5 ms·

I never worked at a FAANG. Do these teams not have managers? Most of those responsibilities seem like the job of a manager. In my career, this approach of on

by slg 4y ago

I never worked at a FAANG. Do these teams not have managers? Most of those responsibilities seem like the job of a manager. In my career, this approach of one senior person on a team of juniors means the senior is responsible for a lot of the system design and other high level technical decisions, but they wouldn't be counted on for things like motivating other employees.

sershe 4y ago
I think having this position is actually a tacit partial compromise (a perk) for people like the OP (or myself, I'm in a similar situation and have similar feelings about it). I've seen people willingly jump from being a senior dev to being a manager, and either cease or limit actual dev work; however myself and many others don't want to be a manager, full stop. So, I end up doing the tech lead work (planning, design, divvying up work, interacting with other teams a lot esp. on high level, making sure it all comes together), and some of the more technical mentorship/etc. stuff, while the actual manager, who is also my manager, does most of the latter, including most of the motivation and all the HR/promo stuff. If I had to do all the latter I'd likely switch jobs, my manager might suspect as much.
- pg_1234 4y ago
  That seems like a pretty good compromise ... in your case. For most people in this position the sane advice is GET OUT. The company plans to leech as much of the value of your experience as possible, and pass it on to cheaper juniors. Furthermore they will pay you nothing for this (it's an opportunity to "give back"), but they will use you to hook naive juniors for lower pay (an opportunity to "learn from the best"). Basically the company is exploiting you to scam your replacements.
  - sershe 4y ago
    Hmm, so if there are a lot of junior developers - inevitable as more people are getting STEM degrees - I should not help them grow, so that they are not able to do my job? Sounds pretty bleak. Continuing this to its logical conclusion, should I try to sabotage them too? :) By the time cheaper juniors are able to do what I do they might demand the same salary I demand, or whatever salary I might be able to demand at the time. Frankly even from a cynical perspective, this doesn't check out. Juniors usually don't try to own the same thing - I'm already there and at any given point could do it better, shared component ownership is rare, plus they'd rather own something new so they can get promoted. Plus juniors move around more. Moreover, while new juniors are relatively easy to replace or outsource, someone with tons of expertise in the area and experience of owning it and working thru others is harder. So, being a large area lead seems more secure than being a junior.
    - Viliam1234 4y ago
      > Continuing this to its logical conclusion, should I try to sabotage them too? Similarly, if you are not donating blood, the logical conclusion is to become a vampire. :) If you want to help junior developers, there are many other ways to do that. For example, you could teach a programming course, make a paid video at Udemy, or write a book. If your goal is to help junior developers, skip the intermediary, be more efficient, own the copyright, and set your own working hours.
      - sershe 4y ago
        My point was that not helping your coworkers succeed because you are afraid they'd take your job (unless that appears to be an explicit goal) is a very bleak mindset, and probably self-limiting too, as far as one's own career goes. My goal is to eat candy and poop diamonds, I don't have altruistic motives towards junior developers :)
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
britch 4y ago
On my team at least there's a grey area between managers responsibilities and Tech lead responsibilities. Managers are ultimately responsible for getting tasks that stretch employees abilities, but also in my experience don't have hands on the code. They're usually dealing with politics around team priorities, goals, keeping people motivated, etc. Managers rely on tech leads to identify work that needs to get done and would be a good fit for the newbie. Tech leads also have to teach newbies best practices, offer advice on designs, etc. Managers are often technical (e.g. used to be programming daily), but are not actively writing code anymore. I feel this is a bad situation for tech leads since they have to sort of manage, and do design work, and write code. Kind of a thankless job
- scotty79 4y ago
  In my last corporate job we didn't have a manager. Tech lead was filling that role.
turdprincess 4y ago
I think in the end, it's hard to separate technical leadership from human leadership. After you do your system design, you need to divy it up amongst the juniors to get it implemented. When deciding who gets what piece you have to consider what motivates them, what their strengths and weaknesses are, etc... But for sure your manager is helpful in figuring these things out. At this level, your manager basically becomes your partner, with the same goal of getting the work done most effectively. Your domain is the technical, their's is the human, but there is ton of overlap in the middle
- iosguyryan 4y ago
  It's rare a good architect is also a good (and willing) people manager. Organizations and teams profit most when separating those roles, unless you happen upon an individual who does both well. Separating mentorship and design from management has a huge cultural advantage: people who want to make more money don't have to always seek more political power, they can focus on technical skillsets that will make the organization wealthier and more fun to work at.
- throw1234651234 4y ago
  The architect ALWAYS ends up doing this. The other manager needs to be very active and engaged to actually deliver any value to the team and take some of this work off of the architect.
giantg2 4y ago
"Do these teams not have managers? Most of those responsibilities seem like the job of a manager." I wish! I do not work at FAANG, but I don't think I've had any managers that were that involved in our work. It's mostly a push-it-down-to-the-dev so everything is on the dev's plate at the end of the day. Which is funny, because I always thought the point if the manager was to remove overhead and coordinate the work so the devs can get more done.
- throw1234651234 4y ago
  You forgot the part where they: 1. Take credit for your work. 2. Promise to research something and tell you that you can get more work done because they are "handling it" and then provide no information, so you are saddled with MORE work in addition to what you already had to do. 3. Give direction without understanding anything to feel important. As you can see, there is some recent trauma here.
  - refulgentis 4y ago
    Same. Cosign, I've been prepped for it for 2 years and it's still a surprise and bad because I gave every opportunity, and then some, to prove it wasn't this silly and lazy. It is. They will tell you as little as possible, at the very last minute, when they get bored of you asking for help. You can literally change a field and if you expect your manager to do anything to help along the way, they won't. When you ask, they won't. When you ask again and highlight real bad behavior, they won't. When the bullying occurs right in front of them, they'll blame you and the other manager and tell you they didn't understand. Do. Not. Stress. Yourself. For. These. Places, dear Reader
gardenhedge 4y ago
Talented software engineers are generally tasked with every task.

by slg 4y ago

sershe 4y ago

I think having this position is actually a tacit partial compromise (a perk) for people like the OP (or myself, I'm in a similar situation and have similar feelings about it). I've seen people willingly jump from being a senior dev to being a manager, and either cease or limit actual dev work; however myself and many others don't want to be a manager, full stop. So, I end up doing the tech lead work (planning, design, divvying up work, interacting with other teams a lot esp. on high level, making sure it all comes together), and some of the more technical mentorship/etc. stuff, while the actual manager, who is also my manager, does most of the latter, including most of the motivation and all the HR/promo stuff. If I had to do all the latter I'd likely switch jobs, my manager might suspect as much.

pg_1234 4y ago
That seems like a pretty good compromise ... in your case. For most people in this position the sane advice is GET OUT. The company plans to leech as much of the value of your experience as possible, and pass it on to cheaper juniors. Furthermore they will pay you nothing for this (it's an opportunity to "give back"), but they will use you to hook naive juniors for lower pay (an opportunity to "learn from the best"). Basically the company is exploiting you to scam your replacements.
- sershe 4y ago
  Hmm, so if there are a lot of junior developers - inevitable as more people are getting STEM degrees - I should not help them grow, so that they are not able to do my job? Sounds pretty bleak. Continuing this to its logical conclusion, should I try to sabotage them too? :) By the time cheaper juniors are able to do what I do they might demand the same salary I demand, or whatever salary I might be able to demand at the time. Frankly even from a cynical perspective, this doesn't check out. Juniors usually don't try to own the same thing - I'm already there and at any given point could do it better, shared component ownership is rare, plus they'd rather own something new so they can get promoted. Plus juniors move around more. Moreover, while new juniors are relatively easy to replace or outsource, someone with tons of expertise in the area and experience of owning it and working thru others is harder. So, being a large area lead seems more secure than being a junior.
  - Viliam1234 4y ago
    > Continuing this to its logical conclusion, should I try to sabotage them too? Similarly, if you are not donating blood, the logical conclusion is to become a vampire. :) If you want to help junior developers, there are many other ways to do that. For example, you could teach a programming course, make a paid video at Udemy, or write a book. If your goal is to help junior developers, skip the intermediary, be more efficient, own the copyright, and set your own working hours.
    - sershe 4y ago
      My point was that not helping your coworkers succeed because you are afraid they'd take your job (unless that appears to be an explicit goal) is a very bleak mindset, and probably self-limiting too, as far as one's own career goes. My goal is to eat candy and poop diamonds, I don't have altruistic motives towards junior developers :)

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

britch 4y ago

On my team at least there's a grey area between managers responsibilities and Tech lead responsibilities. Managers are ultimately responsible for getting tasks that stretch employees abilities, but also in my experience don't have hands on the code. They're usually dealing with politics around team priorities, goals, keeping people motivated, etc. Managers rely on tech leads to identify work that needs to get done and would be a good fit for the newbie. Tech leads also have to teach newbies best practices, offer advice on designs, etc. Managers are often technical (e.g. used to be programming daily), but are not actively writing code anymore. I feel this is a bad situation for tech leads since they have to sort of manage, and do design work, and write code. Kind of a thankless job

scotty79 4y ago
In my last corporate job we didn't have a manager. Tech lead was filling that role.

turdprincess 4y ago

I think in the end, it's hard to separate technical leadership from human leadership. After you do your system design, you need to divy it up amongst the juniors to get it implemented. When deciding who gets what piece you have to consider what motivates them, what their strengths and weaknesses are, etc... But for sure your manager is helpful in figuring these things out. At this level, your manager basically becomes your partner, with the same goal of getting the work done most effectively. Your domain is the technical, their's is the human, but there is ton of overlap in the middle

iosguyryan 4y ago
It's rare a good architect is also a good (and willing) people manager. Organizations and teams profit most when separating those roles, unless you happen upon an individual who does both well. Separating mentorship and design from management has a huge cultural advantage: people who want to make more money don't have to always seek more political power, they can focus on technical skillsets that will make the organization wealthier and more fun to work at.
throw1234651234 4y ago
The architect ALWAYS ends up doing this. The other manager needs to be very active and engaged to actually deliver any value to the team and take some of this work off of the architect.

giantg2 4y ago

"Do these teams not have managers? Most of those responsibilities seem like the job of a manager." I wish! I do not work at FAANG, but I don't think I've had any managers that were that involved in our work. It's mostly a push-it-down-to-the-dev so everything is on the dev's plate at the end of the day. Which is funny, because I always thought the point if the manager was to remove overhead and coordinate the work so the devs can get more done.

throw1234651234 4y ago
You forgot the part where they: 1. Take credit for your work. 2. Promise to research something and tell you that you can get more work done because they are "handling it" and then provide no information, so you are saddled with MORE work in addition to what you already had to do. 3. Give direction without understanding anything to feel important. As you can see, there is some recent trauma here.
- refulgentis 4y ago
  Same. Cosign, I've been prepped for it for 2 years and it's still a surprise and bad because I gave every opportunity, and then some, to prove it wasn't this silly and lazy. It is. They will tell you as little as possible, at the very last minute, when they get bored of you asking for help. You can literally change a field and if you expect your manager to do anything to help along the way, they won't. When you ask, they won't. When you ask again and highlight real bad behavior, they won't. When the bullying occurs right in front of them, they'll blame you and the other manager and tell you they didn't understand. Do. Not. Stress. Yourself. For. These. Places, dear Reader

gardenhedge 4y ago

Talented software engineers are generally tasked with every task.