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Why do you think those bad managers were hired and how would you have avoided the same mistakes?

by SubuSS 8y ago

deanmoriarty 8y ago
Very simple: a much higher hiring bar, which requires more hiring effort, but it's well worth it. To me, every manager should be deeply technical: that doesn't mean they should be wizard developers, but they should be able to discuss very well technical solutions, have opinions (this is very important! being opinionated and not just go with the flow is really really good, it shows you care!), and also be able to troubleshoot the systems their teams work on, so they don't interrupt everyone as soon as there is even a minor customer escalation. That's key to gaining respect from your team and be effective, from what I've seen. Otherwise, you're basically just a glorified delegator and you're not sheltering your team in any way. The VP that was hired chose a different approach and decided to poach people with very long management experience in "stagnant" companies, who jumped ship at being promoted to "director of engineering" from their previous "engineering manager" title: of course these folks don't know much about the technical stuff, and are basically just there to manage processes and remind everyone to fill some bs on jira. The major thing these people care about is making the VP happy, it's incredibly comical. Whatever he says, it's law (paradoxically, I have many conversations with the VP and he instead likes that I am frequently confrontational and argumentative, in a good way, when it comes to technical opinions). This is also dangerous for another reason: as new IC people get hired, they can quickly sense the weaknesses of their managers, so they either 1) Leave out of frustration 2) Stay, because it's convenient for them (it certainly allows average performers to cruise through their job) 3) Or, more dangerously, they manipulate their boss in order to drive their personal agenda (e.g. do horrible work saying to the managers "all the other solutions would be too difficult", and the clueless manager trusts without verifying, since he/she is not capable of verifying).
- jarsin 8y ago
  > To me, every manager should be deeply technical This sentence needs to start with: "I have a dream..."
  - deanmoriarty 8y ago
    When I interviewed at FAANG (Google, FB and Netflix specifically) I had the chance to talk to several managers as part of the process and most of them were highly technical (they were still involved with technical stuff, and/or had significant contributions in open source projects).
- laurentl 8y ago
  And do you know why you didn’t get the job when they added the new layer of management? Were you considered but rejected, did you even get a chance to apply or did you wake up one morning to a new boss and new title? I really feel for what happened to you, but I have trouble believing that a whole raft of incompetent VPs were hired just because they had BigCo du jour in their CV. In other words, what would you have done differently to avoid this outcome, if you believe it was avoidable?
  - deanmoriarty 8y ago
    This is what happened. It's important to understand I'm not bitter about it (anymore), so I'm really just listing the exact steps that led to my "fall", as they happened: 1) About a year after me being into the company and having taken substantial lead in all the engineering initiatives (I was working like crazy and hugely motivating the other folks, always at least 12 hours a day, but it didn't feel like it because I was really excited, so nowhere close to burnout), one of the founders (the CEO) talked to me and said I was doing an amazing job, better than the other technical leads. He said when the time would come, he would seriously consider me for a VP role (we didn't have any VP by then and the company was still just experimenting, we had a few paying customers but no clear vision on how to go to market). 2) After a couple years of tenure, the founder/CEO came to me and said that the company was doing really well (we were growing exponentially by then, and taking new funding with very favorable terms) and that it was time to bring in an experienced VP of engineering. The candidates he had in mind (introduced by the VCs) were all in their late 40s with at least a dozen years of experience as executives, so clearly I wasn't the right person for the role since I was in my very early 30s with much less management experience. He described the VP role as someone who would take on a lot of the overhead I had to do myself, like hiring and keeping a tab on the deliverables, but that on a day to day basis I would still fully lead the engineering team. I kind of believed the story so I didn't think too much of it, and didn't think it was the time to raise drama. 3) Shortly after, the VP (one of the candidates from VCs) came in. He spent a month or two observing things, then talked to me and told me how I was doing amazing things and how everyone in the team loved me (he had 1:1s with everybody where I was praised a lot), and how he wanted to concentrate me more on working on experimental projects while he would be looking to make "big changes" by hiring experienced managers. He said my experience was very good as an IC, and that by managing people I would be "wasting my talent" and that it was all part of scaling the company. I told him I still wanted to be involved in the team operations, and initially he said it was ok, but then over time he proceeded to sideline me more and more (e.g. not including me in relevant technical meetings where I could have easily provided good input). Go figure why, I don't believe I was ever hostile to him or anything that would make me appear bitter. It felt like he was thinking "let's see if I can succeed without him, as opposed to using his help to succeed". At times, I was excluded in things where I more than obviously needed to be in (e.g. niche areas that I architected). Occasionally some of my peers would IM me and say "Hey why are you not in this meeting?". 4) From then until now, the VP has installed this new layer of mid and upper management (directors and managers) by hiring people who strictly have at least 10 years of experience as pure managers. Since we are a startup and we can't exactly steal people from FAANG due to our lower offers, he had to settle with those C-class players (in my opinion) coming from big "stagnating" companies. These people have a completely different perspective on the role, duties and responsibilities than our original culture. They have no vision, just process, which causes the problems mentioned in my initial comment. During this period, my impact on the company has been minimal since I have been put on the sidelines as per VP's request and, while I still have fun because I get to spend time on cool stuff, I haven't affected the bottom line, which I think I could have done had I been still involved in the teams.

Why do you think those bad managers were hired and how would you have avoided the same mistakes?

by SubuSS 8y ago

Why do you think those bad managers were hired and how would you have avoided the same mistakes?

Very simple: a much higher hiring bar, which requires more hiring effort, but it's well worth it. To me, every manager should be deeply technical: that doesn't mean they should be wizard developers, but they should be able to discuss very well technical solutions, have opinions (this is very important! being opinionated and not just go with the flow is really really good, it shows you care!), and also be able to troubleshoot the systems their teams work on, so they don't interrupt everyone as soon as there is even a minor customer escalation. That's key to gaining respect from your team and be effective, from what I've seen. Otherwise, you're basically just a glorified delegator and you're not sheltering your team in any way. The VP that was hired chose a different approach and decided to poach people with very long management experience in "stagnant" companies, who jumped ship at being promoted to "director of engineering" from their previous "engineering manager" title: of course these folks don't know much about the technical stuff, and are basically just there to manage processes and remind everyone to fill some bs on jira. The major thing these people care about is making the VP happy, it's incredibly comical. Whatever he says, it's law (paradoxically, I have many conversations with the VP and he instead likes that I am frequently confrontational and argumentative, in a good way, when it comes to technical opinions). This is also dangerous for another reason: as new IC people get hired, they can quickly sense the weaknesses of their managers, so they either 1) Leave out of frustration 2) Stay, because it's convenient for them (it certainly allows average performers to cruise through their job) 3) Or, more dangerously, they manipulate their boss in order to drive their personal agenda (e.g. do horrible work saying to the managers "all the other solutions would be too difficult", and the clueless manager trusts without verifying, since he/she is not capable of verifying).

jarsin 8y ago
> To me, every manager should be deeply technical This sentence needs to start with: "I have a dream..."
- deanmoriarty 8y ago
  When I interviewed at FAANG (Google, FB and Netflix specifically) I had the chance to talk to several managers as part of the process and most of them were highly technical (they were still involved with technical stuff, and/or had significant contributions in open source projects).
laurentl 8y ago
And do you know why you didn’t get the job when they added the new layer of management? Were you considered but rejected, did you even get a chance to apply or did you wake up one morning to a new boss and new title? I really feel for what happened to you, but I have trouble believing that a whole raft of incompetent VPs were hired just because they had BigCo du jour in their CV. In other words, what would you have done differently to avoid this outcome, if you believe it was avoidable?
- deanmoriarty 8y ago
  This is what happened. It's important to understand I'm not bitter about it (anymore), so I'm really just listing the exact steps that led to my "fall", as they happened: 1) About a year after me being into the company and having taken substantial lead in all the engineering initiatives (I was working like crazy and hugely motivating the other folks, always at least 12 hours a day, but it didn't feel like it because I was really excited, so nowhere close to burnout), one of the founders (the CEO) talked to me and said I was doing an amazing job, better than the other technical leads. He said when the time would come, he would seriously consider me for a VP role (we didn't have any VP by then and the company was still just experimenting, we had a few paying customers but no clear vision on how to go to market). 2) After a couple years of tenure, the founder/CEO came to me and said that the company was doing really well (we were growing exponentially by then, and taking new funding with very favorable terms) and that it was time to bring in an experienced VP of engineering. The candidates he had in mind (introduced by the VCs) were all in their late 40s with at least a dozen years of experience as executives, so clearly I wasn't the right person for the role since I was in my very early 30s with much less management experience. He described the VP role as someone who would take on a lot of the overhead I had to do myself, like hiring and keeping a tab on the deliverables, but that on a day to day basis I would still fully lead the engineering team. I kind of believed the story so I didn't think too much of it, and didn't think it was the time to raise drama. 3) Shortly after, the VP (one of the candidates from VCs) came in. He spent a month or two observing things, then talked to me and told me how I was doing amazing things and how everyone in the team loved me (he had 1:1s with everybody where I was praised a lot), and how he wanted to concentrate me more on working on experimental projects while he would be looking to make "big changes" by hiring experienced managers. He said my experience was very good as an IC, and that by managing people I would be "wasting my talent" and that it was all part of scaling the company. I told him I still wanted to be involved in the team operations, and initially he said it was ok, but then over time he proceeded to sideline me more and more (e.g. not including me in relevant technical meetings where I could have easily provided good input). Go figure why, I don't believe I was ever hostile to him or anything that would make me appear bitter. It felt like he was thinking "let's see if I can succeed without him, as opposed to using his help to succeed". At times, I was excluded in things where I more than obviously needed to be in (e.g. niche areas that I architected). Occasionally some of my peers would IM me and say "Hey why are you not in this meeting?". 4) From then until now, the VP has installed this new layer of mid and upper management (directors and managers) by hiring people who strictly have at least 10 years of experience as pure managers. Since we are a startup and we can't exactly steal people from FAANG due to our lower offers, he had to settle with those C-class players (in my opinion) coming from big "stagnating" companies. These people have a completely different perspective on the role, duties and responsibilities than our original culture. They have no vision, just process, which causes the problems mentioned in my initial comment. During this period, my impact on the company has been minimal since I have been put on the sidelines as per VP's request and, while I still have fun because I get to spend time on cool stuff, I haven't affected the bottom line, which I think I could have done had I been still involved in the teams.