typically hear in this camp is something like “well I shipped a huge refactor that cleaned up all the code, why does no one appreciate that?” One particular interaction that got me thinking was a few years ago listening to an acquaintance telling me how he spent months meticulously cleaning up the data pipeline and making it perfect, and how no one appreciated this work.

Like, as an engineer, I don’t doubt that this work is valuable. But you have to imagine what it must sound like from the perspective of a PM or EM. Itd be like my PM saying “I spent the last month organizing all eng docs to be properly formatted with bullet points.” You’d be like, uhh, okay, but how does that affect the rest of the company? More importantly, how does the PM distinguish engineers who are doing impactful work from the engineers who are doing the “bullet point formatting” work, of which surely some exist? From the perspective of a PM, these types of work can be hard to tell apart.

Really what you want to do is articulate what you plan to do, ahead of time, in a way that actually clicks for non-technical people. For instance, I was pushing unit tests and integration tests at my company for years but never found the political will to make them a priority. I tried and tried, but my manager just wouldn’t see it. Eventually, there was a really bad SEV, and I told her that tests would prevent this sort of thing from happening again. At that point the value became obvious. Now we have tests, and more importantly, everyone understands how valuable they are.

Re: How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer

#49

Post by bbminner »

SeanAnderson wrote: post #13

Man, I must not have worked at dysfunctional enough companies. I can't relate to the opening remarks in this article at all. I'm used to really open communication from the top down and, even when we build in a direction I disagree with, we've discussed things enough that I'm at least interested in seeing why someone else I consider intelligent sees the world so differently. Perhaps it has to do with only working for…

I suppose that's because higher level VPs at large companies have broad goals and even broader notion means. It is not necessarily bad - allows to fiddle with different approaches before locking in on a specific technique. Wasteful? Yes. Efficient at satisfying board mandates informed by real time tectonic shifts in the industry? Also yes.

Re: How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer

#50

Post by jakeydus »

gjgtcbkj wrote: post #44
softwaredoug wrote: post #43

IMO the best you can do: - Ship often to prod (don’t do theoretical work). - Ship wins (as defined by generally acceptable metrics.) - Have someone in management or a PM who is good at selling your wins Even here, though, you will run into problems. There is always a new VP or leader looking to make an impact. Because you maintain the current systems your team is engaging in WrongThink and new VP has shiny new RightT…

This could not be more true, however the id like to add the patronage goes farther up the chain. They are all just saying want they need to to clear the checks. It an executive has ever actually invented a successful business model I have yet to meet one.

Oh they have invented a successful business model, it's just that it's successful for those in executive positions. The whole C-suite mentality is as successful for execs as it is cancerous for everyone else.
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