5 ms·
Product Management, in many orgs, is the old wine of Taylorism in a new bottle, where there is a "thinking class," and there is a separate "doing class." The st
by mavelikara 5y ago
Product Management, in many orgs, is the old wine of Taylorism in a new bottle, where there is a "thinking class," and there is a separate "doing class." The stereotype of an engineer with poor social skills who can't grasp the "high-level cross functional relationships and strategies" (from nostrebored's sibling comment) is not very different from Taylor's idea of workers:
One of the very first requirements for a man who is fit
to handle pig iron as a regular occupation is that he
shall be so stupid and so phlegmatic that he more
nearly resembles in his mental make-up the ox than
any other type. The man who is mentally alert and
intelligent is for this very reason entirely unsuited to
what would, for him, be the grinding monotony of work
of this character.
It is sad to see this happen at places like Google, where engineers had a lot more autonomy.
Most knowledge workers who have the mental capacity to grasp deep technical topics will find the "cross functional relationships and strategies" discussed in garden variety business books a light stroll in the park.
- geodel 5y agoI think you have made excellent point here. I absolutely see this behavior at workplaces. The Architects/PMs one side and developers who are mainly Jira/Daily standup chumps on other side.
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- lordnacho 5y agoThis is exactly right. I studied both engineering and management, so I have experienced both schools. Actually understanding science and manipulating the world is hard. Try to explain to a non techie how a car moves, or how a web request happens. They can never understand it on the required level to fix things. Now try to explain to an engineer how a bond works, or how industrial strategy works. He can do both his own work and the manager's work. I sound pretty bitter for a guy who's managed to dodge most of the BS things in large corporations his while career, but that's because I really think this aspect of the world needs fixing. It seems like just about every human endeavour is encumbered by MBA people who pretend to understand something hard, who get paid at least as well as those people who can both solve the technical and the strategic problems. This might be more of a problem in the Anglo world. Engineers getting promoted is more common in Europe according to rumor.
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- shurane 5y agoI think there's a point to make on good PMs. Those are totally worth their weight. The issue I have with bad PMs is the same issue with bad engineers. They can cause so much damage to a product or codebase, especially when they have free reign and an ear from higher management.
- tbrownaw 5y ago> Actually understanding science and manipulating the world is hard. Try to explain to a non techie how a car moves, or how a web request happens. They can never understand it on the required level to fix things. I'm pretty sure that being a car mechanic is one of those trades jobs that people are discouraged from pursuing if they're seen as having alternatives. Also a lot of what comes up on a search for "redneck engineering" is I think not consistent with this assertion.
- lordnacho 5y agoGuy/gal who can actually fix a car is a techie. And I agree, often people are discouraged from things for no reason other than supposed cultural fit.
- efficax 5y ago> Try to explain to a non techie how a car moves I always love a classic hacker news take where software engineers are the only people who can understand how things work. It's not like high school dropouts are ever car mechanics.
- 1123581321 5y agoHe’s talking about generally technical people, not software engineers.
- cloakedcode 5y ago