4 ms·

In my career, I've had the pleasure of being an employee that is presenting to executives of large and small tech companies. The advice given feels good to me,

In my career, I've had the pleasure of being an employee that is presenting to executives of large and small tech companies. The advice given feels good to me, especially the "mistakes to avoid" section. Off the top of my head, I'd also add that "I don't know, but I can get that answer" is a much better answer than winging it and making something up. Knowing the audience is also very important. At one >$100B company, the CEO's questions were very much about the business side of things, while the CTO wanted to get deep into the business side AND the technical architecture. Side note, I had a boss that I hated for that meeting with the CTO. I did all of the work preparing the presentation and slides under the assumption I'd be presenting. My boss jumped in and tried to present and was stopped in her tracks when she was unable to answer a question from the CTO about who would use the product in question. I gave it a solid, awkward 10 count before answering the question and taking over the conversation.

BLKNSLVR 4y ago
Sweetest ten seconds of anticipation in your life. Great story!
- phkahler 4y ago
  Yeah, don't jump right in and try to look smarter than them. Give them the opportunity (time) to look bad on their own with no answer. OTOH, helping them save face is also a good way to go if that's someone you want to work with.
  - strgcmc 4y ago
    Yeah, that kind of pause + coming in with the answer, is also nice because it can serve a dual purpose. It allows you to be both bad cop and good cop, all in one: you created some leverage over your boss by publicly showing the execs that boss doesn't know what they're talking about but you do, and you also helped save them from further embarrassment. Depending on future scenarios, you can play up either side of the interpretation. It's a nice quality of really useful political moves that they can flex and can be reused for multiple purposes (kind of like... good extensible/reusable software design).
roflyear 4y ago
Some people are awful. I had a CTO that literally hired me to be the fall guy for some things he implemented that went poorly (before I was hired). I wasn't even involved in those projects and he tried to get me to take responsibility for the fallout. I'm still at the company, he isn't!
- fatnoah 4y ago
  I've since moved on from that company (in fact, I moved shortly after that event) but it has been gratifying to see that my former boss has not been promoted in the 6 years since, but that most of her peers have been promoted multiple times.
tailspin2019 4y ago
> "I don't know, but I can get that answer" is a much better answer than winging it and making something up. I totally agree. I think this is a major thing that experience teaches you. When you're young or inexperienced, you are naturally afraid of saying "I don't know". The more experience you gain, the more comfortable you tend to be saying that you "don't know" - in fact some of the smartest and well respected people I've worked with have been the ones most comfortable with saying "I don't know, but I'll find out"
- mikehollinger 4y ago
  It’s a litmus test. And tbh it’s (if you want) a way to get more visibility or credibility because you can take the todo, then go back later and say “here’s the answer. If you want more detail I can go over it with you.”
- thrwyoilarticle 4y ago
  They'd still prefer for you just to know the answer. This is one of the first pieces of advice I heard in my career and IMO it has become a workplace meme. People don't become respected because they say 'I don't know' a lot - they become respected because people believe them when they aren't saying it. The result of a junior person not following the advice is panic, floundering for an answer, and giving an unconvincing lie. Being revealed for a BSer is the problem you're trying to avoid. Admitting you don't know is one path around this but, in practice, too many make you look unknowledgable and may mean that future important questions will be aimed at your seniors or superiors. When they're asked, they don't say 'I don't know', they say the answer. They're respected because they know. This problem is built into incentive systems. If guidelines for promotion for a junior are that they can work independently then it can be better for them to spend 2 hours looking for a solution themselves than to spend 10 minutes asking someone else. This encourages convincing BSing, which is more insidious and damaging than obvious BS. The people who are promoted are the ones who can know and the ones who can lie - the latter being easier. The prime example of this is the executive team. Unless lying is securities fraud, an answer from a CEO can't be trusted at all. If you want to encourage people to admit when they don't know the answer, you need to cultivate a culture where it's truly unpunished.
rfrey 4y ago
> I gave it a solid, awkward 10 count before answering the question and taking over the conversation. That sounds awful. Did you have to do damage control with your boss afterwards? I'm not sure how I would rescue that situation. (Ideally you'd have been promoted within an hour, but... ya.)
- fatnoah 4y ago
  Short answer: no, I didn't. I essentially tripled down by having a followup meeting w/just, the CTO, and chief engineer of the company FOLLOWED BY a later 1:1 with the company's President of Engineering when I'd traveled to company HQ. That last meeting created a cascade of meetings that afternoon with EVP, then VP, and finally my boss. All but my boss were awesome and seemed to genuinely want to make things better, but I ended up giving notice when I returned home. Longer answer: I was already "done" with my boss and planning my exit. The company had previously merged QA and Dev orgs while preserving titles. Unfortunately, that meant that Principal QAE and Principal SWE both became Principal Engineer despite the fact that the promotion process was much slower for SWEs. The average Principal SWE had 15+ years of experience while the average Principal QAE had closer to 8. My boss was promoted just before the conversion and I came in as the head of engineering for an acquired company. I had substantially more IC and Management experience than my boss, who was a shameless self-promoter and really wanted to be seen as the savior getting this acquired company into shape. When it became apparent that we were vastly more mature than her org in our processes, operational excellence, code quality, efficiency, and performance, she had nothing to do. I got sick of the micromanagement and moved to being an IC, which is when I had the experience. That helped because I basically got left alone, but I already knew my career prospects were zero, so I took full advantage.

BLKNSLVR 4y ago

Sweetest ten seconds of anticipation in your life. Great story!

phkahler 4y ago
Yeah, don't jump right in and try to look smarter than them. Give them the opportunity (time) to look bad on their own with no answer. OTOH, helping them save face is also a good way to go if that's someone you want to work with.
- strgcmc 4y ago
  Yeah, that kind of pause + coming in with the answer, is also nice because it can serve a dual purpose. It allows you to be both bad cop and good cop, all in one: you created some leverage over your boss by publicly showing the execs that boss doesn't know what they're talking about but you do, and you also helped save them from further embarrassment. Depending on future scenarios, you can play up either side of the interpretation. It's a nice quality of really useful political moves that they can flex and can be reused for multiple purposes (kind of like... good extensible/reusable software design).

roflyear 4y ago

Some people are awful. I had a CTO that literally hired me to be the fall guy for some things he implemented that went poorly (before I was hired). I wasn't even involved in those projects and he tried to get me to take responsibility for the fallout. I'm still at the company, he isn't!

fatnoah 4y ago
I've since moved on from that company (in fact, I moved shortly after that event) but it has been gratifying to see that my former boss has not been promoted in the 6 years since, but that most of her peers have been promoted multiple times.

tailspin2019 4y ago

> "I don't know, but I can get that answer" is a much better answer than winging it and making something up. I totally agree. I think this is a major thing that experience teaches you. When you're young or inexperienced, you are naturally afraid of saying "I don't know". The more experience you gain, the more comfortable you tend to be saying that you "don't know" - in fact some of the smartest and well respected people I've worked with have been the ones most comfortable with saying "I don't know, but I'll find out"

mikehollinger 4y ago
It’s a litmus test. And tbh it’s (if you want) a way to get more visibility or credibility because you can take the todo, then go back later and say “here’s the answer. If you want more detail I can go over it with you.”
thrwyoilarticle 4y ago
They'd still prefer for you just to know the answer. This is one of the first pieces of advice I heard in my career and IMO it has become a workplace meme. People don't become respected because they say 'I don't know' a lot - they become respected because people believe them when they aren't saying it. The result of a junior person not following the advice is panic, floundering for an answer, and giving an unconvincing lie. Being revealed for a BSer is the problem you're trying to avoid. Admitting you don't know is one path around this but, in practice, too many make you look unknowledgable and may mean that future important questions will be aimed at your seniors or superiors. When they're asked, they don't say 'I don't know', they say the answer. They're respected because they know. This problem is built into incentive systems. If guidelines for promotion for a junior are that they can work independently then it can be better for them to spend 2 hours looking for a solution themselves than to spend 10 minutes asking someone else. This encourages convincing BSing, which is more insidious and damaging than obvious BS. The people who are promoted are the ones who can know and the ones who can lie - the latter being easier. The prime example of this is the executive team. Unless lying is securities fraud, an answer from a CEO can't be trusted at all. If you want to encourage people to admit when they don't know the answer, you need to cultivate a culture where it's truly unpunished.

rfrey 4y ago

> I gave it a solid, awkward 10 count before answering the question and taking over the conversation. That sounds awful. Did you have to do damage control with your boss afterwards? I'm not sure how I would rescue that situation. (Ideally you'd have been promoted within an hour, but... ya.)

fatnoah 4y ago
Short answer: no, I didn't. I essentially tripled down by having a followup meeting w/just, the CTO, and chief engineer of the company FOLLOWED BY a later 1:1 with the company's President of Engineering when I'd traveled to company HQ. That last meeting created a cascade of meetings that afternoon with EVP, then VP, and finally my boss. All but my boss were awesome and seemed to genuinely want to make things better, but I ended up giving notice when I returned home. Longer answer: I was already "done" with my boss and planning my exit. The company had previously merged QA and Dev orgs while preserving titles. Unfortunately, that meant that Principal QAE and Principal SWE both became Principal Engineer despite the fact that the promotion process was much slower for SWEs. The average Principal SWE had 15+ years of experience while the average Principal QAE had closer to 8. My boss was promoted just before the conversion and I came in as the head of engineering for an acquired company. I had substantially more IC and Management experience than my boss, who was a shameless self-promoter and really wanted to be seen as the savior getting this acquired company into shape. When it became apparent that we were vastly more mature than her org in our processes, operational excellence, code quality, efficiency, and performance, she had nothing to do. I got sick of the micromanagement and moved to being an IC, which is when I had the experience. That helped because I basically got left alone, but I already knew my career prospects were zero, so I took full advantage.