4 ms·
You either die a hero, etc etc. I wonder if there's any "big, established" company where IC engineers have more weight than the PHB types. I'd be genuinely cu
by Icathian 5y ago
You either die a hero, etc etc.
I wonder if there's any "big, established" company where IC engineers have more weight than the PHB types. I'd be genuinely curious if anyone knows of some good examples, I suppose HN would be the place where people might.
It seems like that's one of the natural equilibrating factors that offer some small amount of competitive grace to Davids competing against Goliaths. Google hasn't been David for a long time now, I think.
- surajrmal 5y agoI guess it depends on which organization you're part of. I've never really been told what to do in my 5+ years at Google. I usually just have an idea, say I'm going to work on it, and then do it. Most of my peers also work this way, and while more junior ones usually need some assistance with coming up with ideas which align with priorities, it's not like management is telling them what to do - usually a senior team member helps them. PMs help set higher level goals and priorities, but not unilaterally. Managers provide incentives to align to org level goals and priorities but balance that with bottom up driven ones. This has been true for both teams I've been on in two separate orgs, but I'm sure it's not universally true throughout Google. Prior experience at companies previous to Google gave me almost no autonomy.
- kevin_thibedeau 5y agoThat can happen when corporate leadership is dominated by a technical founder. Once MBAs and sales/marketing alums run the show it always turns into a grindhouse. They don't fundamentally understand the work that goes into the product and so they rule by metrics to make their dev factory "more efficient".