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These are not the toughest problems. Here's a tough one: managers that compete with their employees for credit and rewards. Does the company reward managers bas

These are not the toughest problems. Here's a tough one: managers that compete with their employees for credit and rewards. Does the company reward managers based on the total output of the team they manage, or do they reward managers on their contribution to the success? If the former, managers will try to hire the best, and help their employees do the best work. If the latter managers will not necessarily try to hire or retain the best, since they are competing for rewards.

brundolf 6y ago
That may be an additional interesting problem, but why shoot down the OP? I think the things it goes over are entirely legitimate and important lessons-learned.
- serverholic 6y ago
  This is hackernews. Instead of thoughtful comments on the article, people prefer to make up an argument and then bitch about that so they feel smart.
  - duxup 6y ago
    I think it is more people hear a topic that is wide ranging and sort of riff off of it and discuss related and not so related things. I think it is pretty normal even if a bit off the mark at times.
dasil003 6y ago
That's not a hard problem, that's an easy problem for leadership to solve (you explained the solution in half a sentence), or an impossible problem for a line manager to solve.
- finikytou 6y ago
  Who do you think leadership listens to? the employees they never talk to or the line managers they have weekly discussions with? it happened to me recently. working for a manager that literally took all the credit for all of my visible work, taking 0 responsibility when the team was failing on projects while he is the one who assigned juniors on complex projects without any oversight. He obviously blamed his own team members to upper management rather than taking responsibility too. He recently got promoted while I am being asked to attend trainings to get better at my job in order to be promoted (While at the same time being qualified as a top achiever in my yearly review...) Don't forget that no one will ever be on your side in a company. You don't meet leadership. Your line manager does. HR is not on your side never. So yes. The only way out is to kneel down and accept it. be nice to the guy who takes credit and if you do it well enough you might be the next he will promote. except if he brought his friend to the company and this friend is competing with you....
anotheryou 6y ago
Or you have good high-ups that are just glad if you do a good job and they don't have to intervene. Problems I struggle with sometimes: - Finding time for product management (including research) (PO is my actual job title). - Difficult personalities (relatively I think I'm very good at handling these, but trying to change someone instead of just mitigating harm is hard). - Keeping non-full-stack devs busy. E.g.: The most urgent topic is some DB migration and I need back-end people for it. I could have front-end work on the next user facing feature in the meantime, but they are blocked by back-end delivering the data. (well front-end can mock the back-end in my example, but you get the idea). - Balancing how well prepared or defined tasks have to be. There are so many factors: Getting a good outcome / staying agile / having the devs think along (no micro-management) / not overburdening the dev / and maybe most importantly: not knowing who will take the task because devs are on such different levels.
ska 6y ago
What you are describing is an organization problem, and typically above the pay grade of an engg manager. So interesting, yes, but a different category.

brundolf 6y ago

That may be an additional interesting problem, but why shoot down the OP? I think the things it goes over are entirely legitimate and important lessons-learned.

serverholic 6y ago
This is hackernews. Instead of thoughtful comments on the article, people prefer to make up an argument and then bitch about that so they feel smart.
- duxup 6y ago
  I think it is more people hear a topic that is wide ranging and sort of riff off of it and discuss related and not so related things. I think it is pretty normal even if a bit off the mark at times.

dasil003 6y ago

That's not a hard problem, that's an easy problem for leadership to solve (you explained the solution in half a sentence), or an impossible problem for a line manager to solve.

finikytou 6y ago
Who do you think leadership listens to? the employees they never talk to or the line managers they have weekly discussions with? it happened to me recently. working for a manager that literally took all the credit for all of my visible work, taking 0 responsibility when the team was failing on projects while he is the one who assigned juniors on complex projects without any oversight. He obviously blamed his own team members to upper management rather than taking responsibility too. He recently got promoted while I am being asked to attend trainings to get better at my job in order to be promoted (While at the same time being qualified as a top achiever in my yearly review...) Don't forget that no one will ever be on your side in a company. You don't meet leadership. Your line manager does. HR is not on your side never. So yes. The only way out is to kneel down and accept it. be nice to the guy who takes credit and if you do it well enough you might be the next he will promote. except if he brought his friend to the company and this friend is competing with you....

anotheryou 6y ago

Or you have good high-ups that are just glad if you do a good job and they don't have to intervene. Problems I struggle with sometimes: - Finding time for product management (including research) (PO is my actual job title). - Difficult personalities (relatively I think I'm very good at handling these, but trying to change someone instead of just mitigating harm is hard). - Keeping non-full-stack devs busy. E.g.: The most urgent topic is some DB migration and I need back-end people for it. I could have front-end work on the next user facing feature in the meantime, but they are blocked by back-end delivering the data. (well front-end can mock the back-end in my example, but you get the idea). - Balancing how well prepared or defined tasks have to be. There are so many factors: Getting a good outcome / staying agile / having the devs think along (no micro-management) / not overburdening the dev / and maybe most importantly: not knowing who will take the task because devs are on such different levels.

ska 6y ago

What you are describing is an organization problem, and typically above the pay grade of an engg manager. So interesting, yes, but a different category.