3 ms·

Engineering line managers who don’t firmly grasp the technical subject matter sometimes (in my anecdotal experience, often) use “ass-in-seat”-style proxy metric

Engineering line managers who don’t firmly grasp the technical subject matter sometimes (in my anecdotal experience, often) use “ass-in-seat”-style proxy metrics to do performance management. This is harder to do remote. Reading the tasks and diffs is not harder to do remote. Such managers are often effective at impacting the organization (for better or worse). I am not surprised there is a “back to the office” lobby, and I won’t be surprised if it’s an effective lobby.

atoav 5y ago
As someone who has the comparison between working solo/freelance on software and being "managed" I can assure you that in my case the "impact" this kind of management has is that it reduces my productivity by at least a magnitude. Much of what you have to do in this environment is done so managers have the feeling they know what is going on and they have a grip on it. Most of which could be solved for them if they just checked the git issues, commits and/or the wiki. Very often they don't do that legwork so theh have to convince themselves of their usefulness in another way. Being on site makes it easier to follow this dark pattern. Engineering managers should not stand in the way of their engineers, but remove roadblocks ahead and create an environment where quality is achieved. Of course that doesn't equal total freedom for everybody, but IMO good engineering managers should feel nearly non-existent when you do a good job. When you make mistakes they should feel like a good friend preventing you to run into your own doom. When you are lazy they should act as an stark reminder.
smackeyacky 5y ago
The useless managers have migrated to Jira with their unproductive busy work. I made the mistake recently of doing some project management work for a toxic organisation and the standup meetings are just a long sequence of the main manager bullying overworked guys with surprise tickets. Organisations can be just as awful with WFH as the office, but at least I can say obscenities about people out loud on Teams with my microphone muted. The back to the office lobby simply havent worked out how to abuse Jira and Teams properly yet.
jollybean 5y ago
Conversely - measuring performance by any means is going to be really hard. Having to pilfer through diffs is probably just as bad. The notion that 'people want to stay home, away from the office, and have less oversight' is barely worth a survey, it should mostly be obvious. The question is what can we do to be effective? Communications, oversight, coordination - this is all real, and hard.
ashtonkem 5y ago
“Ass in seat” metrics are worth less than nothing, they’re trivially gameable. Most of us probably have experience phoning it in and faking productivity during a bad job; there’s no reason to believe that that’s not a regular thing when there is pressure to be seen over working. Also, I doubt this lobby will work; the labor market for tech is unbelievably tight right now. Workers have the leverage to demand what they want, and I think more of them know it.

atoav 5y ago

As someone who has the comparison between working solo/freelance on software and being "managed" I can assure you that in my case the "impact" this kind of management has is that it reduces my productivity by at least a magnitude. Much of what you have to do in this environment is done so managers have the feeling they know what is going on and they have a grip on it. Most of which could be solved for them if they just checked the git issues, commits and/or the wiki. Very often they don't do that legwork so theh have to convince themselves of their usefulness in another way. Being on site makes it easier to follow this dark pattern. Engineering managers should not stand in the way of their engineers, but remove roadblocks ahead and create an environment where quality is achieved. Of course that doesn't equal total freedom for everybody, but IMO good engineering managers should feel nearly non-existent when you do a good job. When you make mistakes they should feel like a good friend preventing you to run into your own doom. When you are lazy they should act as an stark reminder.

smackeyacky 5y ago

The useless managers have migrated to Jira with their unproductive busy work. I made the mistake recently of doing some project management work for a toxic organisation and the standup meetings are just a long sequence of the main manager bullying overworked guys with surprise tickets. Organisations can be just as awful with WFH as the office, but at least I can say obscenities about people out loud on Teams with my microphone muted. The back to the office lobby simply havent worked out how to abuse Jira and Teams properly yet.

jollybean 5y ago

Conversely - measuring performance by any means is going to be really hard. Having to pilfer through diffs is probably just as bad. The notion that 'people want to stay home, away from the office, and have less oversight' is barely worth a survey, it should mostly be obvious. The question is what can we do to be effective? Communications, oversight, coordination - this is all real, and hard.

ashtonkem 5y ago

“Ass in seat” metrics are worth less than nothing, they’re trivially gameable. Most of us probably have experience phoning it in and faking productivity during a bad job; there’s no reason to believe that that’s not a regular thing when there is pressure to be seen over working. Also, I doubt this lobby will work; the labor market for tech is unbelievably tight right now. Workers have the leverage to demand what they want, and I think more of them know it.