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Its a good read. The author suggested that maybe its time for change, which makes me curious about what new model does he/she have in mind.
by abakus 6y ago
Its a good read. The author suggested that maybe its time for change, which makes me curious about what new model does he/she have in mind.
- coffeemug 6y agoAuthor here. I'm not entirely sure, I'll try to work it out. One thing I am sure of is that we need to get rid of the professional engineering management class. It's a parasitic institution.
- obviouslynotme 6y agoLet's be real here for a moment. Software engineering, in general, is the most thing-oriented profession available. It attracts people who are incredibly thing-oriented. Most lack the want or ability to manage other people. This double track is specifically to give prestige to people who are amazing engineer but also can't look strangers in the eye.
- coffeemug 6y agoLinus is as aspy of a nerd as it gets, and he did fine. You don’t need the thing you think you need.
- stephc_int13 6y agoTo be honest, he did fine given the context, but Linus had some issues that would have quickly jeopardized his managing career in almost any companies.
- coffeemug 6y agoThat's a problem with the companies not with Linus.
- nindalf 6y agoIn recent years, even Linus realised that it was a problem with Linus and took steps to fix it. There's no way in hell any of us would be ok with our managers treating us the same way Linus treated other engineers. It worked because he's a genius and he controls the Linux project. You had to play by his rules or not at all. Google doesn't have the same advantage - it's not the only game in town.
- jeffreyrogers 6y agoI do not think this is true at most big companies. I have had plenty of managers who are as disagreeable as Linus. At least Linus is usually correct, not true of many managers who no longer understand the technical details.
- obviouslynotme 6y agoI am not intimately familiar with Linus beyond his product Linux and his famous rants, so I can only grant you his aspy-ness. I think Linus's handling of the Linux kernel is an excellent example of stellar technical leadership in a parallel track. It is what technical companies should look like. Engineers do their thing without worrying about administrative tasks like HR bullshit, salary negotiations, hiring, firing, and fights over who makes the coffee.
- remexre 6y agoTo be fair, the majority (vast majority?) of people who get paid to work on the kernel do in fact have to endure HR bullshit, salary negotiations, etc.; they're just doing it with Intel HR or Qualcomm HR rather than Linux Foundation HR.
- stephc_int13 6y agoManaging a team is not easy and it requires skills that are not automatically found among people who are good at engineering. At the same time, a lot of managers (more than half in my book) are bad at managing people.
- dyeje 6y agoMost engineers are bad at engineering too. That's just the natural distribution of all professions. Managers are not special, their incompetence is just felt more directly and viscerally.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Dansvidania 6y agothat is definitely something I have felt in the past (as an engineer having to deal with parasitic managers) I have since found that like there are good and bad engineers, you can have good and bad managers. I now find myself thinking about management as if it were the command chain in an army, and I would be hard pressed to imagine how an army composed of a general and thousands of privates, with no layers in between, would ever be able to accomplish anything.
- coffeemug 6y agoYou don't abolish the chain of command. You abolish management as a separate organization with its own incentives. For example, Linus is a leader but he is not a manager. In engineering this is what you want.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 6y agoThe only way it changes is if someone gains enough power to make the change. And almost by construction engineers do not have that power. So it would take an exceptionally self-less manager. I Or else an engineer who agrees who by luck or skill gains extraordinary power, implements this new power structure, and achieves such astonishing success with it that firm owners have no choice but to take notice and demand similar reforms at their firms. Or some third way I'm not seeing. A.k.a. nothing like what the blog envisions is likely to happen.
- coffeemug 6y agoThat would imply that the balance of power never shifts, which clearly isn't true over the long term.
- epicureanideal 6y agoAssuming the structure produces better products and better incentivizes the team, it should have a competitive advantage. Build a startup based on similar management principles. If multiple startups attempt it, a few may succeed and serve as an example to follow.
- claytonjy 6y agowhat do you think about rotating regularly between management and IC work? I'm thinking of Charity Major's concept of an Engineer/Manager Pendulum, specifically: https://charity.wtf/2017/05/11/the-engineer-manager-pendulum/ https://charity.wtf/2017/05/11/the-engineer-manager-pendulum...
- coffeemug 6y agoWould have to test it and see how it works, but this (or something like it) is my favorite solution so far.
- epicureanideal 6y agoI would say the top business leadership is to blame. The CEOs for example. They permit the engineering management class to be mediocre-performing parasites, they don't really understand how to measure their performance or the performance of the teams under them. It's the cluelessness of the top management that enables this horrible principle/agent problem. It's as if you had a stock broker who would give you reports every month about how well he's doing, but you aren't capable of understanding whether your assets are increasing or decreasing, and you don't know how to add up the numbers for yourself or care to learn how. And it's their own fault for, in tech organizations, not caring enough to be taught how to manage their managers better. Note: it may even be that some things are difficult to measure, but I don't see even a reasonable attempt to vet the engineering management class. Another note: I'm not sure top leadership looks for any qualities in "management" other than "seems like someone with a rough attitude that will push people hard", even if they're pushing people hard without knowing what the people are even doing. It's a "whip-holder" role rather than any kind of attempt to make work more efficient.