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Getting things “done” in large tech companies

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Re: Getting things “done” in large tech companies

#61

Post by switch007 »

whstl wrote: post #38
theK wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, fire the Product Managers?

Or at least hold them accountable for failing to get things done and communicating badly with developers. Which is something that I'm yet to see. In previous companies, as an engineering manager, I had to burn a huge amount of political capital to steer my team in the right direction, several times. My people (engineers) want to achieve their goals and create value, and the higher-ups want working software making mon…

How do the evade accountability so often and so deeply? It's bizarre.

Re: Getting things “done” in large tech companies

#62

Post by cljacoby »

I have mixed feeling on this.

Some parts of this are probably good advise, at least with respect to clocking titular promotions. No disagreement around visibility of delivered "big wins" being key.

However, I feel like this article is subliminally pro-management, with the thesis statement essentially being just make your manager (and their manager) happy. But what happens when there's no clear direction from management on what the team's goals are? Or when priorities shift on a weekly, or even daily basis? It seems pretty hard to deliver anything meaningful, if by the time you're finished they've already moved on to the next shiny thing.

Additionally, in my experience this "make your manager happy" approach goes hand-in-hand with a "yes boss" manager-subordinate relationship. Managers are empowered to flurry out executive dispatches on what, when, and how things ought to be done, and engineers are encouraged to follow orders. Results are normally not great.

Re: Getting things “done” in large tech companies

#63

Post by bluGill »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #50
beezlebroxxxxxx wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More and more you run into people who simply don't care about craft and quality. I can already hear the chorus of people that will scream "I'm not paid enough to care" or "it's just a job for some people", and those things are often true; but, nonetheless, people used to take much greater care in their craft even when they were paid less. There was a sense that, even if it was just a job, it should be done well. A ce…

> A certain sensibility of care and craftsmanship has faded away. It got replaced with professionalism , as in "being a professional", which nowadays seems to mean prioritizing business needs above all. Caring about quality and craftsmanship is not professional - it's just not being economical with company time and money. It's better for the business for dev teams to tick features off a list as quickly as they can, b…

> Caring about quality and craftsmanship is not professional - it's just not being economical with company time and money.

I disagree, but only partially. The real question is when is the project done as in you would shred the source code and nobody would ever care. Some projects are done when they ship version one - you wouldn't fix any bugs or add new features, so code quality doesn't matter. Some projects are never done - someone will be touching this code in 50 years (after you are dead), so quality matters.

If the code is done then craftsmanship doesn't matter and putting effort into it is an unprofessional waste of time. However if the code will be maintained for years in the future then not putting effort into craftsmanship is unprofessional. You need to know where you are. Sometimes writing ugly code is a good use of your time, sometimes writing good clean code is well worth it.

The important thing is to know where you really are. The wrong choice will hurt you.

Re: Getting things “done” in large tech companies

#64

Post by WaitWaitWha »

In my experience, the two most important things to get "things done" is the other part of that sentence, the "things".

Without well defined scope and deliverables, you cannot get "things done".

Never-ending projects means the scope was not well defined, there is a constant scope creep, or the deliverables were not well defined. Or, worse there are good idea fairies in the organization.

(https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Good%20Idea%...)

Re: Getting things “done” in large tech companies

#65

Post by stego-tech »

While the OP’s post is helpful, I’d argue it glosses over several other, far more critical points that other commenters have touched upon here:

* Doing work on the right team is more important than doing the right work

* Good PMs and managers are more critical than good work

* Good reporting structures are more important to visibility than a high-quality result

* Doing work that aligns with leadership goals is infinitely more valuable than work that supports the functioning of the business

* Always be ready to do the whole thing yourself, because politics in big tech will always disincentivize cooperation across silos.

Re: Getting things “done” in large tech companies

#66

Post by whstl »

abhisek wrote: post #58
icedchai wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good PMs are worth their weight in gold and actually make engineers' jobs easier. Bad PMs create a useless "translation" layer that doesn't help anyone (except, perhaps, themselves.)

How will you define a good PM? I have been looking for this definition for a while. In my startup experience, it seems to me the best PMs are the CTO and the early engineers who has near infinite business and user context.

Same experience, IME founders make amazing PMs, because they care about the company and they care about people not wasting their time.

Not OP, but I can answer:

They're ok with ideas coming from someone else, check the ego at the door and listen to both engineers and customers. They make engineers work less and produce more value. Most important, they don't have a "vision", they help organize the team so the team has a shared vision built by the team.

EDIT: Also: They're not competing with the engineering manager or lead developer for some sort of leadership. They're talking with customers instead of asking sales to do it. They're working on the product aspect of tasks instead of offloading them to engineers.

Re: Getting things “done” in large tech companies

#67

Post by 2d8a875f-39a2-4 »

"Getting things done" means applying torque to one or more of the cogs in the corporate cash flow machine of which you are a part.

Unfortunately that doesn't always correspond with "build a better product". If it doesn't but it is what you personally want to "get done" then you're going to need to circumvent the people whose job it is to keep you turning those cogs.

Re: Getting things “done” in large tech companies

#68

Post by whstl »

switch007 wrote: post #61
whstl wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or at least hold them accountable for failing to get things done and communicating badly with developers. Which is something that I'm yet to see. In previous companies, as an engineering manager, I had to burn a huge amount of political capital to steer my team in the right direction, several times. My people (engineers) want to achieve their goals and create value, and the higher-ups want working software making mon…

How do the evade accountability so often and so deeply? It's bizarre.

By shielding decision-makers/customers and engineers.

To give an example of when I had to burn political capital:

I had to "skip rank" a few times and go directly to CEOs. They are appreciative when you provide concrete facts, such as "I worked for two weeks on the redesign of this page that zero people use and I'm frankly tired of this bullshit".

Re: Getting things “done” in large tech companies

#69

Post by icedchai »

abhisek wrote: post #58
icedchai wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good PMs are worth their weight in gold and actually make engineers' jobs easier. Bad PMs create a useless "translation" layer that doesn't help anyone (except, perhaps, themselves.)

How will you define a good PM? I have been looking for this definition for a while. In my startup experience, it seems to me the best PMs are the CTO and the early engineers who has near infinite business and user context.

Communicates well, focuses on the people, problems and solutions, not tools and processes.

Example: good PM will build a mock up of a UI, go over it in detail with engineers, then let them break up their own work. They are focused on the actual product. Bad PM will write 10 Jira tickets without any real context, assign them without discussion, then add 20 different tracking fields that nobody will use.

Re: Getting things “done” in large tech companies

#70

Post by lazide »

switch007 wrote: post #61
whstl wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or at least hold them accountable for failing to get things done and communicating badly with developers. Which is something that I'm yet to see. In previous companies, as an engineering manager, I had to burn a huge amount of political capital to steer my team in the right direction, several times. My people (engineers) want to achieve their goals and create value, and the higher-ups want working software making mon…

How do the evade accountability so often and so deeply? It's bizarre.

Usually the same way folks like Trump do it.

DARVO, leverage, etc. etc.

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