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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

#51

Post by OhMeadhbh »

Nextgrid wrote: post #30
alephnerd wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to work at an early stage startup - in fact most people don't. But some people do wish to participate in an early stage startup, and plenty do in Europe as well. > So you have a good work/life balance. I currently work 4 hours a week. And this is why when I was a PM, we shut down our Amsterdam office and shifted it to Praha, Bucharest, and Warsaw. You won't find as many people who will complain about a…

As usual, the problem is not 996 itself but comp. You can get 996, you just have to pay for it. The reason Europeans don't want to do 996 is because the extra effort isn't fairly compensated.

if you surround yourself with people who are only motivated by money, you will believe that everyone is only motivated by money. if you surround yourself with people who are motivated by a creative urge to build something they can be proud of, you may start to believe that this is everyone's motivation.

it is often useful to think of people as only being motivated by one thing, to see clearly how application of that thing might change their behaviour. but if you believe that is the only thing that motivates them, you will have a very simplistic (and eventually incorrect) model of how they are motivated.

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

#52

Post by hxugufjfjf »

systemtest wrote: post #10

When I read about 996-style culture I am happy to be European. That would not work here. 40 hours per week max and most engineers prefer to not work more than 32 hours a week. So you have a good work/life balance. I currently work 4 hours a week.

How does this work though? Do you have around 4 hours worth of work you report on? Are you paid for more than 4 hours? I’m so curious when people throw completely alien statements like this out like it’s something that doesn’t even warrant explanation.

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

#53

Post by al_borland »

bob001 wrote: post #43
Herring wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s better to look at what didn’t happen: unionization. Americans often remind me of Steve Jobs trying to cure cancer using diets & acupuncture. You know what the solutions are, you just don’t like them.

Until recently American engineers made a lot of money at comparatively cushy jobs. A decent engineer in the US could make 5x their equivalent in most European nations. Staff+ engineers at FAANG could make 5x that. People in a good position tend to not like rocking the boat.

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.

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

#54

Post by Herring »

bob001 wrote: post #43
Herring wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s better to look at what didn’t happen: unionization. Americans often remind me of Steve Jobs trying to cure cancer using diets & acupuncture. You know what the solutions are, you just don’t like them.

Until recently American engineers made a lot of money at comparatively cushy jobs. A decent engineer in the US could make 5x their equivalent in most European nations. Staff+ engineers at FAANG could make 5x that. People in a good position tend to not like rocking the boat.

Again see Steve. Something can look like a good position and still rapidly deteriorate.

This one wasn’t that rapid either, you had plenty of warning. I remember discussing inequality with friends in 2014, and probably knew about it since Occupy Wall Street (2011). Or earlier.

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

#55

Post by OhMeadhbh »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #37
Nextgrid wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As usual, the problem is not 996 itself but comp. You can get 996, you just have to pay for it. The reason Europeans don't want to do 996 is because the extra effort isn't fairly compensated.

Not only is it rarely compensated, it's rarely effective. Software work is bursty and creative, not mechanical and hourly.

you are lucky to have lived a career where that is true. it is largely true in the states and sometimes true in startups. there are corners of the world where it is less true than one would hope.

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

#56

Post by zxcvasd »

OhMeadhbh wrote: post #47
1121redblackgo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And why people are jumping out of buildings, actually and metaphorically, in 996 cultures.

i think Amazon only had one person jump out of a building last year. it's not as common as you might think.

"One company only had one suicide via jumping last year" is not a ringing endorsement.

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

#58

Post by blinkbat »

I find a lot of this to also be true with sole engineers managing agents.

I've now seriously approached vibecoding two nontrivial projects, and in each case using "safe tools" was a good way to get to a working stage, faster:

- in one I insisted on typescript early and found it to be more of a hurdle than letting the LLM cobble js learning in and address bugs in a way an engineer might find uncivilized (trial and error over bulletproof typing).

- in another, I found that using react was not offering much benefit to a given project, and asked the llm to rewrite in vanilla. while this mostly worked, it introduced new bugs that were not present when using react. switching BACK to react eliminated these and enabled the LLM to continue writing features at no (current) technical or performance cost!

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

#59

Post by SR2Z »

OhMeadhbh wrote: post #8
OsrsNeedsf2P wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you are an early stage startup and your founders have a habit of talking about "competitors", run like hell. Why? Comparing what the competitors are doing can be a great way to come up with new ideas

because comparing yourself to your competitors will get you a faster horse buggy, not an automobile. if you're in a startup, you should be risking making automobiles. if you want to make faster horse buggies, go work for AT&T.

Ah, the mythical secret weakness of all startups: another startup doing the same thing.

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

#60

Post by casparvitch »

everlier wrote: post #50
systemtest wrote: post #10

When I read about 996-style culture I am happy to be European. That would not work here. 40 hours per week max and most engineers prefer to not work more than 32 hours a week. So you have a good work/life balance. I currently work 4 hours a week.

I'm in EU and I can't agree this describes most engineers. Overwork culture is also present here and exploited by a lot of companies.

I've found in (EU) academia at least that people essentially lie about how much work they do. In anglosphere it's far more common for people to be open/expectant of 80 hour weeks etc. Probably the lieing approach is better for society/culture.
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