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It really doesn't. At this point I've mentored a lot of junior engineers and scientist, and a fair number of mid-career and senior ones. One of the most commo

by ska 7y ago

It really doesn't. At this point I've mentored a lot of junior engineers and scientist, and a fair number of mid-career and senior ones. One of the most common things they bring up is "I'm getting stuck", or "I don't feel as productive as I want to be", or "Sometimes I can't seem to finish anything", "I'm not sure I'm working on the right things", etc. The article isn't bad at outlining some of the common failure modes that nearly everyone falls into from time to time. There is nothing in there specifically about quality of life, etc. and most of it applies very well in any type of organization.

Benjammer 7y ago
But the article isn't talking about individuals and their anxiety as it relates to work process. It's literally saying that an IC who is too fixated on the architecture might spend too much time digging into tech debt and "get stuck" on assigned task work. Do you find that this type of person in the one who comes out and says that they don't feel productive? It just seems like the opposite of "I feel stuck how can I not feel stuck anymore." It's more like "these are ways where ICs might lose track of the bigger picture and get off task in a way that hurts team productivity." Are you really saying that an IC who spends enough time on mentoring/tech debt/on-call fires that it's impacting their task completion is going to throw their hands up in the air and say "I can't figure out why I'm not getting more tasks done"?
- ska 7y ago
  I guess partially I am, particularly with junior people. Although often they don't really track their time precisely enough to see where it is going. I say partially because much of the time it isn't "I'm not getting assigned tasks done". With junior people it's often "I don't know why /my estimates are off/i am slow/i get stuck/". With more senior people it often boils down to "How can I have more impact".

by ska 7y ago

Benjammer 7y ago

But the article isn't talking about individuals and their anxiety as it relates to work process. It's literally saying that an IC who is too fixated on the architecture might spend too much time digging into tech debt and "get stuck" on assigned task work. Do you find that this type of person in the one who comes out and says that they don't feel productive? It just seems like the opposite of "I feel stuck how can I not feel stuck anymore." It's more like "these are ways where ICs might lose track of the bigger picture and get off task in a way that hurts team productivity." Are you really saying that an IC who spends enough time on mentoring/tech debt/on-call fires that it's impacting their task completion is going to throw their hands up in the air and say "I can't figure out why I'm not getting more tasks done"?

ska 7y ago
I guess partially I am, particularly with junior people. Although often they don't really track their time precisely enough to see where it is going. I say partially because much of the time it isn't "I'm not getting assigned tasks done". With junior people it's often "I don't know why /my estimates are off/i am slow/i get stuck/". With more senior people it often boils down to "How can I have more impact".