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In group A there are engineers that just want to turn the crank on scoped work. In group B there are engineers that want to be in the business problem solving

In group A there are engineers that just want to turn the crank on scoped work. In group B there are engineers that want to be in the business problem solving loop and have autonomy to solve problems as they see fit. Group A and B aren't necessarily the same group. I'm going to guess this guy has more than one talented, unhappy engineer on his staff. Some CEOs are unprepared to utilize the talent they hire.

deleted 6y ago
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routerl 6y ago
I'd go farther and admit something about myself, which I suspect is common: sometimes I'm in group A and sometimes I'm in group B. This is directly related to whether I'm working on something I consider valuable. In other words, if you can't motivate me to care about your product, I just want to turn cranks. A paycheck isn't enough to ensure full commitment from any employee, not just engineers. You have to actually manage people, meaning that you have to provide direction and leadership (read "incentives"). I still believe that people will give you a lot more than they'll let you take, if they actually feel as if a project's success will be reflected as their success. People who are willing to give will act autonomously and take responsibility, because "getting it right" personally matters. They have skin in the game. But things like artificial deadlines (i.e. no business consequence, but some exec gets an attaboy) and uninspired/unethical feature work (supported by HR-phony excitement) create an environment where "taking responsibility" gets reduced to "unpaid overtime and fake excitement". In that case, yeah, you need to chew the cud for me, because what you're actually paying for is just the swallowing.
- mooreds 6y ago
  > In that case, yeah, you need to chew the cud for me, because what you're actually paying for is just the swallowing. That is an awesome metaphor. A bit gross, but awesome :).
mooreds 6y ago
That's a great way to think about it: two different types (at least) of working styles. Different engineers are better suited for different companies. (I've worked at very bigcos where I was assigned tickets and it wasn't my jam.) But I think Mike's point was if you ask for autonomy, you need to own responsibility, and part of that is problem definition. To be fair, his company isn't big (< 10 folks, I think), and smaller companies tend to benefit from generalists who can tackle many aspects of a problem, rather than specialists who can knock certain problems out of the park.

deleted 6y ago

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routerl 6y ago

I'd go farther and admit something about myself, which I suspect is common: sometimes I'm in group A and sometimes I'm in group B. This is directly related to whether I'm working on something I consider valuable. In other words, if you can't motivate me to care about your product, I just want to turn cranks. A paycheck isn't enough to ensure full commitment from any employee, not just engineers. You have to actually manage people, meaning that you have to provide direction and leadership (read "incentives"). I still believe that people will give you a lot more than they'll let you take, if they actually feel as if a project's success will be reflected as their success. People who are willing to give will act autonomously and take responsibility, because "getting it right" personally matters. They have skin in the game. But things like artificial deadlines (i.e. no business consequence, but some exec gets an attaboy) and uninspired/unethical feature work (supported by HR-phony excitement) create an environment where "taking responsibility" gets reduced to "unpaid overtime and fake excitement". In that case, yeah, you need to chew the cud for me, because what you're actually paying for is just the swallowing.

mooreds 6y ago
> In that case, yeah, you need to chew the cud for me, because what you're actually paying for is just the swallowing. That is an awesome metaphor. A bit gross, but awesome :).

mooreds 6y ago

That's a great way to think about it: two different types (at least) of working styles. Different engineers are better suited for different companies. (I've worked at very bigcos where I was assigned tickets and it wasn't my jam.) But I think Mike's point was if you ask for autonomy, you need to own responsibility, and part of that is problem definition. To be fair, his company isn't big (< 10 folks, I think), and smaller companies tend to benefit from generalists who can tackle many aspects of a problem, rather than specialists who can knock certain problems out of the park.