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To put a more positive spin on what you are saying, very senior ICs carry the company’s technical culture. They have influence in shaping it, but they aren’t hi

To put a more positive spin on what you are saying, very senior ICs carry the company’s technical culture. They have influence in shaping it, but they aren’t hired or promoted to buck it. If you want that kind of influence you need to climb the EM ladder up towards VP Engineering or equivalent. However, in that case you don’t get to spend 30%, or any, time programming. On the third hand you can go to a start up and wear a ton of hats, but you probably won’t get high cash comp. Life is always about trade offs.

notacoward 5y ago
Agreed. There's a lot of opportunity there if people are willing to adapt to local norms, even if that means setting aside past (often hard-won) lessons. Some can. Some can't. Most don't really know if they can or not until they try. That's all fine, but I do take issue with this. > you need to climb the EM ladder No. Many of these companies take pride in being "engineer first" but that's a false claim if engineers are discouraged from challenging the local orthodoxy too much and only high-level execs may do so. It's too easy for territoriality and NIH to set in, or for real progress to be replaced with mere churn. Didn't we learn these lessons with older tech giants like IBM or AT&T or DEC? They had the same pattern of people replacing one internal system with an almost identical one, because reaping credit and promotions that way was easier than fighting for true change. They had the same pattern of people who had learned those habits too well becoming DEs or fellows and using the same "guardians of the culture" excuse to enforce conformity for its own sake. And look where it got them. Obviously those who wish to challenge the status quo need to balance that with productive work within the existing paradigm, and strong claims require strong evidence (which a VPE is unlikely to have BTW), but that's exactly why there should not be additional barriers. I was not the first or only person at Facebook to observe that the whole thing would come crashing down if not for an ever-changing cast of engineers determined to do the right thing despite the effect they knew it would have on their PSCs. In a true engineer-first culture challenges to the status quo would be encouraged and engaged, but in my experience that wasn't always the case. Corporate ossification wasn't only a problem for prior generations.
- bradleyjg 5y ago
  EMs are engineers even if you don’t respect them because they don’t write code anymore. This is different than old school tech companies where managers were businessmen and engineers were thought of similarly to assembly line workers. The Dilbert dream of no hierarchy (vice a hierarchy made up of engineers) has never worked beyond small companies. A truly flat org is communism of corporate cultures—-great on paper, a disaster in practice. The dysfunction at these places isn’t because they haven’t flat org’ed hard enough or because of evil, devious middle management subverting the purity of the system—-it’s because the idea is bad in the first place.
  - notacoward 5y ago
    Let's not turn this into an exercise in moving goalposts and constructing strawmen, OK? I never expressed any disrespect of EMs, nor did I propose a flat organizational structure. You specifically mentioned going up to Vice President of Engineering level, which is quite different than a line EM, and I responded to that. Your absurd invocation of communism aside, that's way over on the old-fashioned authoritarian/hierarchical end of the organizational spectrum.
    - bradleyjg 5y ago
      That’s where some decisions should be made. For example, creating a new programming language. The answer is almost always “no, that’s a horrible idea” the determination otherwise should be made by the person ultimately responsible for all engineer execution.
      - notacoward 5y ago
        > That’s where some decisions should be made. Some, yes. Look at those goalposts go! Staff engineers are hired to bring skills and knowledge and perspective not already present. All I'm saying is that they should be able to exercise those assets, and all too often that is discouraged. I'm beginning to wonder if your accusation about disrespecting EMs is just projection of your own disrespect for higher-level ICs.
mbot5324 5y ago
> start up and wear a ton of hats, but you probably won’t get high cash comp. I'm not sure start-ups are any freer on the dogma, so you'll still run into this unless you find a start-up that matches your own. Worse still -- start-ups have serious pressures that make debating dogma look like not carrying the load.
- bradleyjg 5y ago
  If you are in early enough the decisions haven’t been made yet, so by definition they can’t be set in stone. You could have a technical co-founder that wants to decide everything without discussion but in that case you probably don’t want to be there for many reasons.

notacoward 5y ago

Agreed. There's a lot of opportunity there if people are willing to adapt to local norms, even if that means setting aside past (often hard-won) lessons. Some can. Some can't. Most don't really know if they can or not until they try. That's all fine, but I do take issue with this. > you need to climb the EM ladder No. Many of these companies take pride in being "engineer first" but that's a false claim if engineers are discouraged from challenging the local orthodoxy too much and only high-level execs may do so. It's too easy for territoriality and NIH to set in, or for real progress to be replaced with mere churn. Didn't we learn these lessons with older tech giants like IBM or AT&T or DEC? They had the same pattern of people replacing one internal system with an almost identical one, because reaping credit and promotions that way was easier than fighting for true change. They had the same pattern of people who had learned those habits too well becoming DEs or fellows and using the same "guardians of the culture" excuse to enforce conformity for its own sake. And look where it got them. Obviously those who wish to challenge the status quo need to balance that with productive work within the existing paradigm, and strong claims require strong evidence (which a VPE is unlikely to have BTW), but that's exactly why there should not be additional barriers. I was not the first or only person at Facebook to observe that the whole thing would come crashing down if not for an ever-changing cast of engineers determined to do the right thing despite the effect they knew it would have on their PSCs. In a true engineer-first culture challenges to the status quo would be encouraged and engaged, but in my experience that wasn't always the case. Corporate ossification wasn't only a problem for prior generations.

bradleyjg 5y ago
EMs are engineers even if you don’t respect them because they don’t write code anymore. This is different than old school tech companies where managers were businessmen and engineers were thought of similarly to assembly line workers. The Dilbert dream of no hierarchy (vice a hierarchy made up of engineers) has never worked beyond small companies. A truly flat org is communism of corporate cultures—-great on paper, a disaster in practice. The dysfunction at these places isn’t because they haven’t flat org’ed hard enough or because of evil, devious middle management subverting the purity of the system—-it’s because the idea is bad in the first place.
- notacoward 5y ago
  Let's not turn this into an exercise in moving goalposts and constructing strawmen, OK? I never expressed any disrespect of EMs, nor did I propose a flat organizational structure. You specifically mentioned going up to Vice President of Engineering level, which is quite different than a line EM, and I responded to that. Your absurd invocation of communism aside, that's way over on the old-fashioned authoritarian/hierarchical end of the organizational spectrum.
  - bradleyjg 5y ago
    That’s where some decisions should be made. For example, creating a new programming language. The answer is almost always “no, that’s a horrible idea” the determination otherwise should be made by the person ultimately responsible for all engineer execution.
    - notacoward 5y ago
      > That’s where some decisions should be made. Some, yes. Look at those goalposts go! Staff engineers are hired to bring skills and knowledge and perspective not already present. All I'm saying is that they should be able to exercise those assets, and all too often that is discouraged. I'm beginning to wonder if your accusation about disrespecting EMs is just projection of your own disrespect for higher-level ICs.

mbot5324 5y ago

> start up and wear a ton of hats, but you probably won’t get high cash comp. I'm not sure start-ups are any freer on the dogma, so you'll still run into this unless you find a start-up that matches your own. Worse still -- start-ups have serious pressures that make debating dogma look like not carrying the load.

bradleyjg 5y ago
If you are in early enough the decisions haven’t been made yet, so by definition they can’t be set in stone. You could have a technical co-founder that wants to decide everything without discussion but in that case you probably don’t want to be there for many reasons.