3 ms·
What I find hardest when gauging if I want to join a company, is whether I want to work for the manager. Managers are good sales people, and can be quite convi
by analyst74 5y ago
What I find hardest when gauging if I want to join a company, is whether I want to work for the manager.
Managers are good sales people, and can be quite convincing in order for you to accept the offer. Trying to pierce that veil of salesmanship and personal charm to get to hard truths is really difficult.
Questions I would like to get answers to, but unsure how to ask:
- how much do engineers trust the manager and their colleagues?
- how much support will I get for growing my career? especially around navigating internal politics.
- do engineering leadership have the clout/backbone to ensure roadmap stability, or do they just let engineers work overtime to deal with bad planning?
- alisonkisk 5y agoIt's easy for me. If the manager is a charming salesperson, they are a bad manager.
- wincy 5y agoHappened to me. The manager seemed like a really nice guy. Turned out to be all smoke and mirrors he was a total slimeball.
- neilv 5y agoWhen it comes to hiring, maybe roughly half the managers (and founders) I've talked with lean too much on persuasion, and not enough on earned trust, IMHO. I don't know why attempts at persuasion are so common when trying to hiring people for engineering roles. Maybe it's habit? Maybe they don't realize that people can sometimes tell, and that it has a counter-persuasive effect with some of those people? Maybe it wins more than it loses? In any case, I think too much emphasis on persuasion generally erodes trust, and sets a suboptimal precedent and dynamic. I'd want my engineering people to be conscientious and focused on shared goals -- not to tell me what I want to hear, nor to try to manipulate me -- so why would I set an example otherwise.