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Crushing Jira tickets is a party trick, not a path to impact

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Re: Crushing Jira tickets is a party trick, not a path to impact

#71

Post by scarface_74 »

Trasmatta wrote: post #65
scarface_74 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The prime cause of burnout is not saying “no” to being pushed to work extra hours. You do that by being able to communicate about the trade offs between the holy trinity of projects - on time, on budget and meets requirements.

I disagree with this. You can burn out when working less than 40 hours. You can not burn out when working way more than 40. It has a lot more to do with other factors, it's just that those factors will burn you out even quicker if you're working too many hours. I'm incredibly burnt out currently, and I'm consistently at under 40 hours at my job.

In that case you probably see your job as more than just a paycheck. I go to work for one reason - to exchange my labor for money. The company gets all of my skills and experience during work hours. But when off of work. I’m off of work

If either of us at anytime decides that the labor for money transaction is no longer needed. I get another job.

Re: Crushing Jira tickets is a party trick, not a path to impact

#73

Post by intelVISA »

Trasmatta wrote: post #11
asdasdsddd wrote: post #2

Another way to frame this is to not get too attached to your code. Tmrw it could be the cornerstone to a new line of business or it can be burned in the dumpster.

And this is one reason this industry can be so soul crushing. You're asked to demonstrate "ownership", but at any moment some person above you can take all your work away and make you do something entirely different. Somehow we're asked to care about our work and not care about it at the same time.

"Drive this car with 3 wheels and if you crash it's all on you, if we get to the destination I'll be rich and DON'T even think about stopping to add a 4th wheel. DRIVE FASTER. STOP THINKING ABOUT THE WHEEL."

Really devs should exchange labor like authors with royalties, there's no incentive to ship good software for salary so you just end up with a series of "crushed tickets" aka future work for yourself as job security.

Re: Crushing Jira tickets is a party trick, not a path to impact

#74

Post by bdangubic »

scarface_74 wrote: post #58
bdangubic wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree for two reasons: - job hoppers do not realize how often they are discarded for being that. where I work this is the FIRST and most important part of the CV review. job hopper CVs are immediately thrown out (and trust me, you want to work where I work). I have numerous colleagues that work elsewhere and all but one have exact same thing going on. no one in their right mind is going to invest into someone wh…

> no sane company is going to let go an employee who is valuable to them. You say that as if companies are sane. Management may think you are valuable to them. But HR sets the salary bands. Management only has so much power over raises.

I don’t disagree. however, I also think lots of people just don’t know how to negotiate. lots of people is complacent with “company policy, we do X% raise per year and no more” - however, if you go to your boss and say “hey, my performance is not up to par with my fair market value etc…” I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised what managers can pull with the HR. and if they can’t, that is unlikely a place you should stay

Re: Crushing Jira tickets is a party trick, not a path to impact

#75

Post by jq-r »

theamk wrote: post #26
nosefurhairdo wrote: post #8

I was given high impact projects precisely because I crushed tickets as a junior. I demonstrated repeated mini-competencies (crushing tickets), gained credibility, then got to demonstrate macro-competency (deliver projects). Definitely agree that "crushed many tickets" is less effective in performance review than "delivered critical project". I'm not sure how one gets to be responsible for a project without first cru…

I think the OP's point is that "crushing the tickets" should not be your first priority. That does not mean you should not be closing JIRA tickets, but it does mean that the number of tickets closed should not be your #1 metric. In other words: if you have a choice of closing 10 easy tickets or 1 hard ticket this week, what should you choose? It's a trick question! You should be choosing whatever is most important fo…

Which reminds me of a previous discussion: Don't do easy things

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27988260

Re: Crushing Jira tickets is a party trick, not a path to impact

#76

Post by scarface_74 »

bdangubic wrote: post #74
scarface_74 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no sane company is going to let go an employee who is valuable to them. You say that as if companies are sane. Management may think you are valuable to them. But HR sets the salary bands. Management only has so much power over raises.

I don’t disagree. however, I also think lots of people just don’t know how to negotiate. lots of people is complacent with “company policy, we do X% raise per year and no more” - however, if you go to your boss and say “hey, my performance is not up to par with my fair market value etc…” I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised what managers can pull with the HR. and if they can’t, that is unlikely a place you should s…

First, statistics back me up.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryanrobinson/2024/11/05/64-of-...

Let’s talk about the raises I have gotten from job hopping since 2014. I have been working a lot longer.

But if the company could pay me more and thought I was worth more, then why didn’t they offer me that in the first place?

2012 I was working for a then F10 company (GE) after two years of across the board 3% raises, I left for a 25% raise in 2014. The manager couldn’t push for larger raises at GE. The entire team of 15 left within 6 months.

Stayed at the next medium size company for 2 years and no raises. Left for another medium sized company for a 20% raise.

Stayed there for two years and did a vertical move to get the chance to be on the ground floor when a startup hired a new CTO who wanted to bring all of the development in house and wanted to be “cloud native”.

Two and half years later a job at BigTech fell into my lap - a 40% increase in comp.

I was at BigTech for 3 years and took a pay cut when I left. But by then, I valued piece of mind and work life balance over money. Within a year of me working at the company, my current employer reached out to me. Pay was the same. But it was more aligned to what I wanted to do, better benefits and most importantly, unlimited PTO and I fully expect to take 30 days off this year.

None of the HR departments at any of the companies were going to be willing to go from 4% raises to 20-40% raises.

Re: Crushing Jira tickets is a party trick, not a path to impact

#77

Post by nosefurhairdo »

scarface_74 wrote: post #20
nosefurhairdo wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely there's a balance to be found. Personally, I allow myself some not-explicitly-requested improvement work when I see what I view as low hanging fruit. I know the code and effort involved, and sometimes just doing the thing is fast enough it's not worth working it into planning. It also keeps me motivated on whatever "next thing" I'm working on when I allow myself some non-next-thing work. However, there's defin…

How does that work in organizations where everything has to be tied to a ticket and you have to do pull requests?

I write a ticket and open a PR and ask my team for review.

Re: Crushing Jira tickets is a party trick, not a path to impact

#78

Post by nosefurhairdo »

toast0 wrote: post #38
scarface_74 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does that work in organizations where everything has to be tied to a ticket and you have to do pull requests?

In such an organization, there's no low hanging fruit, because everything requires a ticket writing exercise, and a group consensus managment exercise. Or you make up a blanket ticket, and self-approve your PRs. Or you start probing for process in interviews, so you can find somewhere to work without oppressive process.

I'm in such an organization, but this does not echo my experience.

I write a ticket describing the work (takes no more than five minutes), open a PR, and get someone on my team to review.

The engineers on my team dictate the process because we've repeatedly earned our manager's trust (and he's a great manager).

Re: Crushing Jira tickets is a party trick, not a path to impact

#79

Post by ebiester »

theamk wrote: post #26
nosefurhairdo wrote: post #8

I was given high impact projects precisely because I crushed tickets as a junior. I demonstrated repeated mini-competencies (crushing tickets), gained credibility, then got to demonstrate macro-competency (deliver projects). Definitely agree that "crushed many tickets" is less effective in performance review than "delivered critical project". I'm not sure how one gets to be responsible for a project without first cru…

I think the OP's point is that "crushing the tickets" should not be your first priority. That does not mean you should not be closing JIRA tickets, but it does mean that the number of tickets closed should not be your #1 metric. In other words: if you have a choice of closing 10 easy tickets or 1 hard ticket this week, what should you choose? It's a trick question! You should be choosing whatever is most important fo…

Two caveats for less-experienced engineers (whether by senority at a company or years in the industry): * As a manager, I would prefer you to crush those ten easy tickets if you aren't up to the task of the hard ticket. If that hard-for-you ticket is easy for someone with more skill, and we're in a high profile incident, I am going to steer you away from it.

* As a manager, if you show me you can crush the easy tickets, I will find a way to guide you toward harder problems. Then, if you show you can do the harder problems, and those around you are in agreement that you are tackling those, then you have the leash to start swarming to issues.

Note that you can usually prove this within 1-3 months - I'm not talking about an extensive time of paying your dues here. But make sure not to try and skip a rung.

Re: Crushing Jira tickets is a party trick, not a path to impact

#80

Post by bckr »

strken wrote: post #70
Trasmatta wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's one of the prime causes of burnout. Feeling like you have no real control over things, but having immense responsibility anyway. Fighting learned helplessness with an internal taskmaster. It's not good for the psyche.

I've started to think the solution to burnout is to just up and quit your job wherever anyone tries to force you to do anything without a good explanation. This is obviously not something everyone can do, but if you can, maybe it's worth it.

Well, make them fire you, so that you get severance. And keep a papertrail documenting how you were told over and over to do things that made no sense to the company’s bottom line.
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