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The internet is a cruel and hostile place, where if you are vulnerable you are eaten alive. You must proceed as if every input comes from far someone smarter th

The internet is a cruel and hostile place, where if you are vulnerable you are eaten alive. You must proceed as if every input comes from far someone smarter than you and bent on your destruction. Your designs must trade off other desirable properties in exchange for a defensible security posture. Human environments can be like that too, but good ones aren't. System design, in some organizations, is about generating a paper trail that protects the architect's career in the investigation after something inevitably goes wrong. You cannot take prudent risks, adopt good new technologies, etc, even if they actually reduce project failure rate. Project failures still happen, and having done something like that on a failed project is career suicide. In other organizations, teammates feel completely at ease having conversations that, reported to HR out of context, could be career-ending. "Be vulnerable" says you should try to make your organization more like the latter, which sometimes means going first, taking risks with your metaphorical ass uncovered and showing your teammates that you trust them not to defect.

neilv 8y ago
For the systems architect example, I'd like to suggest for discussion an (opinion-heavy) point between the two you mentioned: * Admit mistakes freely. It's the right thing to do, it's good for the culture, and anyone you should want to work with will respect that, and also do it themselves. People usually pick up on actual culture quickly. * Do appropriate engineering diligence and responsibility, not CYA. This includes identifying and clearly communicating tradeoffs and risks, and discussing with others. Sometimes you will be vulnerable to a hypothetical party who might try to throw you under the bus, but you should avoid organizations where that's a likely consideration. If an organization is doing bad things, and it goes to the top and can't be fixed -- the concern is not to CYA while you stay, but to leave. * Avoid situations in which "conversations that, reported to HR out of context, could be career-ending". That means avoiding organizations with HR that is feared rather than respected, and it occasionally might mean considering how a conversation could sound, out of context. (For the latter, I'm thinking scenarios like mutual joking among colleagues, then one person complains -- you never want to be giving a deposition of what everyone said about each other's mothers. I'm not talking about work-related things: if discussing work with your team can be career-ending, maybe you're in a bad organization, and/or doing something bad.) * Avoid organizations that have been caught treating employees badly, yet who ask for employees to be "vulnerable". And where executives don't lead by example. The entire organization might not be onboard with being a safe place, and wanting others to be "vulnerable" might be a euphemism for "exploitable by me". (Advisors might've been sincere when they came up with the "vulnerable", but the necessary "safe place" precondition got lost along the way.) Be honest, trustworthy, diligent, responsible, and at times humble, foster mutual trust among colleagues, but be skeptical of anything that looks like a wolf asking hens to be vulnerable.

neilv 8y ago

For the systems architect example, I'd like to suggest for discussion an (opinion-heavy) point between the two you mentioned: * Admit mistakes freely. It's the right thing to do, it's good for the culture, and anyone you should want to work with will respect that, and also do it themselves. People usually pick up on actual culture quickly. * Do appropriate engineering diligence and responsibility, not CYA. This includes identifying and clearly communicating tradeoffs and risks, and discussing with others. Sometimes you will be vulnerable to a hypothetical party who might try to throw you under the bus, but you should avoid organizations where that's a likely consideration. If an organization is doing bad things, and it goes to the top and can't be fixed -- the concern is not to CYA while you stay, but to leave. * Avoid situations in which "conversations that, reported to HR out of context, could be career-ending". That means avoiding organizations with HR that is feared rather than respected, and it occasionally might mean considering how a conversation could sound, out of context. (For the latter, I'm thinking scenarios like mutual joking among colleagues, then one person complains -- you never want to be giving a deposition of what everyone said about each other's mothers. I'm not talking about work-related things: if discussing work with your team can be career-ending, maybe you're in a bad organization, and/or doing something bad.) * Avoid organizations that have been caught treating employees badly, yet who ask for employees to be "vulnerable". And where executives don't lead by example. The entire organization might not be onboard with being a safe place, and wanting others to be "vulnerable" might be a euphemism for "exploitable by me". (Advisors might've been sincere when they came up with the "vulnerable", but the necessary "safe place" precondition got lost along the way.) Be honest, trustworthy, diligent, responsible, and at times humble, foster mutual trust among colleagues, but be skeptical of anything that looks like a wolf asking hens to be vulnerable.