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It's interesting how different this reads almost a decade later. The advice contained within is generally good advice, but I can't help but notice how my peers
by PragmaticPulp 4y ago
It's interesting how different this reads almost a decade later. The advice contained within is generally good advice, but I can't help but notice how my peers who have most aggressively embraced these concepts haven't been my favorites to work with. The companies with cultures that reward these behaviors have also been some of my least favorite to deal with.
Specifically, comments like "optimize for impact and visibility" and "prefer working on things you can show" are the kind of over-generalized advice that can lead people to only do work that benefits themselves or otherwise helps them get up the corporate ladder. I've worked with too many people who can't be bothered to do any work unless it's something they can put into a promotion packet, add to their resume, or brag about in their next meeting. We've all experienced the death of Google projects after launch because nobody there seems to want to work on something that isn't a new "thing you can show" because they're too busying optimizing for visibility.
Company reward structures are partially to blame for making these behaviors the most advantageous. The most productive and healthy places I've worked have been careful to reward good long-term outcomes rather than rewarding people for visibility and showmanship. The most dysfunctional places I've worked have only rewarded the people who make the most noise, who ignore the important work and do flashy things instead, and who, I hate to say it, embody the advice offered in this article. I don't know what to think about having a totally different interpretation of this article after reading it 9 years later.
- rdtwo 4y agoBeing that guy makes you an a-hole but a successful a-hole
- trashface 4y ago> I've worked with too many people who can't be bothered to do any work unless it's something they can put into a promotion packet, add to their resume, or brag about in their next meeting. I wonder if tech hiring is basically selecting for this now. So companies have to either constantly fight promotion driven development and people gaming their employment, or let it run amok and hope that their shareholders/customers don't notice or care. Given a lot of recent tech news, the latter might be a more successful strategy than I would have guessed. Were it not for rising interest rates who knows how long some of this might have gone on for. Basic jobs for programmers.
- musicale 4y ago> promotion driven development is a great phrase.
- musicale 4y ago> Company reward structures are partially to blame for making these behaviors the most advantageous I agree; it isn't entirely fair to blame co-workers (or anyone really) for responding to structural incentives created by the company. There is also certainly a lot of bad behavior by companies that incentivizes employees to become rather aggressive in looking out for themselves.
- bionsystem 4y ago> We've all experienced the death of Google projects after launch because nobody there seems to want to work on something that isn't a new "thing you can show" because they're too busying optimizing for visibility. Is this the actual reason, or is it because the data shows poor ROI on those projects ? I'm asking because I genuinely don't know.