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This works if you trust your manager to take responsibility for the decision, which you often (usually?) can't. If you can't trust your manager to take respons
by imagist 10y ago
This works if you trust your manager to take responsibility for the decision, which you often (usually?) can't.
If you can't trust your manager to take responsibility for the decision, then it's better to make a decision you're going to be held accountable for than to let your manager make the decision and then hold you accountable.
I've seen other engineers in the position where they give a risk analysis and warning in writing, and then shit hits the fan and they get fired. Maybe it doesn't happen immediately, maybe the reason they were fired isn't explicit, but the change in the manager's attitude toward the engineer traces back to when they did what the manager said.
There are also mangers who won't follow through on the tech debt part because they don't trust their engineers even if their engineers are trustworthy. When they discover that they can bypass testing by pulling the emergency lever, they'll start pulling it all the time because they see it as a way to get what those lazy engineers to do their jobs faster. And when tech debt catches up with you, bugs abound, and development slows to a crawl, the engineers get blamed.
Maybe you have a boss you can trust to take responsibility for their risky decisions. Maybe your boss trusts you when you say that paying down tech debt is necessary. But maybe your boss and their boss don't have the same relationship, and the shit rolls down hill.
Yes, I want to work in a trusting environment where my interests are aligned with doing what's best for my company, but an at-will employment capitalist economy doesn't always work that way. It's every man for himself at a fundamental level, and exceptions to that are too rare to make a blanket claim that people should just do what's best for their company.
- beat 10y agoIf you can't trust your boss to not scapegoat you when you provide a risk analysis in writing, you need another job.
- imagist 10y agoEh, it's not all that big of a problem of you know how to deal with it (protect your own interests, not the company's, by making conservative choices as I described above). I work 35 hours a week, make $125k/year, have good benefits, like most of my coworkers, and am doing relatively interesting work for a company that isn't completely evil. Sure, my boss can scapegoat me if I let him make technical decisions, but I don't. That's a tradeoff I'm okay with. I'm always on the lookout for something better but I'm happy where I am. And besides, most people who think their bosses won't scapegoat them if something goes wrong are naive. If it's your job or theirs and they have the power, you're screwed. It's better to avoid the risk and not put yourself in that situation. To be clear, I'm not saying don't take risks. I'm saying wroth risks on your own behalf.
- pmoriarty 10y ago"Yes, I want to work in a trusting environment where my interests are aligned with doing what's best for my company, but an at-will employment capitalist economy doesn't always work that way." What economy does work that way?
- imagist 10y agoEmployee-owned cooperatives sidestep this issue pretty well by empowering workers. I don't know of any entire economies, though.
- didibus 10y agoI agree with you. I think most often then not, you need to withhold the inferior alternative, or be very careful in how you presented it. If you downplay the risks, or you don't emphasize them enough one way or another, it will still end up being your fault, even in writing. Trade offs that are business related can be delegated and should be delegated to the business to make. But saying something like: "if we do A, it could make us vulnerable to X,Y,Z technical problems, but would allow you to have what your business needs 7 days early" can be dangerous, because it assumes the business stakeholders truly understands the dangers of technical issues X,Y and Z, which they almost always do not. As an engineer, you should advise the business towards the proper way to do things, and you are responsible to make sure your advice is clear and loud. It is sometimes appropriate to suggest the less ideal scenario, but if you do, be ready to assume full responsibility and ownership on it. You should never have an advice that goes like: "Yes we can do it, but it'll cause other problems." and expect for these other problems to not be your responsibility to fix and mitigate as they appear. The implicit of all your suggestions is always: "I can make this work." So better be sure whatever you suggest you can actually have it work.