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Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

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Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

#781

Post by datahack »

kelnos wrote: post #515

> Leaders will own much more, with as many as 15+ direct reports. [...] Every leader at Coinbase must also be a strong and active individual contributor. Managers should be like player-coaches, getting their hands dirty alongside their teams. Oof. So not only are they giving their remaining managers more reports, but those managers will be expected to do lots of other, non-management work. Sure, nothing can go wrong…

Isn’t this just an attempt to build a two pizza team (across the company)? Or the whole “parking lot” philosophy that built Patagonia.

Don’t know if it will work with this weird arbitrary cap, because 15 is fine for some things and way too many for others.

Mandates do be like that.

Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

#782

Post by jimmy2times »

Zach_the_Lizard wrote: post #674
skippyboxedhero wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a data point, I work at a US company that ended up in this place and the same thing is happening. In my BU there were directors with 2 direct reports. Even at the next level up, the number of non-IC directs is only high single digits. There are many managers who were already engaging technically with the product (not PRs but playing an active role in planning work) and they have no idea what directors are actually…

As one of those supposedly higher level ICs, I agree entirely with the assessment. A decade or so ago, the high level ICs I interacted with were much more technical. They were the kind who would perhaps not invent truly novel things--but plenty did in the right companies--but they had mastered their domains and genuinely solved thorny problems that others struggled with. Nowadays, they are more political and less inv…

Sounds like Google.

Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

#783

Post by mvc »

happymellon wrote: post #541
keithnz wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same, I've been coding for 40+ years, and other people I know of similar length of time also seem real quick to adopt AI. I'm constantly having to show the young devs how to get the most out of their AI agents and also adapting my workflows regularly as things changes. Weirdly its some of the youngest who are most resistant, I think because they are learning coding skills, and just have got the hang of coding such th…

I've been coding for 25 years now, and it's not that I see AI as evil, but more that it doesn't solve any of my problems or looking back, any problems I had at previous roles. It's always been someone higher up the ranking wants meetings, training or something dumb because his golf buddy sold him on Kafka support contracts in inappropriate situations, or an architect needs to shoehorn some tech in so they can have it…

zoom literally makes a summary of meetings available now if you enable it.

unfortunately you still have to show up to the meeting and engage with your friends and colleagues for half an hour.

Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

#784

Post by broken-kebab »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #737
broken-kebab wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best manager I had in my career was a guy with zero software dev experience. Technical skills and leadership are simply different fields. Converting a best engineer into a mediocre manager doesn't sound like a solution for anything.

I wonder how the best manager was not qualified to understand what his team is doing, if they do it right or not and was also not able to help them in case there was a technical challenge. This is not how successful companies operated when they became successful, before getting bloated.

Why, no coding experience doesn't mean "dumb". He was able to see the picture, and facilitate productive discussions between qualified team members. It worked wonderfully. Some managers who are former devs just want to leave their footprint on every technical decison really having no time or attention span to dig into a question. Guess which approach is more helpful.

Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

#785

Post by andriy_koval »

jrumbut wrote: post #426
andriy_koval wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With very rare exceptions, professional athletes are just not as good athletically at 40/50 as they were at 20. They may be smarter in some ways--which maybe means they'd be better as coaches. not sure if focus should be on athletic sports. Chess is better analogy to software I think.

To part of it, but chess is generally played one against one, there are well understood rules and a clearly defined goal, and every win is someone else's loss. When building software, if you can state an unambiguous goal and what rules apply you are more than halfway done. It's not uncommon to work on something for a year and discover you have been building the wrong thing. Navigating that ambiguity is where all the…

Sure, rules are different, though there are team chess competition, but the point is there are analogies not involving athleticism which declines with age, unlike software skills.

Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

#786

Post by pbgcp2026 »

dahart wrote: post #672
siren2026 wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe we should go back to what it was before Google and big $$$ tech decided that if you were a "manager" you shouldn't contribute technically. Being a manager now means a bunch of busy work talking to other managers and weekly 1:1s. There is a ton that has been written about the managerial class. Producing nothing, but for sure making themselves look self-important. Before that the manager was essentially the be…

> We don't need weekly 1:1s to check on feelings. As a manager that does weekly 1:1s, I agree with that statement. But I do need 1:1s to check on progress, uncover blockers that people haven’t surfaced on their own, make continuous small decisions, offer support, assess performance, collect status information for my manager, and last but not least give employees the opportunity to share feelings frequently. They do,…

all your "progress updates" are in Jira and Git. Go and check. Ask questions if needed.

Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

#787

Post by friendzis »

strken wrote: post #780
friendzis wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At the very least it's unintentionally disrespectful There is ZERO CHANCE they have used ai unintentionally > also doesn't care enough to burn bridges and insult you. By actively using ai they are stating that you are so much beyond them that even a personal "eff you" is not worth the time. One would have to actively try and poke some personally hurtful areas to come off more insulting than use of ai.

"Unintentional" was perhaps the wrong word. There's a difference between your boss not caring about you (does any boss really care?) and your boss actively disliking you enough to call you a loser when they expect to gain nothing from it. In the former case, disrespect is a side effect of laziness, while in the latter it is the whole point.

My point is that presence of LLMisms is in itself a form of disrespect

Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

#788

Post by reillyse »

paulhebert wrote: post #307
scoot wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be "AI native" (a la digital native) you have to have grown up with the technology. I'm not sure exactly which children they're planning to replace all their staff with, nor how they plan to get around the child labour laws.

Thank you! It's the dumbest term and I hear it thrown around way too often

I can't reply to the other comment because it's been flagged, but I just wanted to point out that I do not think employees should be treated like cattle. I was being sarcastic. I was using the language of tech bros to satirize the situation.

I'm actually shocked that people could take my comment at face value and not realize it was obviously sarcastic. That is eye opening.

Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

#789

Post by reverius42 »

elros wrote: post #659
bluerooibos wrote: post #644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious if there's a reason you mentioned 8 or if that's an arbitrary number? Was 8 an industry norm/upper limit at one point?

Perhaps related to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magical_Number_Seven,_Plus...

See also https://martinfowler.com/bliki/TwoPizzaTeam.html

Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

#790

Post by reverius42 »

aboodman wrote: post #600
kelnos wrote: post #515

> Leaders will own much more, with as many as 15+ direct reports. [...] Every leader at Coinbase must also be a strong and active individual contributor. Managers should be like player-coaches, getting their hands dirty alongside their teams. Oof. So not only are they giving their remaining managers more reports, but those managers will be expected to do lots of other, non-management work. Sure, nothing can go wrong…

lol I read "as many as 15+ direct reports" and thought it was hilariously low. My manager at google had like 50+ directs in 2010. And he was the best boss I've ever had. Popular conception of what a manager is is wildly unambitious. Weekly 1:1 is performative and useless. It's not what makes a good manager. What makes a good manager is: * Having excellent domain knowledge and judgement * Having the respect of the tea…

Median tenure at a lot of tech companies is around 18 months. If you meet quarterly with your manager, the median employee is only going to meet with their manager 6 times, total! Not to mention people change jobs, and org charts change, so even if you don't leave after 18 months your manager might. How can you build a real relationship with only 6 meetings total?
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