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> The fact that offering an idea that's better than what's already being done is seen as rebellious at all, as opposed to being the entire job of an engineer, o
by gopalv 5y ago
> The fact that offering an idea that's better than what's already being done is seen as rebellious at all, as opposed to being the entire job of an engineer, or the definition of what engineers do, is not a good sign for any organization.
That is exactly what happens, but not because your management isn't listening. The sacrifice of good ideas is done in the name of predictability or viability.
I've been witness to and driven a few of these sorts of moves and what has struck me is that successful "by-pass of management" rebellion costs time, effort and most importantly is a test of active leadership skills.
There was a system which I was working on which absolutely sucked (for me personally, because I worked on performance and it couldn't be improved without changing the architecture). There was a way to rewrite about 25% of the system under different assumptions which would fix the performance issues, but the system that was in production already had several other issues which needed to be prioritized over performance.
For a manager in front of a customer, of course, we're absolutely committed to fixing whatever is broken. That goes back into engineering, where the rewrite wouldn't have half the bugs we have, but it looks like Dunkirk when it fails. The manager has no way to actually approve the rewrite, when they're trying to hire immediately to just do the work that's already on the plan.
Anyway, long story short, there was an intern for the summer who did the rewrite and get it working to the point where the next generation system was almost entirely built out by a single uninterrupted intern over two months (& his code is still in prod today).
The methods needed to break rules and succeed are often just the same qualities needed to "just succeed", except the breaking of rules is necessary to prevent the regression to mean.
And if you don't succeed, being disavowed like this means worse results than following orders. There's something to be said about the motivation of a team after burning their boats.
I'm gearing up to do one of those off-the-books project right now. And the tolerance for risk is clearly something I'm having less of each year. That said, surviving failure does more for your confidence than clutch, but definitely would like less red in the ledger.
- endymi0n 5y agoPretty much spot on. The very best engineers often have a mix of technical excellence, courage / nonconformism and loyalty / optimism. Take out any of those and you get either nothing or a disaster. But if all come together, you will have someone on your team who doesn't just recognize that missed opportunity the other excellent other engineers already realized, but actively go against the plans of at least one level of management in order to do what's right for the company. They tend to create a lot of friction, but can often save a project. I personally love working with these kinds of people as I was formerly one of them — and they can and often do make the best managers later on (funnily enough, I've heard similar stories in the bio of almost any technology leader I respect). Having made the mistake more than one time of accidentally enabling people who didn't have the loyalty / optimism or technical excellence parts though, I get why these kinds of people are usually held in place in large organizations. The resulting friction, bickering and havoc can as well break teams and companies.
- birdyrooster 5y agoVery best engineers, nothing, and disasters. Which are you?
- birdyrooster 5y agoBTW, for the down-voters, this was rhetorical question and not a personal attack. The GP comment created this dichotomy and I was just pointing it out.
- geoduck14 5y ago> The very best engineers often have a mix of technical excellence, courage / nonconformism and loyalty / optimism. You are absolutely right. I'd like to point out, that as one person, I've been both depending on the role. If I'm in a new space with new tech, I need to learn before I have the technical excellence. If I don't feel safe, I won't have courage to challenge leadership. If don't have hope, I won't have optimism in the future.
- rjzzleep 5y agoI find that boxed thinking quite problematic. Plenty of great solutions came without loyalty or optimism. Why did we throw positive thinking into the mix of otherwise confrontantional systems. I say confrontational systems, because the only way to actually spark change in a system that has been systematically extinguishing sparks of change is actually confrontation. And the very fact that confrontation as such is now associated with negative emotion (same with conflict actually) goes hand in hand with the top level comment on this issue. Confrontation/conflict is bad, optimism is good. Confrontration is how you bring attention to a problem. Conflict is what happens when that dominant idea is challenged by another idea.
- andrekandre 5y agoConfrontration is how you bring attention to a problem. Conflict is what happens when that dominant idea is challenged by another idea. both of these are difficult to act on or enable if management doesnt make it worth while to do so (because of blame, micromanagement, politics etc) what i mean to say is, confrontation/conflict is a normal part of debugging reality, and is healthy as long as there is an open/healthy system to enable it
- spullara 5y agoI have found that the best engineers gain the ear of senior management (generally far above their manager) and can push through their radical ideas from above. You really have to also be able to do the work and show that it is going to work. Thinking and acting strategically or as I like to put it "act as founder".
- lifeisstillgood 5y agoBut that's not being an engineer. That's being a senior manager. That is great for the one individual with that reach, but does not solve the problem from an organisation perspective. If we took that advice to heart, then the CEO would have a line outside his door of all the engineers in the company, doing what they feel is best for the company. He would then say, Jeez, I think I need to have some managers to group these people together like in a hierarchy. Plus the guy(s) you know, everyone else, including their managers, knew they had the boss' ear. And in my experience that person just becomes another manager, 'cos everyone reaches out to them to get their project unstuck.
- fsloth 5y agoI think you are complecting peoples with processes. There is absolutely no reason an engineer could not influence the decision making process of a manager. The manager is the one taking the responsibility for a decision, but it is a poor manager that fails to listen to their top experts and leverage their knowhow. That's what it means to be a great engineer that gets the manager ear. It's not the engineer's job to manage, but is his job to be part of the team, and do what feels right for the team, including to tell their opinion on the matters they are a subject expert. Processes are just scaffolding and general guidelines on top of a functional engineering organization. An engineering organization is not a car factory.
- lifeisstillgood 5y agoThe whole reason for hierarchies (and democracies) is to avoid this "listening" crap anyhow. No matter how brilliant, or well intentioned, no CEO can listen to all views from all experts - at a certain scale this goes from 'has other work to do' and flips into 'physically impossible'. So, yes there is a reason "an engineer could not influence the decision making process of a manager. " At some scales it is impossible. And if you mean why cant he influence the manager above him - yes thats fine. But that manager has f all chance of reaching the CEO as well. At certain points companies stop acting like autonomus agents and become, some kind of lava like process - predictable and impossible to stop. maybe large firms are the problem overall