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I left my last job largely because of this. Exec-levels couldn't decide on a technical direction for the next big version of a major consumer product, then chos

by kabdib 8y ago

I left my last job largely because of this. Exec-levels couldn't decide on a technical direction for the next big version of a major consumer product, then chose a very bad strategy, which took nearly a year to change to something sane. Well, at least less crazy. Meanwhile, the competition is not stupid and is not crazy and is not waiting for us to get our act together. Suddenly we have a year to do the thing that the worker-bee level Cassandras were saying was the right thing to do in the first place. Maybe 14 months to bring up hardware, port or write three major hunks of software, get third parties ramped up on development, write tools and do the million things you need to do to ship. Oh, and the team writing the OS we're mandated to use has been ordered not to talk to us and has gone dark, removing our access to their releases and documentation. So there's a meeting of all the software folks, and management tells us "Okay guys, the next year is going to be hell. You'll be allowed to take vacation, probably, we'll tell you when." I'd seen this coming and was sitting in the back of the room with an offer letter in my pocket, trying not to be angry because a bunch of people I like working with a lot are getting shafted. I should be elated at the offer (which is quite good), but instead I just feel sad. I leave. Six months later one of my friends working on the project sends me a picture of his front lawn. He has been unable to find the time or energy to mow it and it is 18 inches high. Eventually they ship (late, of course), to lackluster reviews. My friend has since moved on; most of the people I know there have. They don't like talking about that year-long deathmarch, followed by a year of patching the living crap out of things in the field and struggling for market share. Meanwhile, the competition's product does very, very well. Last I checked, the latest crop of execs there were gunning for the same crazy. Maybe technology has moved on sufficiently and the specific crazy is possible now, but I have numbers indicating things are pretty much the same. I don't know which side to cheer for. Where do they get these lunatics?

bittcto 8y ago
I believe they hire those “lunatics” because it’s believed that engineers can’t understand business. As an engineer that has started businesses this is BS. It’s really easy to learn business skills, sales and marketing are not difficult, finance is laughably easy. But so long as the companies are being formed to sell equity to VCs you will see them led by frat boys who the VC frat boys recognize... and they will abuse engineers. My solution- stop working for anyone who isn’t technically competent or at least recognizes engineering needs enough to get out of the way and support being efficient.
- ganoushoreilly 8y ago
  I half agree, the reality is sales is a tradecraft honed over time. If it were as easy as implied, many more of the Tech founders here on HN would have had their businesses succeed. The truth of the matter is, the us vs them mentality is just as damaging as one side being arrogant. The only way for a good team to work is for each to recognize strengths and weaknesses and for leadership to keep things level headed.
  - kabdib 8y ago
    I remember being at a startup full of engineers, and us trying to hire a salesperson. Years at big companies taught me contempt for marketing and sales. But there's nothing like finding good marketing and good sales when you're six months to financial destruction . . .
    - bittcto 8y ago
      Yes, and early in my career I was a technical sales person for a product I built... paired with a pure sales person. I don’t mean to say there was no value to his skills— but I am saying that it was not hard for me to understand enough about sales to hire a good sales person. They would of course be a better sales person than me. The problem is people think your CEO should be a sales person and that’s s mistake. Sales is a process that’s easy to replicate. Creating a novel software application isn’t. Ate hnicwl CEO can hire a great chief sales guy. A non-technical CEO can’t hire a CTO and often ends up undermining the product. I would have no problem being hands off with the sales department. I have yet to meet a Non technical CEO who doesn’t think he knows how to design products.
      - shanghaiaway 8y ago
        Have yet to meet a technical CEO who does not think they know sales, marketing, design, etc.
  - mmt 8y ago
    I agree, and I see this same effect of dismissing an entire specialty based primarily on experience as "easy" even within tech, such as what some programmers (Devs) think of sysadmins (Ops). I also agree that us-vs-them is harmful, and, in the context of my example, it's what DevOps (the original cultural movement, not the current job title) was primarily fighting against. However, I do think there's some validity to the complaint, hidden in nuance, and dismissing it outright with even the implication that everyone has equal(ish) value, serves to foster hidden resentment. The allegation seems to be that any accomplished programmer could become accomplished in sales, merely with effort, because the skill/difficulty required by the latter is much less than the former, while the reverse isn't true. Even if that allegation holds, a question that remains generally undiscussed is, would that programmer-turned-salesperson still be a competent programmer at the end of such a process? Perhaps more importantly, would such a person be a more valuable as salesperson than as a programmer? The question of if such a salesperson is more valuable than a salesperson-from-the-getgo seems to be implicitly answered "yes" in these discussions, but that kind of diversity of experience bringing additional value tends to be uncontroversial.

by kabdib 8y ago

bittcto 8y ago

I believe they hire those “lunatics” because it’s believed that engineers can’t understand business. As an engineer that has started businesses this is BS. It’s really easy to learn business skills, sales and marketing are not difficult, finance is laughably easy. But so long as the companies are being formed to sell equity to VCs you will see them led by frat boys who the VC frat boys recognize... and they will abuse engineers. My solution- stop working for anyone who isn’t technically competent or at least recognizes engineering needs enough to get out of the way and support being efficient.

ganoushoreilly 8y ago
I half agree, the reality is sales is a tradecraft honed over time. If it were as easy as implied, many more of the Tech founders here on HN would have had their businesses succeed. The truth of the matter is, the us vs them mentality is just as damaging as one side being arrogant. The only way for a good team to work is for each to recognize strengths and weaknesses and for leadership to keep things level headed.
- kabdib 8y ago
  I remember being at a startup full of engineers, and us trying to hire a salesperson. Years at big companies taught me contempt for marketing and sales. But there's nothing like finding good marketing and good sales when you're six months to financial destruction . . .
  - bittcto 8y ago
    Yes, and early in my career I was a technical sales person for a product I built... paired with a pure sales person. I don’t mean to say there was no value to his skills— but I am saying that it was not hard for me to understand enough about sales to hire a good sales person. They would of course be a better sales person than me. The problem is people think your CEO should be a sales person and that’s s mistake. Sales is a process that’s easy to replicate. Creating a novel software application isn’t. Ate hnicwl CEO can hire a great chief sales guy. A non-technical CEO can’t hire a CTO and often ends up undermining the product. I would have no problem being hands off with the sales department. I have yet to meet a Non technical CEO who doesn’t think he knows how to design products.
    - shanghaiaway 8y ago
      Have yet to meet a technical CEO who does not think they know sales, marketing, design, etc.
- mmt 8y ago
  I agree, and I see this same effect of dismissing an entire specialty based primarily on experience as "easy" even within tech, such as what some programmers (Devs) think of sysadmins (Ops). I also agree that us-vs-them is harmful, and, in the context of my example, it's what DevOps (the original cultural movement, not the current job title) was primarily fighting against. However, I do think there's some validity to the complaint, hidden in nuance, and dismissing it outright with even the implication that everyone has equal(ish) value, serves to foster hidden resentment. The allegation seems to be that any accomplished programmer could become accomplished in sales, merely with effort, because the skill/difficulty required by the latter is much less than the former, while the reverse isn't true. Even if that allegation holds, a question that remains generally undiscussed is, would that programmer-turned-salesperson still be a competent programmer at the end of such a process? Perhaps more importantly, would such a person be a more valuable as salesperson than as a programmer? The question of if such a salesperson is more valuable than a salesperson-from-the-getgo seems to be implicitly answered "yes" in these discussions, but that kind of diversity of experience bringing additional value tends to be uncontroversial.