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I wish I could work in a place like this. Here each designer is held hostage by an army of VPs, few of whom know anything about design, who oversee all decision

I wish I could work in a place like this. Here each designer is held hostage by an army of VPs, few of whom know anything about design, who oversee all decisions and can override any design at whim. Thus us engineers have to constantly deal with design changes, up to and even beyond shipping, which often make little sense to anyone much less our customers. The design team often has to go through multiple design reviews by various levels of these executives, leading to long process times where nothing can be delivered waiting on the schedules of the execs. Changes that could be made in code in a minutes might take weeks to deliver, but no delays in shipping are permitted, so often we guess and hope it's close to being right. I hate reading about places that are sane.

mlthoughts2018 6y ago
The same is true for product backend engineers as well. Places that “get it” and let engineers and designers be on equal footing with product managers and executives, with equal autonomy to steer product strategy & design, are so much more successful, vibrant and full of life, with happier people and a spirit of collegiality. Places where product design is dictated by product managers who act as gatekeepers to product user data & business data, and thus they are like the “holy of holies” sort of man behind the curtain allowed to pull the strings - that is total death. Those companies churn out sucky shit that drives all but the worst kind of customers away.
strictfp 6y ago
Take what he writes with a grain of salt. Highly productive people like himself likely gets free rein, and so they're looking at the process with rose-tinted glasses. I've worked with some of these process gurus, and sadly most of them are describing the ideal situation rather than how it works in practice for the average joe. And if they're into publishing this kind of material, they might also make it look better than it really is.

mlthoughts2018 6y ago

The same is true for product backend engineers as well. Places that “get it” and let engineers and designers be on equal footing with product managers and executives, with equal autonomy to steer product strategy & design, are so much more successful, vibrant and full of life, with happier people and a spirit of collegiality. Places where product design is dictated by product managers who act as gatekeepers to product user data & business data, and thus they are like the “holy of holies” sort of man behind the curtain allowed to pull the strings - that is total death. Those companies churn out sucky shit that drives all but the worst kind of customers away.

strictfp 6y ago

Take what he writes with a grain of salt. Highly productive people like himself likely gets free rein, and so they're looking at the process with rose-tinted glasses. I've worked with some of these process gurus, and sadly most of them are describing the ideal situation rather than how it works in practice for the average joe. And if they're into publishing this kind of material, they might also make it look better than it really is.