Meta to ask many managers to become individual contributors or leave • Hacker News Board

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

#671

Post by SergeAx » Fri, Feb 10, 2023, 10:12 AM UTC

likeabbas wrote: post #427

karaterobot wrote: post #386

It's too bad, because the best managers I've worked with were not good ICs, but they did multiply the effectiveness of the ICs they worked with, and so were absolutely invaluable to the company in a way that may not have shown up on paper. If those people exist in FB, as I'm sure they must, then they'd presumably get jettisoned as a result of this choice. That would be bad long term. I used to despise managers, until…

IMO the easiest way to solve this issue would be to normalize ICs making more than their managers. That way, only the people who really want to be managers are managing.

We already have too few managers, let alone good ones.

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

#672

Post by doktorhladnjak » Sun, Feb 12, 2023, 6:07 AM UTC

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #666

doktorhladnjak wrote: post #589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple tanked Facebooks valuation No, Facebook tanked their own valuation. They monetized user data without a care for how those users might eventually feel. They became entitled about having that data and the revenue streams attached. Apple took the opening Facebook left unguarded by realizing people actually do value privacy in their products, and made technical and marketing investments in it.

> Apple took the opening Facebook left unguarded by realizing people actually do value privacy in their products, and made technical and marketing investments in it. Yeah, and that's why Apple's ad revenue has grown massively since ATT was introduced. Because Apple care about privacy /s.

Nowhere did I say Apple cares about privacy. I said they recognized that their customers cared about privacy.

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

#673

Post by fsckboy » Wed, Feb 15, 2023, 4:54 AM UTC

karaterobot wrote: post #386

It's too bad, because the best managers I've worked with were not good ICs, but they did multiply the effectiveness of the ICs they worked with, and so were absolutely invaluable to the company in a way that may not have shown up on paper. If those people exist in FB, as I'm sure they must, then they'd presumably get jettisoned as a result of this choice. That would be bad long term. I used to despise managers, until…

> were not good ICs, but they did multiply the effectiveness of the ICs they worked with

that sounds nice (meaning, "I know what you are saying") but it's not really true. As organizations grow, they become less efficient. If a manager can keep a team of N working at N*1 productivity, that's amazing, but it's not a multiple. Now, people can be dragged down by poor communication, poor leadership, changing targets, stepping on each other's feet, bad attitudes, etc. and a good manager can get that 0.1 efficiency multiplier back up to something approaching 1, so it might feel like a multiple.

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

#674

Post by zeruch » Fri, Feb 17, 2023, 8:53 PM UTC

likeabbas wrote: post #427

karaterobot wrote: post #386

It's too bad, because the best managers I've worked with were not good ICs, but they did multiply the effectiveness of the ICs they worked with, and so were absolutely invaluable to the company in a way that may not have shown up on paper. If those people exist in FB, as I'm sure they must, then they'd presumably get jettisoned as a result of this choice. That would be bad long term. I used to despise managers, until…

IMO the easiest way to solve this issue would be to normalize ICs making more than their managers. That way, only the people who really want to be managers are managing.

That already happens a fair amount. I've had two orgs where for stretches of time my top guys cleared more than I did, and I've known others in the same boat (they ran "rockstar" SME teams of various types). I wasn't offended by it either. I gave them air cover and they did exceptional work largely undisturbed, and periodically asked questions that made them not get too comfortable in the status quo. It was a fair trade off.

But ICs making more than managers is not what should be normalized; building teams with structures that optimize for performance rather than "management by spreadsheet" will get you further than just one dimensional rules about comp, especially in larger orgs where the comp tiers are deep.