Interesting articles.
I think ideas also need to mature in peoples minds. That can take a long time. And when the right timing comes, people might come back to your idea. Of course that will not always work.
How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer
81–90 of 216 posts
Re: How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer
#82All great advice. But I wish I had spent more time asking myself whether I should spend my life eating crap and kissing someone’s butt in order to further someone else’s ambitions.
You can play the game, but ask yourself if that’s the game you want to be playing. I’m wary of people who seem happy to make themselves slaves to money no matter the human cost.
Re: How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer
#83People should collectively own the companies they work for.
The people doing actual real work often have a much clearer picture of what's a good or bad idea. Meanwhile management, let alone owners, are looking to either
a) maximize short term profits (because they intend to be somewhere else by the time the bad decisions manifest)
or
b) create infinite growth from finite resources (but they still intend to sell when the peak is reached).
Customers, workers, management and owners have wildly different incentives. And only customers and workers have incentives that lead to long term prosperity - building value (indirectly) from natural resources and human time. Management and owners don't build anything, their incentives are redistributing the created value, ideally so as much as possible goes to them.
Re: How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer
#84It seems like this post can be summarized as follows: 1. If your manager has something in particular they want you to do, you should do it. 2. If your manager doesn't have something in particular they want you to do, you should figure out what they will want you to do in the future , and make any necessary preparations so that it will be doable when they want it. I'd say it's good advice. The only thing I would add i…
I read number 2 more as being ready with your own agenda items. For example, if you want to make a code base more minimal, have a POC and some details worked out for when the opportunity presents itself. If you have something prepared and then there’s a site speed, SEO, or series of bug complaints you might be able to pitch your minimal ideas as part of that solution. I like the concept but I don’t know how well it w…
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Re: How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
> it's only about getting higher ups to sing praises about things that I might not have even done. If a company is so broken that promotions are decided based on factually incorrect information, there's nothing to do other than escape to a different company. I'm talking about companies that are functioning okay, but they let the PMs drive what the team works on. A bad PM will send the entire team in the wrong directi…
I'm in Australia, and I've yet to find a company that isn't broken.
All companies are broken. Many companies are broken in ways that are tolerable or even decent.
Re: How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
> it's only about getting higher ups to sing praises about things that I might not have even done. If a company is so broken that promotions are decided based on factually incorrect information, there's nothing to do other than escape to a different company. I'm talking about companies that are functioning okay, but they let the PMs drive what the team works on. A bad PM will send the entire team in the wrong directi…
I'm in Australia, and I've yet to find a company that isn't broken.
Have you tried working at a company with less than ~30 people total? Those have been the best in my experience.
Re: How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
In case you can share an alternate strategy to make a career in a large tech company, please do, would be interested.
The alternate strategy is loyalty to "the business" rather than any particular person. When you're invested in the success of the business above all else, and you make that known, you'll carve out a position where you're valued. Not because you went on a "carving out your importance" mission, but because your energy goes into your work, and the details and care for the long term business objectives. Also... you can t…
I agree with this. That's been my take throughput my pretty long career and was a recipe for success.
You still need to:
1. Be good at what you do.
2. Be good at politics/communication when that's needed.
3. Be in an organization that has good people and also cares. There are organizations where there's just a complete disconnect from the business for various reasons. Dysfunctional.
Re: How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer
#88One of my favorite quotes: “ Only a crisis—actual or perceived—produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable.” - Milton Friedman I’ve found writing 1 pagers and techn…
I like the quote and I think this can work. The problem is the timescales can drive you crazy. The other problem is sometimes crisis is ignored, i.e. there is a crisis but it's not acknowledged or is somehow otherwise normalized.
Re: How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer
#89It seems like this post can be summarized as follows: 1. If your manager has something in particular they want you to do, you should do it. 2. If your manager doesn't have something in particular they want you to do, you should figure out what they will want you to do in the future , and make any necessary preparations so that it will be doable when they want it. I'd say it's good advice. The only thing I would add i…
> 1. If your manager has something in particular they want you to do, you should do it. This point seems obvious, but it's one topics I've had to coach many early career people on over and over again. Many of the people who were having difficulties or heading toward PIP could be turned around by implementing a simple loop where they: 1. Ask their manager for the top priority, explicitly. Re-confirm the top priority e…
Very well expressed. That's great early-career guidance, but also a good refresher for many senior staff.
Re: How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer
#90Politics is inescapable. Software engineers can't live outside of them. Whether these are the team politics, org politics, etc. I don't think engineers are universality bad/good at politics. It's just like anything else, takes practice.
There's a way out. Build your own company and make it something beneath you.
Yeah, and you can also get rid of local politics by moving to the countryside and homesteading. And you can bypass national politics by homesteading on a ship or an island that nobody cares about. And you can just move to a different planet to escape global politics. But any group of people will develop some form of politics, and to do anything meaningful longterm, you need a group of people, not just an individual, why not get better at politics? It is inevitable you will have to take part in them.
But of course, I still want my hut in the woods.