5 ms·

Bet their engineering department is crippled by bureaucracy and headed by a business person not a tech person.

by cde-v 6y ago

g_p 6y ago
Looking through the vacancies, they have a category of jobs under "Enterprise IT", which includes CI/CD Engineer. Doesn't bode well, but no hard-and-fast details of who they report to. They're also hiring full-stack engineers and senior software engineers under their "Clinical & Business Platform" group, as well as a (Sr) Full Stack Engineer under their "AI Cognitive" part. If these listings are reflective of their structure, you are probably right! Is there any good data or research on why heading up tech/engineering with a non-tech business person is bad? It's a pet bug-bear of mine!
- colesantiago 6y ago
  I'd like to see the success of tech companies headed by a CEO with or without an engineering background.
  - g_p 6y ago
    I absolutely agree, and if anyone has any useful data on this, it would be an interesting afternoon of data crunching. In this ideal dataset I'd also be really keen to look at how the C-suite changes over time with respect to funding, and the outcome of more "investor friendly" non-tech folks end up in what would normally be tech roles. CISOs without security engineering background, CTOs that never built a side project etc.
- rvz 6y ago
  The reviews also paints a different picture and look just as brutal as the company culture: [0] [0] https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Reviews/Babylon-Health-Reviews-E1338681.htm?sort.sortType=RD&sort.ascending=false https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Reviews/Babylon-Health-Reviews-E...
  - g_p 6y ago
    Well that was an insightful read! Clearly seem to be some recurring issues. That kind of culture comes from the top.
  - rubatuga 6y ago
    You know, I've read through a handful of "health" startup companies on GlassDoor, especially those that had posted on HN, and I would say more than half have similar issues as Babylon. Sentiment such as "a great cause" but "horrible management", and "tons of smart people" but "bad leadership". I wonder why it's so common at healthcare startups.
    - g_p 6y ago
      I wonder if there's a factor in the make-up of the founding team needed to raise money and gain traction through credibility, that leads to this? The leadership and management issues being so common makes me wonder if the resulting founding teams lack the experience of running technical teams and cultivating a good environment and morale. I suspect it's inherently NP-hard to manage a tech team whose work you can't yourself do. I imagine little of the founding C-suite of "health' startups has experienced the "length of a piece of string" engineering deadline when trying to solve complex issues etc, and perhaps that feeds into culture?
      - rubatuga 6y ago
        I highly doubt it’s NP hard, given that humans have a hierarchical structure. Even if you assume a fully connected graph, you still only have n^2 connections. Nonetheless, I believe that it is mainly the fact that health itself is hard to iterate on, and requires knowledge from so many domains. It’s possible that the employees who were frustrated in the companies were expecting quicker iterations.
      - LyndsySimon 6y ago
        I admit I hadn’t read your comment when I posted a sibling to it. I agree with you. I think successful healthcare tech companies go through a growth stage first where the key is a solid basis in the healthcare field. Engineering experience isn’t as important in the beginning... right up to the point where everything comes to a screeching halt as tech debt reaches the point where it rapidly expands to consume pretty much all of the engineering team’s time.

Bet their engineering department is crippled by bureaucracy and headed by a business person not a tech person.

by cde-v 6y ago

Bet their engineering department is crippled by bureaucracy and headed by a business person not a tech person.

g_p 6y ago

Looking through the vacancies, they have a category of jobs under "Enterprise IT", which includes CI/CD Engineer. Doesn't bode well, but no hard-and-fast details of who they report to. They're also hiring full-stack engineers and senior software engineers under their "Clinical & Business Platform" group, as well as a (Sr) Full Stack Engineer under their "AI Cognitive" part. If these listings are reflective of their structure, you are probably right! Is there any good data or research on why heading up tech/engineering with a non-tech business person is bad? It's a pet bug-bear of mine!

colesantiago 6y ago
I'd like to see the success of tech companies headed by a CEO with or without an engineering background.
- g_p 6y ago
  I absolutely agree, and if anyone has any useful data on this, it would be an interesting afternoon of data crunching. In this ideal dataset I'd also be really keen to look at how the C-suite changes over time with respect to funding, and the outcome of more "investor friendly" non-tech folks end up in what would normally be tech roles. CISOs without security engineering background, CTOs that never built a side project etc.
rvz 6y ago
The reviews also paints a different picture and look just as brutal as the company culture: [0] [0] https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Reviews/Babylon-Health-Reviews-E1338681.htm?sort.sortType=RD&sort.ascending=false https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Reviews/Babylon-Health-Reviews-E...
- g_p 6y ago
  Well that was an insightful read! Clearly seem to be some recurring issues. That kind of culture comes from the top.
- rubatuga 6y ago
  You know, I've read through a handful of "health" startup companies on GlassDoor, especially those that had posted on HN, and I would say more than half have similar issues as Babylon. Sentiment such as "a great cause" but "horrible management", and "tons of smart people" but "bad leadership". I wonder why it's so common at healthcare startups.
  - g_p 6y ago
    I wonder if there's a factor in the make-up of the founding team needed to raise money and gain traction through credibility, that leads to this? The leadership and management issues being so common makes me wonder if the resulting founding teams lack the experience of running technical teams and cultivating a good environment and morale. I suspect it's inherently NP-hard to manage a tech team whose work you can't yourself do. I imagine little of the founding C-suite of "health' startups has experienced the "length of a piece of string" engineering deadline when trying to solve complex issues etc, and perhaps that feeds into culture?
    - rubatuga 6y ago
      I highly doubt it’s NP hard, given that humans have a hierarchical structure. Even if you assume a fully connected graph, you still only have n^2 connections. Nonetheless, I believe that it is mainly the fact that health itself is hard to iterate on, and requires knowledge from so many domains. It’s possible that the employees who were frustrated in the companies were expecting quicker iterations.
    - LyndsySimon 6y ago
      I admit I hadn’t read your comment when I posted a sibling to it. I agree with you. I think successful healthcare tech companies go through a growth stage first where the key is a solid basis in the healthcare field. Engineering experience isn’t as important in the beginning... right up to the point where everything comes to a screeching halt as tech debt reaches the point where it rapidly expands to consume pretty much all of the engineering team’s time.