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As an IC, the people who dislike talking to their coworkers are ignoring the effect that Zoom has on team cohesion. Personally, a single in-person meeting is mo

As an IC, the people who dislike talking to their coworkers are ignoring the effect that Zoom has on team cohesion. Personally, a single in-person meeting is more effective for getting to know my coworkers and bonding with them than any number of Zoom lunches and socials and happy hours. And even ICs have to talk to other people to exchange ideas, get buy-in, and solve cross-functional problems. It's _so_ much easier to do that when those people are also your friends rather than strangers. They don't need to be friends you go out with after work everyday for drinks, just friends you know well enough to have a conversation with that isn't awkward. This dynamic was very apparent to me having worked at a company that did have cohesion and one that didn't. I used to think ICs should just be able to code away in a cube but lack of communication has much larger costs than being slightly less productive because someone interrupted you. Now more than ever building the _right_ thing is more important than building the _best_ thing. Maybe some people here feel they should just be able to code away because their EMs have handled the buy-in part and they just get work assigned to them but I think lower level SWEs should be a more active part of the conversation rather than a Jira ticket consumer.

ryanSrich 5y ago
> Zoom I’m both a remote maximalist, and a Zoom hater. I reconciled this by eliminating meetings. Turns out, 99% of all software can be built, managed, scaled, and sold asynchronously.
- lolinder 5y ago
  Can you provide more details about how this works? I'm stuck with Zoom meetings that I feel are long and ineffective, but I'm not sure how to sell my manager on eliminating them.
  - ryanSrich 5y ago
    I started my own company. Not necessarily to get rid of meetings, but because I absolutely cannot stand the modern tech work environment. I’d think managers would see the elimination of meetings as a direct threat to their job. So I don’t have any good suggestions. You could just try skipping them? See if you get in trouble? Push it all the way to getting a pip. That’s what I’d do lol.
    - hirako2000 5y ago
      Until managers realise they can actually manage in writing, and the fact it gives back plenty of time to actually engage directly with the few individuals who need more 1/1 interactions to address issues they are having. I think managers benefit even more from less meetings since they have even more meetings in the first place.
  - hirako2000 5y ago
    Simply don't join the meetings. For this not to fire back, it's also simple: inform the organiser in advance that you won't join, that s/he should let you know if your presense is absolutely necessary for input, and to email the outcome if relevant to your work. After a while, you can stop informing them as they've gotten used to your absence and realised you aren't needed. Whoever remains in these meetings tend to feel even better selling each others thin air without practical participants making negative comments during those discussions. It worked for me. Of course beware there could be retaliation on principle. If that's the case you better update your CV and start seeking another remote position anyway.
    - missedthecue 5y ago
      This sounds like a really good way to make sure you get the smallest raises and the least promotions. You'll never be seen or heard!
      - hirako2000 5y ago
        My view is that raises and promotions don't tie to whether someone is heared or not. If one criteria matters, it's negociating skills. After that probably comes competence. Not joining meetings should provide you with as much time saved to focus on actual work. Growing competence, and lead to higher/better throuput. I've seen a number of people playing the "let's be heard/noisy" card. It often works for a while but not in the long term. Time spent at "work" can be spent with a short sighted objective, or a long one. Even if I made a mistake of interpretation and attending meetings can result in better outcomes, I would still favor mental health and maximising time spent to improving my competence, over fears to loose my job or not getting a promotion raises from the current employer.
        missedthecue 5y ago
        In my experience, it's not necessarily the person who does the most work that gets promoted, but the person who gets the most recognition. Sitting at home never seeing, hearing, speaking, or interacting with people save for brief slack messages just doesn't seem like the best way to get recognition.
- gajjanag 5y ago
  So much this. Until a company adopts a no-BS policy towards meetings, I do not see the point. 80% of my time in company meetings is just wasted. I have talked to my colleagues about this - they feel the same. At least with remote work, I can politely tune out of useless meeting filler by muting audio/video. Contrast that with grad school, where every minute of my meetings with my advisors was time well spent.
- midrus 5y ago
  But now you'll see a lot of people replying to you "but hey... how are we supposed to make friends and be a family then?". Can't agree more with you.
hu3 5y ago
What's an IC?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- necrotic_comp 5y ago
  Individual Contributor
- humanlion87 5y ago
  Individual contributor. Someone who doesn't manage people.
- mwint 5y ago
  Individual Contributor, usually. A non-manager.
- sgeisenh 5y ago
  Individual contributor. A bit of a misnomer since once any project grows beyond a small handful of engineers the work becomes largely collaborative.
gajjanag 5y ago
> lower level SWEs should be a more active part of the conversation rather than a Jira ticket consumer. All fine, though in practice I have found that building the "_right_" thing equates to building the vision of the loudest/senior most person in the room irrespective of merit. Until that culture changes, I am more than happy to be a Jira ticket consumer.
throwawayboise 5y ago
> Zoom lunches and socials and happy hours. WTF??? My god, I cannot imagine sitting through something like that. Is it really a thing?
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Yes. There are even companies specializing in this sort of thing. https://getmibo.com/ https://getmibo.com/
- randycupertino 5y ago
  They're awful. I have at least one Zoom social bs thing per week. They're never good, they're always emotionally draining and they always suck!!
  - joejerryronnie 5y ago
    I also detest the zoom social and avoid whenever possible. My team did have one remote activity which was pretty cool though - a virtual escape room. Everyone was remote but the escape room employees were in the physical space. So we used a mix of online collaboration and verbal discussion to direct the actions of the escape room rep within their physical space, which was all viewable through high quality webcams. I was skeptical when I first heard about it but it turned out to be a really great team activity.

ryanSrich 5y ago

> Zoom I’m both a remote maximalist, and a Zoom hater. I reconciled this by eliminating meetings. Turns out, 99% of all software can be built, managed, scaled, and sold asynchronously.

lolinder 5y ago
Can you provide more details about how this works? I'm stuck with Zoom meetings that I feel are long and ineffective, but I'm not sure how to sell my manager on eliminating them.
- ryanSrich 5y ago
  I started my own company. Not necessarily to get rid of meetings, but because I absolutely cannot stand the modern tech work environment. I’d think managers would see the elimination of meetings as a direct threat to their job. So I don’t have any good suggestions. You could just try skipping them? See if you get in trouble? Push it all the way to getting a pip. That’s what I’d do lol.
  - hirako2000 5y ago
    Until managers realise they can actually manage in writing, and the fact it gives back plenty of time to actually engage directly with the few individuals who need more 1/1 interactions to address issues they are having. I think managers benefit even more from less meetings since they have even more meetings in the first place.
- hirako2000 5y ago
  Simply don't join the meetings. For this not to fire back, it's also simple: inform the organiser in advance that you won't join, that s/he should let you know if your presense is absolutely necessary for input, and to email the outcome if relevant to your work. After a while, you can stop informing them as they've gotten used to your absence and realised you aren't needed. Whoever remains in these meetings tend to feel even better selling each others thin air without practical participants making negative comments during those discussions. It worked for me. Of course beware there could be retaliation on principle. If that's the case you better update your CV and start seeking another remote position anyway.
  - missedthecue 5y ago
    This sounds like a really good way to make sure you get the smallest raises and the least promotions. You'll never be seen or heard!
    - hirako2000 5y ago
      My view is that raises and promotions don't tie to whether someone is heared or not. If one criteria matters, it's negociating skills. After that probably comes competence. Not joining meetings should provide you with as much time saved to focus on actual work. Growing competence, and lead to higher/better throuput. I've seen a number of people playing the "let's be heard/noisy" card. It often works for a while but not in the long term. Time spent at "work" can be spent with a short sighted objective, or a long one. Even if I made a mistake of interpretation and attending meetings can result in better outcomes, I would still favor mental health and maximising time spent to improving my competence, over fears to loose my job or not getting a promotion raises from the current employer.
      - missedthecue 5y ago
        In my experience, it's not necessarily the person who does the most work that gets promoted, but the person who gets the most recognition. Sitting at home never seeing, hearing, speaking, or interacting with people save for brief slack messages just doesn't seem like the best way to get recognition.
gajjanag 5y ago
So much this. Until a company adopts a no-BS policy towards meetings, I do not see the point. 80% of my time in company meetings is just wasted. I have talked to my colleagues about this - they feel the same. At least with remote work, I can politely tune out of useless meeting filler by muting audio/video. Contrast that with grad school, where every minute of my meetings with my advisors was time well spent.
midrus 5y ago
But now you'll see a lot of people replying to you "but hey... how are we supposed to make friends and be a family then?". Can't agree more with you.

hu3 5y ago

What's an IC?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
necrotic_comp 5y ago
Individual Contributor
humanlion87 5y ago
Individual contributor. Someone who doesn't manage people.
mwint 5y ago
Individual Contributor, usually. A non-manager.
sgeisenh 5y ago
Individual contributor. A bit of a misnomer since once any project grows beyond a small handful of engineers the work becomes largely collaborative.

gajjanag 5y ago

> lower level SWEs should be a more active part of the conversation rather than a Jira ticket consumer. All fine, though in practice I have found that building the "_right_" thing equates to building the vision of the loudest/senior most person in the room irrespective of merit. Until that culture changes, I am more than happy to be a Jira ticket consumer.

throwawayboise 5y ago

> Zoom lunches and socials and happy hours. WTF??? My god, I cannot imagine sitting through something like that. Is it really a thing?

jacquesm 5y ago
Yes. There are even companies specializing in this sort of thing. https://getmibo.com/ https://getmibo.com/
randycupertino 5y ago
They're awful. I have at least one Zoom social bs thing per week. They're never good, they're always emotionally draining and they always suck!!
- joejerryronnie 5y ago
  I also detest the zoom social and avoid whenever possible. My team did have one remote activity which was pretty cool though - a virtual escape room. Everyone was remote but the escape room employees were in the physical space. So we used a mix of online collaboration and verbal discussion to direct the actions of the escape room rep within their physical space, which was all viewable through high quality webcams. I was skeptical when I first heard about it but it turned out to be a really great team activity.