4 ms·

Here's the thing about being an engineer who isn't "dead weight": you can always find a new job. To keep that 5% (or 20% or whatever the real number is) of tru

Here's the thing about being an engineer who isn't "dead weight": you can always find a new job. To keep that 5% (or 20% or whatever the real number is) of truly productive engineers you need to make the company a place they want to work. So sure most of the people playing ping pong in your lounge aren't really worth the cost of a ping pong ball much less their salary, but your star engineers maybe like playing ping pong too, and like having someone to play with.

fasthands9 4y ago
I'm not sure how the Elon experiment will go but surely the star engineers would be easier to retain if they were just absorbing the salary of the unproductive ones - and maybe some of that extra money went to more fun games and non-tech assistants who also like ping pong. I don't have that much faith that it is that easy to always identify the slack or that it will be enough to make Twitter profitable, but it also seems a bit uncontroversial to say a lot of these companies having hiring patterns of a growth company in a low-interest rate environment even though their core product is relatively stable.
- reducesuffering 4y ago
  I think that tech co’s have a hard time identifying competence because it almost always comes top down from the manager, who usually spends most of their time in unrelated-to-tech meetings. What I don’t understand, is why isn’t competence strongly ascertained from other engineers on the team. Among my teammates in an extended 15 person team, it is very obvious who the high and low performers are.
  - fasthands9 4y ago
    I would imagine some of Elon's bravado here is for people who are low-performers (who probably know they are) to either step up their game or to start looking for work elsewhere on their own. Not sure if it will be worth the costs - but I think its clear it has some benefit.
  - ummonk 4y ago
    Imagine the kinds of social maneuvering that would start to happen if competence were strongly ascertained from other engineers on the team. Goodheart's Law applies to all metrics, but this one is particularly likely to undermine a workplace.
    - reducesuffering 4y ago
      The alternative is that right now, all that social maneuvering is focused on the IC to the manager. It's much more difficult for the IC to social maneuver all the different IC's into a facade of competence, than to be competent or focus all the bs on a single manager.
rjzzleep 4y ago
What's sad is that a lot of these dead weight engineers ruin the pool of qualified applicants just because they google, twitter, facebook etc. in their resume. I know it's preposterous to say stuff like that on HN which has a weird love for these companies, but some of the absolute worst engineers and PM's I have had the unfortunate punishment to work with went to Stanford, did some sort of management training seminars in Stanford or worked at some of these companies. It's not because they are worse than other engineers. It's that because since they went to those places, people immediately attach some sort of competency to them that may or may not exist, and more often than not, does not. Most of them are just average engineers like everyone else, but the worst of them are average bad engineers with an absolutely unwarranted confidence akin to that of snake oil salesmen, that uneducated leaders believe in simply because they don't know any better, not least because of societies unwarranted, constant advertisement of their competencies.
- dereg 4y ago
  Working at a FAANG may be the new MBA.
causi 4y ago
your star engineers maybe like playing ping pong too, and like having someone to play with. Why does it seem like every company on earth is either a hellhole where you get three days off a year or a ridiculous hugbox where all your employees are spoiled children who play ping pong at work and eat on the company dime?
- esoterica 4y ago
  Why does getting free food mean you are spoiled? Sounds like you are just bitter that other people have better jobs than you do.
  - causi 4y ago
    I don't think the people in these positions realize just how privileged they are compared to the vast majority of workers. I'm spoiled too.
    - esoterica 4y ago
      Spoiled is a value judgement. Capturing some of the massive economic surplus you create instead of letting it all flow to investors is not a bad thing.
filoleg 4y ago
If i was one of those actually productive "star engineers" at twitter who was actually delivering, and it was clearly communicated that the layoffs are targeting the absolute deadweight, I would honestly be delighted to stay. Out of all the dev jobs I worked, I was much happier at places where the deadweight engineers weren't making up a giant chunk. Because not only it is a bit demoralizing to work in that environment, all the prioritization and incentives for the deliverables get screwed up for me as well. I get that my previous statement was a bit vague, so let me elaborate. New features, timelines, approaches, etc., they all get prioritized and decided based on what the heavy majority of the devs and managers feel is important. Oh, and managers take into the account what their devs want too, to a degree. At this point, you probably realize that the whole situation turns into a tyrrany by the deadweight majority. No, I don't want to do another refactor of a perfectly good codebase just because someone wants to do some pretense work for a few hours a day, especially since we have already done a major refactor/rewrite not that long ago. Doubly so when reasons for it cannot be articulated with anything but a buzzword soup that makes zero sense anywhere outside of the performance review.

fasthands9 4y ago

I'm not sure how the Elon experiment will go but surely the star engineers would be easier to retain if they were just absorbing the salary of the unproductive ones - and maybe some of that extra money went to more fun games and non-tech assistants who also like ping pong. I don't have that much faith that it is that easy to always identify the slack or that it will be enough to make Twitter profitable, but it also seems a bit uncontroversial to say a lot of these companies having hiring patterns of a growth company in a low-interest rate environment even though their core product is relatively stable.

reducesuffering 4y ago
I think that tech co’s have a hard time identifying competence because it almost always comes top down from the manager, who usually spends most of their time in unrelated-to-tech meetings. What I don’t understand, is why isn’t competence strongly ascertained from other engineers on the team. Among my teammates in an extended 15 person team, it is very obvious who the high and low performers are.
- fasthands9 4y ago
  I would imagine some of Elon's bravado here is for people who are low-performers (who probably know they are) to either step up their game or to start looking for work elsewhere on their own. Not sure if it will be worth the costs - but I think its clear it has some benefit.
- ummonk 4y ago
  Imagine the kinds of social maneuvering that would start to happen if competence were strongly ascertained from other engineers on the team. Goodheart's Law applies to all metrics, but this one is particularly likely to undermine a workplace.
  - reducesuffering 4y ago
    The alternative is that right now, all that social maneuvering is focused on the IC to the manager. It's much more difficult for the IC to social maneuver all the different IC's into a facade of competence, than to be competent or focus all the bs on a single manager.

rjzzleep 4y ago

What's sad is that a lot of these dead weight engineers ruin the pool of qualified applicants just because they google, twitter, facebook etc. in their resume. I know it's preposterous to say stuff like that on HN which has a weird love for these companies, but some of the absolute worst engineers and PM's I have had the unfortunate punishment to work with went to Stanford, did some sort of management training seminars in Stanford or worked at some of these companies. It's not because they are worse than other engineers. It's that because since they went to those places, people immediately attach some sort of competency to them that may or may not exist, and more often than not, does not. Most of them are just average engineers like everyone else, but the worst of them are average bad engineers with an absolutely unwarranted confidence akin to that of snake oil salesmen, that uneducated leaders believe in simply because they don't know any better, not least because of societies unwarranted, constant advertisement of their competencies.

dereg 4y ago
Working at a FAANG may be the new MBA.

causi 4y ago

your star engineers maybe like playing ping pong too, and like having someone to play with. Why does it seem like every company on earth is either a hellhole where you get three days off a year or a ridiculous hugbox where all your employees are spoiled children who play ping pong at work and eat on the company dime?

esoterica 4y ago
Why does getting free food mean you are spoiled? Sounds like you are just bitter that other people have better jobs than you do.
- causi 4y ago
  I don't think the people in these positions realize just how privileged they are compared to the vast majority of workers. I'm spoiled too.
  - esoterica 4y ago
    Spoiled is a value judgement. Capturing some of the massive economic surplus you create instead of letting it all flow to investors is not a bad thing.

filoleg 4y ago

If i was one of those actually productive "star engineers" at twitter who was actually delivering, and it was clearly communicated that the layoffs are targeting the absolute deadweight, I would honestly be delighted to stay. Out of all the dev jobs I worked, I was much happier at places where the deadweight engineers weren't making up a giant chunk. Because not only it is a bit demoralizing to work in that environment, all the prioritization and incentives for the deliverables get screwed up for me as well. I get that my previous statement was a bit vague, so let me elaborate. New features, timelines, approaches, etc., they all get prioritized and decided based on what the heavy majority of the devs and managers feel is important. Oh, and managers take into the account what their devs want too, to a degree. At this point, you probably realize that the whole situation turns into a tyrrany by the deadweight majority. No, I don't want to do another refactor of a perfectly good codebase just because someone wants to do some pretense work for a few hours a day, especially since we have already done a major refactor/rewrite not that long ago. Doubly so when reasons for it cannot be articulated with anything but a buzzword soup that makes zero sense anywhere outside of the performance review.