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> burdening them to “sell” their vision on some architecture, recruiting policy, whatever. Fair warning, if I ever interview you for a position of senior or hi

> burdening them to “sell” their vision on some architecture, recruiting policy, whatever. Fair warning, if I ever interview you for a position of senior or higher, I will be evaluating your ability to sell your ideas to other engineers. Anyone who comes in as a Staff Engineer expecting to simply dictate their ideas to lower-ranked engineers without selling those ideas, is going to fail.

mlthoughts2018 8y ago
In that case, I would politely thank you for the chance to interview and decline to speak further with you, because it would be clear I would not be empowered to get my job done in the face of all the time-waster politics to lobby for projects or quarterly goals, etc. I would feel, “why have they hired an expert like me if they don’t plan to trust my advice on what action to take?”
- nf05papsjfVbc 8y ago
  Do you really think software engineers react well to being told what to do by someone who has not yet earned their respect?
  - mlthoughts2018 8y ago
    That seems inapplicable. This part of the comments is just about being given the political authority to implement the course of action you determine is best. Of course that always starts with developing trust and belief from the engineers and probably even needs to be based on what they know and their experience. That’s a separate issue from being a political lame duck hire who, even with engineer support, is blocked from being effective.
- skj 8y ago
  The statement > anyone who comes in as a Staff Engineer expecting to simply dictate their ideas to lower-ranked engineers without selling those ideas, is going to fail was almost certainly about the field in general, not this person's immediate org or even company. So it's more like, "why would we hire an expert like you if we won't actually get the value we're paying for?"
  - mlthoughts2018 8y ago
    > “So it's more like, "why would we hire an expert like you if we won't actually get the value we're paying for?"” But hiring them into a position where they are automatically subject to pre-existing political barriers guarantees you won’t get value out of them. Giving them autonomy means you could possibly benefit from their value-add.
    - skj 8y ago
      I don't think it's fair to use the label "pre-existing political barriers" when talking about being able to convince people that your ideas and vision are worth the cost it takes to implement.
      - mlthoughts2018 8y ago
        That makes no sense at all. Pre-existing political barriers are the primary obstacle to convincing people in most business settings. The actual technical merit or cost effectiveness usually has utterly no correlation at all to how the business decision is made.
        brlewis 8y ago
        > convincing people I thought you didn't want to be burdened with selling ideas, but just wanted authority to implement them without convincing people.
        mlthoughts2018 8y ago
        “Selling ideas” is not related at all to demonstrating the technical merit of ideas. They are completely unrelated things.
        skj 8y ago
        That's an odd distinction and almost certainly not one that was made by anyone else in this conversation.

mlthoughts2018 8y ago

In that case, I would politely thank you for the chance to interview and decline to speak further with you, because it would be clear I would not be empowered to get my job done in the face of all the time-waster politics to lobby for projects or quarterly goals, etc. I would feel, “why have they hired an expert like me if they don’t plan to trust my advice on what action to take?”

nf05papsjfVbc 8y ago
Do you really think software engineers react well to being told what to do by someone who has not yet earned their respect?
- mlthoughts2018 8y ago
  That seems inapplicable. This part of the comments is just about being given the political authority to implement the course of action you determine is best. Of course that always starts with developing trust and belief from the engineers and probably even needs to be based on what they know and their experience. That’s a separate issue from being a political lame duck hire who, even with engineer support, is blocked from being effective.
skj 8y ago
The statement > anyone who comes in as a Staff Engineer expecting to simply dictate their ideas to lower-ranked engineers without selling those ideas, is going to fail was almost certainly about the field in general, not this person's immediate org or even company. So it's more like, "why would we hire an expert like you if we won't actually get the value we're paying for?"
- mlthoughts2018 8y ago
  > “So it's more like, "why would we hire an expert like you if we won't actually get the value we're paying for?"” But hiring them into a position where they are automatically subject to pre-existing political barriers guarantees you won’t get value out of them. Giving them autonomy means you could possibly benefit from their value-add.
  - skj 8y ago
    I don't think it's fair to use the label "pre-existing political barriers" when talking about being able to convince people that your ideas and vision are worth the cost it takes to implement.
    - mlthoughts2018 8y ago
      That makes no sense at all. Pre-existing political barriers are the primary obstacle to convincing people in most business settings. The actual technical merit or cost effectiveness usually has utterly no correlation at all to how the business decision is made.
      - brlewis 8y ago
        > convincing people I thought you didn't want to be burdened with selling ideas, but just wanted authority to implement them without convincing people.
        mlthoughts2018 8y ago
        “Selling ideas” is not related at all to demonstrating the technical merit of ideas. They are completely unrelated things.
        skj 8y ago
        That's an odd distinction and almost certainly not one that was made by anyone else in this conversation.