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Things your manager might not know (2021)

• deleted 4y ago
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• yrgulation 4y ago
  Non technical managers are not needed. They get in the way and there is rarely any benefit from having them in a technical team.
  • twelve40 4y ago
    depends on how big the company. When a large company needs to decide where to allocate the resources, a smart non-technical manager will be there fighting for you, and that's a full time job once you are in the 100's of engineers, because nobody has monopoly on truth, and normally the exact allocation has to be hashed out in a bunch of fulltime meetings, even in well-run orgs. As an IC, I'm glad someone else is doing it for me.
    • yrgulation 4y ago
      I dont think anyone expects ics to play management roles. What i am for is management with a technical background, otherwise its like mixing water with cooking oil. One sits on top and pretends to mix.
      • tomjakubowski 4y ago
        Replace the aqueous part with vinegar or lemon juice and you have yourself an emulsion, which also makes a delicious salad dressing. What sort of role is like acetic acid in your analogy?
        • yrgulation 4y ago
          You lost me there but people with tech skills should lead technical people. Otherwise its like sending the senate to lead soldiers on the battlefield. They have no clue and either lose wars or use large numbers to win battles. And thats what some of the companies do - they hire loads and loads and loads of people to achieve what could be done with fewer, better organised, and better led people. Without exception, unicorns and faangs have been built by engineers working directly with stakeholders. Then they go down the path of layered management and bloat and end up the chryslers and fords of tomorrow. Instead all non technical management should he fired, including pdf certified scrum masters and other imaginary roles, and tech people with skill and interest should be promoted.
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  • ok123456 4y ago
    This is 100% correct. All they know is to say "that's nice, can you do it in half the time you estimated with half the resources?" because that's the only way they can justify their job. This is what they learn in MBA school or from their project management certificates.
  • joshthecynic 4y ago
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• thenerdhead 4y ago
  This is a great list. Especially the summary regarding how all of this can be a superpower. There’s also a few other tougher scenarios. - they might not know you’re doing parts of their job. - they might know of problems but fail to let their manager know. - they might not know your career aspirations. - they might know someone is problematic on the team. - they might not know they get in the way more than they help. - etc
  • ar_lan 4y ago
    > they might not know your career aspirations This is something I really didn’t understand when I started my career, and I realized I just got lucky with my managers for looking out for me. I still kind of don’t get how managers don’t assume their staff want to promote upward (at least as a default), but I respect that I am also not a manager and don’t know the amount of things they need to juggle.
    • Raidion 4y ago
      Manager here: Because not everyone does! Think (some) single parents with kids, (some) people doing elderly care for their parent(s), people who have decided the work/life tradeoff isn't worth it, etc. Almost every team has at least one person who wants to interact as little as possible and have a decent salary, and in return, turns out quality code and meets expectations to the letter, then logs off. There is also a very fine line to walk with an employee who wants to get to the next level for salary/prestige/ego, but isn't willing to push themselves or improve, and constant conversations of "hey, if you want level N+1 you need to be more involved in code reviews and be better at meeting your commitments (or estimating those commitments)". It's not fair to try to hold a level N to a level N+1 standard in the name of "career development", and there is a point where it's not worth your (or the employees) time and stress to "pull" them up to the next level.
      • ar_lan 4y ago
        Yeah, I guess it’s tricky. As a new parent I had essentially told my manager I wanted to put the brakes on career progression for one year, and he was very receptive. So I understand that perspective a bit.
• svat 4y ago
  (2021). Other posts from the author on related topics (all are helpful): https://jvns.ca/#career---work https://jvns.ca/#career---work
• axpy906 4y ago
  This just reaffirms my belief after a decade in industry that middle management is useless. I wish businesses could move to a more decentralized form. You just don’t need these people if they can’t help you in you current or future job. All managers should know the below. It’s proof the job is not effective. > Here are the facts your manager might not know about you and your team that we’ll cover in this post: >What’s slowing the team down >Exactly what individual people on the team are working on >Where the technical debt is >How to help you get better at your job >What your goals are >What issues they should be escalating >What extra work you’re doing How compensation/promotions work at the company Edit: It’s by Julia Evans too. Awesome.
  • hinkley 4y ago
    I think this is talking about direct (line) managers. But I’ve had managers who lead. I’ve had managers who facilitate. I’ve had managers who manage their boss (which overlaps with facilitation but is different). I’ve had managers who only serves as tiebreakers. All have their value, but it’s very hard to relate to someone who doesn’t want to do any of those. Especially ones who are scribes. Why is being a scribe bad? You only chronicle data that you don’t participate in so that later you can report on who did what. In other words, it’s not my fault it was Steve who made that decision. And then we had Mike whose only job seemed to be getting promotions. Still have no idea what he did all day, except get promotions. Wouldn’t lead, wouldn’t tie break, didn’t chronicle, didn’t up manage, barely down managed.
  • derwiki 4y ago
    Are there any current companies you would call decentralized?
    • sokoloff 4y ago
      Not GP, but I'm in a company which is pretty decentralized (after being heavily centralized a decade ago). Decentralization puts different pressures to have good middle management (at a minimum), but I think in some ways, it even increases the pressures on management to make a decentralized company effective.
• jeffrallen 4y ago
  Here's a good question to your manager: How did you feel about that? Asking for immediate, gut feedback about something that you did, or happened to the team, gives you a read on how much managing up is needed, and/or gives your manager an opportunity to say, "I was surprised by that and I need to know more" or "That's not the direction I was shooting for, let's adjust this." I also once explained that there was only 10 tonnes of concrete coming in the next truck and doing both #1 priorities was physically impossible, so it was time to choose. My manager, laughing, said, ok, so now you're really going to make me choose, huh? Humanitarian logistics was easier than software because sometimes the choices were so stark and unavoidable.
• donclark 4y ago
  I feel like this list may be applied to parenting, teams in school, etc. Good communication is a big part of successful relationships and teams/groups.
• 29athrowaway 4y ago
  If your boss comes from a place with high sycophancy like Infosys, TCS, IBM or a similar, don't try this.
  • haltingproblem 4y ago
    • 29athrowaway 4y ago
      That is a strong accusation. If you see my comment history here you will learn more about how that statement is false. I am saying that companies like those have a management culture that is not tolerant to managees suggesting managers what to do. You can see many employees of those companies in Quora and Glassdoor saying the same thing.
      • haltingproblem 4y ago
        Your past statements do not whitewash your current statement. See the unfolding Kayne West saga. Your statement stands on its own. My question was: do you think this is limited to Indian consulting companies or is endemic to all consulting companies? You seem to be doubling down on I would say the accusation stands verified.
        • 29athrowaway 4y ago
          You see what you want to see.
        • kylevedder 4y ago
          Are you trolling?
    • perfecthjrjth 4y ago
      Nothing racist about this remark. TCS, Infosys, Wipro, etc. produce bad managers, along with additional baggage: they inculcate sycophancy across the management chain. Even though most of the management in American companies is incompetent, I won't hire these people for this reason alone: they perpetuate chamchagiri/sycophancy across the chain.
• haltingproblem 4y ago
  OT but I am making a year-end resolution to skim everything Julia and Patrick have written on their site, then make a list of deep-dive pieces. The amount of useful content these two crank out is mind-boggling. They hold down day-jobs and write more useful stuff than 98.3413% of writers out there! I would love to see a fire-side chat on how their process works.
• epicureanideal 4y ago
  At a typical startup they might not know much of anything. Except someone else in management who is a personal friend.
  • scruple 4y ago
    Yeah. I interviewed with a startup at the beginning of this year and the Engineering Director was telling me how he brought his friends on-board like it was some sort of selling point. People he has known since high school. Hard pass.
    • hfourm 4y ago
      Friends plural is slightly worrisome, but we're they qualified for the positions? I personally love the idea of recruiting friends and working alongside them. Obviously I could see this going both ways, but given that everyone is qualified I don't see the problem.
      • rgblambda 4y ago
        The problem comes later where a friend-coworker is found to perform poorly/behaves inappropriately/slacks off etc. and has been given multiple warnings. You are now in a difficult position of having to prioritize either your professionalism or your personal relationship with them. Given that friendships tend to last much longer than jobs I'd hazard a guess and say that most people would let the issue slide. There's also the risk of cliques, concerns over unfairness in internal promotions and pay rises, and groupthink from being surrounded by like minded people to be worried about.
        • Aeolun 4y ago
          I would not want to be in any form of position of authority above my friends. Sounds horrible.
      • whoIsYou 4y ago
        I have a similar thought, as I rarely become friends with incompetent people. If I were to launch a startup with my friends (that I have worked with over the years) that would be an incredibly competent core of engineers
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• ThalesX 4y ago
  tl;dr; do your manager's job also because they don't have a clue and it's up to you to clue them in. There's also a pretty conclusion where if you suck up and do your manager's job, you get the superpower of being appreciated by your manager, it makes you more valuable than the dumb engineers that just do their job.
  • deleted 4y ago
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  • JW_00000 4y ago
    I don't read the article like that: it's not a list of (all) things your manager doesn't know, it's a list of (some) things your manager might not know. In other words, these are all things your manager should know, but they might not know some of them. And then the advice is to tell them. (But with concrete examples and more worked out.)
    • ThalesX 4y ago
      > I don't read the article like that: it's not a list of (all) things your manager doesn't know, it's a list of (some) things your manager might not know. I have a feeling this is the same core truth, but worded differently and with less distaste for managers. > In other words, these are all things your manager should know, but they might not know some of them. Should, but don't, is not doing their job. Most engineers don't have the luxury of using this defense their day to day job. Yeah, I should be doing testing, but I don't know. I should be writing clean code, but I don't know. I should be communicating with my colleagues, but I don't know. I should know what weight this bridge can hold, but I don't know. Most of these examples wouldn't work with just 'tell them'. > And then the advice is to tell them Tell them what? Manager, this isn't working? I'd be laughed at for this kind of approach. Maybe it would work if I went in a structured approach, with my homework done, with actionable items in the context of the company, but then I'd end up doing their job. ---- I don't want my point to be that managers shouldn't be told what issues might exist, I hope the point I get across is that we shouldn't be doing their jobs and it's their responsibility to get this information through the numerous tools they hold under their belt, and not depend on engineers to spoon feed them. Imagine if this is the only way a manager gets the know how. If I'm an engineer with a loud mouth I can crash the entire department by feeding my manager select information.
• bb88 4y ago
  Also, your manager might not know: 1. How to manage people. Maybe this is kinda snarky, but I've meet a few that didn't know basic management principles.
  • geoduck14 4y ago
    >Also, your manager might not know: >1. How to manage people. Manager here. This one hits close to home.
    • bb88 4y ago
      The problem is that if your manager doesn't know how to do his/her job then some of this advice may actually be harmful, as they're viewing everything through the lens of their own inadequacies or insecurities.
      • Aeolun 4y ago
        Potentially, but it may be the reverse too. It’ll make it easier for them to deal with everything.
  • kennend3 4y ago
    Another manager here and i might be able to provide some insight into WHY you find managers who cant manage people. Most large multinationals have very rigidly defined jobs, job descriptions, point levels and compensation bands. The terminology may not be the same but the overall effects of the system are the same. Lets say you have a great tech, they are a "tech level 3", position level 100 and salary range "G". If they want to make more money they need to move to salary range "H" and need a JD that matches that salary range. So they are promoted to a manager role to keep them, and to pay them what it takes to keep them. Did they want to be managers? Are they suitable for the job? I've dealt with this scenario many times in my career. Sometimes it would be far better off for everyone of the system wasn't so rigid, and that good people could be paid to do their jobs and not be artificially promoted to management positions. It is an interesting "cobra" unintended consequences effect. The goal of the system was fairness and to manage costs. The unintended consequence is having many unqualified managers as people game the system to their advantage.
• imoreno 4y ago
  You would think that keeping the team effective is the basic job of a manager. Dealing with people who don't know how to do some part of their own job is of course an unfortunate, yet inevitable reality. But this is on the level of "developer who doesn't know how to code". The article leaps into teaching the manager to do their job, but often just switching teams or companies is much easier. Plus, after you put in all the effort, not every manager can turn around and appreciate it, many will just take credit and give you nothing. So if you're going this direction, there should be some thought given to deciding whether your manager would recognize your efforts.
  • saagarjha 4y ago
    I mean, if you’re in an adversarial relationship with your manager you should think of changing that, but a lot of these are just misunderstandings and the inability to have the entire team in their head at once. Like, as a developer, you can be pretty good at writing code and still get useful feedback from a code review. Having a communication channel open with your manager helps them do their job better and also helps you, and doesn’t necessarily indicate any sort of personal failing.
    • imoreno 4y ago
      >if you’re in an adversarial relationship with your manager Where did you get this idea?
      • saagarjha 4y ago
        There’s an “if” in front, to help people recognize that my comment applies to healthy relationships and not unhealthy ones. No comment on your relationship with your manager.
      • vasco 4y ago
        The fact that you implicitly assume that sharing information with your manager means they are failing to do their job is probably indicative if a bit of an adversarial attitude. At least it also came across like that to me. The way I see it, most managers I've worked with have been stretched for time and me giving information will only make things better for me and my team because the quality of their help will be better, regardless of how good they are at their job. I agree you should not try to push through a bad situation, it really depends on the people involved and it's hard to give generic advice.
• Grothendank 4y ago
  Not only does this article make it your job teach the manager how to do their job, the article does not admit a cardinal truth: the manager unnecessarily eats into the value that you produce and should therefore be eaten in turn. If you can manage up, you can eliminate the manager, and gain your total share of the value production. Now THAT is a superpower.
  • Raidion 4y ago
    You can't eliminate a manager just by managing up. Do you want to be making the calls of who gets put on a PIP and managing them through it (or out?). Do you want to sit in meetings talking about business priorities and advocate for yourself and your coworkers? Do you want to be the one to manage compliance concerns around process for yourself and your co workers? If yes, are you then going to complain about meetings and how you can't get anything done? Bad managers are clearly bad, but good managers make it look super easy and boring because hard business priorities get communicated as a simple and well crafted message, employee issues are handled without fuss and out of sight before they become big issues, and compliance and audit concerns are solved at a system/process level before being rolled out to teams.
  • eggsmediumrare 4y ago
    Great, you can do two jobs for the price of one.
• vsareto 4y ago
  If you do this, go ask your manager for a raise for doing another role on top of your current one. Don't give away your superpowers for free.
  • Aeolun 4y ago
    This makes your own job more pleasant. Same for your manager. It’s literally a win-win. If nothing else do it because your manager will like it and it increases your chances of promotion.
• lifeisstillgood 4y ago
  I think management as we know it is dying. In the fifties management studies (Drucker etc) was focused on the manager as a systems creator - who would bestride the business world fixing, innovating creating smooth clockwork systems. Today Google's eight rules for managers is basically a cross between HR and a life coach. Systems are now run by software - and the inevitable conclusion is that coders are the new managers. As more and more software eats more and more of the world, there is less and less need for anyone who is not coding or talking about the code. We may see the end of rigid hierarchies at the same time (a similar but related issue), which kind of points to two things - code is the thing. And discussions around the code matter. And the prime examples of doing this are in FOSS - so expect more open public disagreements leading to better quality code - Public (internal) discussion of issues means a lot of self-governance and a lot of "politics". This goes on anyway but if it is kept public it is kept honest - management has always been about resource allocation and it is best to view senior management as financiers not executives - this might be the best split internally - senor management buying from internal self organised resources. - Incodentslly I think a lot of the problems facing most companies today are that they cannot work out how to measure quality work during rmeote work and cannot get people to communicate if they are not all in the office. Having a big email discussion list is unwieldy - but if that is your organisation then conways law will explain how your software works. if you don't like it, it is waaay easier to adjust your email lists than move offices. Edit: imagine Bezos' two pizza teams - each can be viewed as a independent contract supplying a business-micro-service - at a doctrinal level style guides and devleads / linting rule, and at an operational level it's which micro-services, how to combine their output, etc etc (i need to expand this but Amazon might not be a great company to work for but the organisational design seems to point i the right direction )
  • marcinzm 4y ago
    >Today Google's eight rules for managers is basically a cross between HR and a life coach. Is Google something to aspire to? They got early into a very lucrative market and have basically been milking it for decades. Good for them but luck isn't reproducible. Their ability to deliver new products is so bad it's literally a joke. I can't even remember any viable new product from them in the last decade (the 10th iteration of chat doesn't count). In terms of productivity they were known as a rest and vest company. Great for engineers but I can't imagine it's great for a company without a near infinite spigot of money.
• Kkoala 4y ago
  Hmm, so what is the manager's job then?
  • jldugger 4y ago
    Everything the OP listed out. A software engineering manager is a mixture of lead developer, project manager and coach. They need to vet the output of their team, understand and guide the implementation plan, help the team grow and stay current, and use that information to hand out raises. The question you should be asking is: why would any manager allow themselves to be in such a state of ignorance for very long? We can give a newly promoted manager some leeway, but after 1 year if they still don't know how compensation planning works, they are doing the team a disservice.
• ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
  Man, whenever I read this woman's stuff, I wish everyone could be like this. She really "gets" it. Technical whiz, and knows how to work with people.
• tinalumfoil 4y ago
  I feel like I’ve seen this posted written multiple times by different people and it feels like it’s written in a very idealized world like somebody is at a place that values good management and thinks this type of thing is what most managers are. Something I (cynically) learned in school and then relearned in the professional world is to get good marks there’s two steps (1) remove any excuse for the person to give you a bad mark and (2) make it easy to give you the good mark, ie you should be making your manager’s life easy and your manager’s life should only become easier if they give you that promotion. There’s a post here talking about life coaching as management and if that the case then, sure, this type of communication hits on (2), but my experience has primarily been with results focused management and being able to solve assigned problems was the key for (2).
  • paulryanrogers 4y ago
    University taught me the same, especially in CS. Use professor's style, clear and readable code, don't be clever, turn in work early, etc. Professional life is similar: be autonomous as much as practical, fill in when managers are gone, over communicate just a bit, complement their weaknesses, be humble.
  • stochastastic 4y ago
    This doesn’t seem cynical to me. Maybe it’s just that I’m too far gone, but I think it’s a matter of subtractive vs additive perspectives on work.
• skeeter2020 4y ago
  As an Engineering Manager I've found two simple tools can help with almost all of the items mentioned here: brag docs and one-on-ones. Brag docs help you, the IC remember what you did all year and your manager at review time. The keys are the right level of detail, capturing the soft stuff that doesn't get recorded anywhere else and the discipline to keep it current. If anyone else has had to spend a day or more 2x a year getting their performance reviews done, the commitment of 10-15 minutes every week or so is an easy sell. If your manager hasn't butchered your 1:1s, turning them into status updates (and you actually have them scheduled) many of the other points listed are great topics for discussion. I love it when someone on my team asks a specific question about promotions or upcoming work opportunities or something we both experienced. I rarely have the answer but always get it and follow up. It makes me feel good to be helping the individual (and the team) and we're actively building a relationship on respect and caring. I don't see these activities as the typically negative "managing up". Taking active responsibility for yourself and your team is a good strategy. I look for motives when people act, and these all tell me the person cares about themselves, about other and wants everyone to get better.