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How to Discipline Overeager Engineer?
- mindcrime 7y agoI swear, I half wonder if some of these questions are just outright trolling. It's hard to imagine a company actually being this stupid. Yeah, let's take one of our brightest and hardest working people, communicate to them that their hard work and effort are useless, and then bitch when they quit putting in overtime. Brilliant. If this story is real, I think the OP (of the SO question) needs to accept that the fuck-up is on the part of his/her company, and quit looking for ways to "discipline" their engineer.
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- Blakestr 7y agoI am half with you - but I can totally imagine a company being that stupid, they just wouldn't phrase it as simple and direct as you did, so they don't see the stupidity. The mandatory 3 year "derisking" period sounds asinine. If you can't evaluate an engineer's ability to solve problems in 12 months for a position, I think that's a bigger issue. Conspiracy theory - Article is written by the "overeager engineer" who is looking for clever ways to respond to his company's asinine policies.
- zmmmmm 7y ago> The mandatory 3 year "derisking" period sounds asinine I don't have too much sympathy for the OP on stackoverflow, but I do think 3 years in a company of 5000+ people is not that long to wait to reach a senior position. It's not just about tech skills, at that level it is personality too. It's pretty important at senior levels that people are not just going to up and leave on a whim, so to my mind a 3 year type period is quite a reasonable test of whether they are long term suitable in the company.
- sneak 7y ago“Complain” or “gripe” works just like “bitch” with none of the misogyny.
- DoreenMichele 7y agoand then bitch when they quit putting in overtime. That's not really a fair characterization. He's actively and obviously investing in building his own brand, as it were. He's further doing so in a very in-your-face manner, plus encouraging others to do the same. It's almost like an undeclared work-to-rule style strike. This is potentially a real problem for the company. Personally, I think the real issue here is their reluctance to fire him over the cost involved. Keeping him may cost far more. Granted, they probably should have done something different somewhere along the way to avoid this entire scenario, but I don't have any idea what that might be. I don't have enough information to guess.
- mindcrime 7y agoHe's actively and obviously investing in building his own brand Which is exactly what he should be doing, as we all should. He's further doing so in a very in-your-face manner Great, sometimes you need to make a point. plus encouraging others to do the same. Good, that's a win for everybody, except the short-sighted management that want somebody who will "go above and beyond" without any reward for it. It's almost like an undeclared work-to-rule style strike. This is potentially a real problem for the company. And a problem the company brought on themselves. And one they could fix by working with this guy and giving him more than the proverbial "pat on the head". If they really can't promote him right now, it's hard to imagine that there isn't something they could do to appease him and tide him over. More money? Extra vacation time? Company car? New title? Guaranteed lunch with the CEO twice a year? I dunno, but most people are reasonable and it seems unlikely to me that they couldn't find some kind of compromise if they really wanted to.
- DoreenMichele 7y agoI'm not saying you are wrong. Just saying your characterization is a tad understated, let's call it. He did more than just quit putting in overtime. I mean, it was fifteen hours a week. That's a lot of OT to do on a regular basis. Management is often an ass about how OT gets handled anyway. They often have stupid, counterproductive policies in that regard.
- zarro 7y agoIts incredible that the author would think that they are in a position to discipline the engineer, and not rethink their organizational incentive structure. The whole point of a company is to maximize the value that it creates and to that end set up an incentive structure to develop and maintain people that are able to create that value which means rewarding them to keep everyones interests aligned. Using the "company doesn't promote people unless they've worked in a role for a least 3 years" is the biggest pile of shit excuse I see all the time. If zuckerberg can prove that he can provide enough value to be a billionaire by 30, certainly there should be a path to director or CEO regardless of age, within any organization worth its salt, for someone that can provide that same value, without checkboxes for attendance. Just because you attended the lecture doesn't mean you should be able to prevent someone from getting an A who ditched every lecture but can easily ace the exams.
- TazeTSchnitzel 7y agoIt concerns me that them constantly working a ton of overtime is deemed praiseworthy.
- exabrial 7y agoI'm sorry you're downvoted but this is incredibly important. Over-engagement leads to siloing, burnout, quality problems, tech debt, among many other things
- dookahku 7y agoAll right so I got a strange question. how do I get to be like this employee? With that kind of drive vision and focus? It's something I've been trying to cultivate in myself for a while but I'm always looking to be better. It seem like I never know what to do next
- Blakestr 7y agoFind a problem you hate, or find people you love who need something.
- dookahku 7y agoThanks, but that's too generic. I mean what practices, habits, who knows what else
- Blakestr 7y agoYou described a person who is driven andn focused. Essentially you're looking for the traits of: Intelligence and Determination. The best specific habit I can give you to increasing determination is to start a mindfulness practice and get high intensity cardio regular. Mindfulness - 20 minutes a day, twice if you can. It helps you, among other things, be more honest with yourself and become comfortable with being uncomfortable. Cardio - You don't have to run a marathon here. Get your heart rate up to your max heart rate for about 10 seconds, usually it will take you about 90 seconds to two minutes to do this. Keep doing this for about 30 minutes. This will up your metabolism but it will also help you learn how to push because you are physically pushing yourself. Use a decent heart rate monitor a $30 chest strap is all you need. Other habits include removing any addictions in your life that do not benefit you I'm getting 8 hours of sleep every night. Then find a problem you can get behind and try to solve it.
- JabavuAdams 7y agoToo meta. If you like something do it. A lot. You're not going to be high-performing if you have to convince yourself to like it.
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- exabrial 7y agoThere is a remarkable difference between being a strong individual contributor and a team leader. Organizations sort of need both, but being good at one doesn't make you good at the other. I hired a guy like this, and he was extremely useful. However, he did do some outrageous things. For instance, he was learning Kotlin, and decided to do one his projects in Kotlin without so much as an approval from me or even discussing amongst his peers (which I do delegate most of the tech decisions to those in the trenches). Shocked, I had a one-on-one in which he told me we were falling behind. I reminded him our number one focus is to support the salesfloor in the company, and that our stack is "boring" on purpose because of stability and predictability. I had him work long hours to rewrite the project in the correct stack so it could be supported by the whole department, not just him. Eventually he left, which I wasn't terribly upset by, and he went to work for a startup which I think better fit his personality and skillset. I keep up with him on linked in and it seems he's continued to surf between startups and making a decent living doing so. I think he's much happier doing this, because having a structure did not suit him.
- ngz00 7y agoKotlin is a very tame language choice, in what I assume is a very Java heavy organization. Peers should be accountable for learning new languages and following the implementers rule.
- maximente 7y agonah, this is just the brilliant hacker type mentality (individual over team, parachute in and rewrite everything in today's cool language) type stuff that gets really annoying once you're responsible for a set of interconnected components of software that matter. it's critical to root out these hero types lest they ruin your organization with hand grenades wrapped up as "refactored" projects using the latest language. seniors won't put up with this, and rightfully so: it basically raises a middle finger to the organization's previous culture/work, and they are now responsible for doing it... again. it's disrepectful and ought to be a fireable offense, ideally rooted out in the first few weeks when the new team member is given some slightly autonomous tasks.
- ecf 7y ago> This has caused a lot of disruptions in the company, and I'm receiving recommendations to encourage this millennial to quit This line is completely off-topic and should not be there at all. It leads me to believe there is a personal bias at play that’s having an influence on your decision making. This young guy is busting his ass to learn and more importantly, apply what he’s learning. And you have the audacity to disregard his effort based on a meaningless time-frame? Younger workers, in general, are getting tired of the “serve your time” game that employers are playing. He knows his value to the company, is willing to take it elsewhere if you don’t respect his efforts.
- around_here 7y agoLeadership is soft skills, and the employee in question doesn’t have them. The poster needs to get out of the weeds, and stop the demand on labour, but he’s not wrong about getting rid of the petulant child.
- ubu7737 7y ago> Leadership is soft skills Grifting. > the employee in question doesn’t have them The employee in question seems capable of upending your financial priorities. > stop the demand on labour For compliance, right? > petulant child We hate about others what we hate about ourselves.
- Traster 7y agoLeadership is a soft skill, that a manager is meant to show when managing the engineers in their team, a skill that this manager has clearly failed to develop.
- Traster 7y agoThere's so much information in this post it's difficult where to begin. If the engineer is good, then promote them. Time in post is not a reason not to promote someone, and it sounds like this manager is just crap. Often the "Time in post" requirements are just metrics that develop over time- you 'expect' engineers to develop at a certain pace, and if you're promoting them too quickly that's probably a sign that you aren't making the right decision. It's not proof that you're not making the right decision, it's just an indicator. When I managed a team I often had to manage expectations from employees that want to be promoted. Partly that was about "Look, you haven't demonstrated X,Y,Z skills" but it's also "You haven't built up the connections across the company - no one comes to you when they need an expert". Very often those requirements come with time more than anything else. The fact that the manager is having monthly meetings with the employee to check in on promotion is a big red flag. If you're not planning on promoting him mid-cycle then you've not been clear with your communication by repeatedly having meetings at which you're going to disappoint him and re-iterate the same points. The underlying fact though is this: Large companies stay efficient by under-promoting employees and only paying market rate when hiring since that's the only time there's real competition. As an employee you need to know this, and behave appropriately.