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Yo. Ask me anything. Edit : I'm actually serious. I don't do most of the things in the article, or at least definitely not with the intent and detail - but I'

Yo. Ask me anything. Edit : I'm actually serious. I don't do most of the things in the article, or at least definitely not with the intent and detail - but I've been moved over time from being a pretty good and certainly respected hands on techie, to a middle to upper manager with massive imposter syndrome, and certainly feel I contribute less for more credit. Client loves me. My boss loves me. My team loves me. But I myself definitely struggle to always understand my value and I definitely spend many hours each week fine tuning PowerPoint slides, reporting, over communicating, team building, teaching people to communicate differently, etc - which again, seems to make everybody happy and impressed. Maybe my hidden talent is communicating between techies and business? Possibly there's real value in my role - but DEFINITELY not according to any hacker news colleagues - nearly everything I do is venomously dismissed by th HN zeitgeist (I'm neither surprised nor resentful - I spent 20 years saying same things, until I have become them:) . So - AMA :)

mrtksn 4y ago
Maybe attaching all the value to technical contributions was incorrect behaviour in first place? I used to do that a lot until I got my first real not fully technical job and realised that all the technical stuff is actually much more learnable by many, much less impactful on the work than the dark art of working with humans. Maybe its the zeal of the convert but I think the technical contributions are not that important unless there is no margin for errors or its groundbreaking work and most of the time its not.
- ilyt 4y ago
  That's because people working with humans tend to be TERRIBLE at keeping proper documentation about their job. If "people person" kept full psychological profile of each client and manager they work with it would be way easier to replace them so in a way it is a job-security-guaranteeing move to be obtuse. Joking aside the way I see it is that you have to have some vision on the product, enough organization skill (which can be another person specialized in translating "visioner" ramblings into actionable stuff) to organize making it, enough marketing skill to actually sell it, and then enough tech/engineering oriented people to not fuck the product up. Bad engineering - product that kinda works shit but depending on niche it can still be good enough to be profitable Bad marketing/client acquisition - most cases bankruptcy, very small amount of things "sell itself", unless you get luck. Bad vision - well, if rest is fine you either pivot to something else and deliver or bankrupt Bad communication/managing - inefficiencies at every way that can and will hamper everyone else.
robotresearcher 4y ago
You listed communication and communication-training things. These are very valuable and easy to under-value. The API to an organization is people. Speaking this language you are serving your team.
ary 4y ago
> I definitely spend many hours each week fine tuning PowerPoint slides, reporting, over communicating, team building, teaching people to communicate differently, etc - which again, seems to make everybody happy and impressed This is why people love you. You're massively underestimating the amount of spoon-feeding people desire. The alternative to people like you is for individuals to do the work of understanding and empathizing outside their areas of interest or domains of expertise and/or comfort.
- eastbound 4y ago
  In my first Agile company, it felt like we developers were inventing features! In fact, a PM was spoon feeding the backlog to us, organized by theme, letting us invent the interesting parts. I only realized it 10 years later.
  - Satam 4y ago
    I'm interested to hear more about what you mean when saying that it felt like you were inventing the features. And how did the PM do it exactly? Thanks!
vegetablepotpie 4y ago
I’m an aspiring overrated person, I started as a developer, then was promoted into a product owner role because of attrition. I have ended up spending most of my day in meetings and being interrupted over IM, and there is not much time for coding. Realistically, I should either do less meetings, or commit to less coding. The latter is better because I’m not as good at coding as my peers. My barriers are that I’m not great at the people skills, and to compensate I’ve focused on the technicals of this pseudo leadership role such as making graphics for power point slides, and agile administration, like using the tools and scheduling those rituals. How can I make the leap to doing no coding and just doing the meetings and delegation?
wruza 4y ago
spend many hours each week fine tuning PowerPoint slides, reporting, over communicating, team building, teaching people to communicate differently I’m in a process of leaving a company where I work at for way too many years (cause I liked the job and its tech samurai format, not even the money), because there is no person like you and the “management” actively refuses to hire one, while steadily degrading into communicating through incomplete, false and illiterate streams of consciousness and providing organizational help through lowest common denominator roles who basically return to you in a couple of days asking you to do their heavily miscommunicated job for them. Sometimes I helped people doing my own request not even realizing it, so perverted it became. Any issue harder than “we’re out of paper” isn’t worth reporting. Any new module or a process is a brainstorm between me and other roles on what “they” meant and how their words most likely correlate. The tragedy is that the team is actually good, just has no clue what we do and what the plan is.
- lazyweb 4y ago
  Holy crap that resonates 100%. And soon I'm supposed to step into a more management style role there. Have not signed the new contract yet, though.

mrtksn 4y ago

Maybe attaching all the value to technical contributions was incorrect behaviour in first place? I used to do that a lot until I got my first real not fully technical job and realised that all the technical stuff is actually much more learnable by many, much less impactful on the work than the dark art of working with humans. Maybe its the zeal of the convert but I think the technical contributions are not that important unless there is no margin for errors or its groundbreaking work and most of the time its not.

ilyt 4y ago
That's because people working with humans tend to be TERRIBLE at keeping proper documentation about their job. If "people person" kept full psychological profile of each client and manager they work with it would be way easier to replace them so in a way it is a job-security-guaranteeing move to be obtuse. Joking aside the way I see it is that you have to have some vision on the product, enough organization skill (which can be another person specialized in translating "visioner" ramblings into actionable stuff) to organize making it, enough marketing skill to actually sell it, and then enough tech/engineering oriented people to not fuck the product up. Bad engineering - product that kinda works shit but depending on niche it can still be good enough to be profitable Bad marketing/client acquisition - most cases bankruptcy, very small amount of things "sell itself", unless you get luck. Bad vision - well, if rest is fine you either pivot to something else and deliver or bankrupt Bad communication/managing - inefficiencies at every way that can and will hamper everyone else.

robotresearcher 4y ago

You listed communication and communication-training things. These are very valuable and easy to under-value. The API to an organization is people. Speaking this language you are serving your team.

ary 4y ago

> I definitely spend many hours each week fine tuning PowerPoint slides, reporting, over communicating, team building, teaching people to communicate differently, etc - which again, seems to make everybody happy and impressed This is why people love you. You're massively underestimating the amount of spoon-feeding people desire. The alternative to people like you is for individuals to do the work of understanding and empathizing outside their areas of interest or domains of expertise and/or comfort.

eastbound 4y ago
In my first Agile company, it felt like we developers were inventing features! In fact, a PM was spoon feeding the backlog to us, organized by theme, letting us invent the interesting parts. I only realized it 10 years later.
- Satam 4y ago
  I'm interested to hear more about what you mean when saying that it felt like you were inventing the features. And how did the PM do it exactly? Thanks!

vegetablepotpie 4y ago

I’m an aspiring overrated person, I started as a developer, then was promoted into a product owner role because of attrition. I have ended up spending most of my day in meetings and being interrupted over IM, and there is not much time for coding. Realistically, I should either do less meetings, or commit to less coding. The latter is better because I’m not as good at coding as my peers. My barriers are that I’m not great at the people skills, and to compensate I’ve focused on the technicals of this pseudo leadership role such as making graphics for power point slides, and agile administration, like using the tools and scheduling those rituals. How can I make the leap to doing no coding and just doing the meetings and delegation?

wruza 4y ago

spend many hours each week fine tuning PowerPoint slides, reporting, over communicating, team building, teaching people to communicate differently I’m in a process of leaving a company where I work at for way too many years (cause I liked the job and its tech samurai format, not even the money), because there is no person like you and the “management” actively refuses to hire one, while steadily degrading into communicating through incomplete, false and illiterate streams of consciousness and providing organizational help through lowest common denominator roles who basically return to you in a couple of days asking you to do their heavily miscommunicated job for them. Sometimes I helped people doing my own request not even realizing it, so perverted it became. Any issue harder than “we’re out of paper” isn’t worth reporting. Any new module or a process is a brainstorm between me and other roles on what “they” meant and how their words most likely correlate. The tragedy is that the team is actually good, just has no clue what we do and what the plan is.

lazyweb 4y ago
Holy crap that resonates 100%. And soon I'm supposed to step into a more management style role there. Have not signed the new contract yet, though.