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I've read a lot of Charity Majors' stuff, and in some ways this opinion is typical of her, and in some ways it is not. Obviously, she's a big proponent of engi

by jawns 4y ago

I've read a lot of Charity Majors' stuff, and in some ways this opinion is typical of her, and in some ways it is not. Obviously, she's a big proponent of engineers taking full ownership of their work. That's core to observability, which is what her day job is all about: https://charity.wtf/2020/03/03/observability-is-a-many-splendored-thing/ https://charity.wtf/2020/03/03/observability-is-a-many-splen... Yet one of the pieces she's well known for is "The Engineer/Manager Pendulum," where she argues that some of the best managers and some of the best ICs are people who have gone back and forth between the two roles: https://charity.wtf/2017/05/11/the-engineer-manager-pendulum/ https://charity.wtf/2017/05/11/the-engineer-manager-pendulum... In one sense, that is consistent with her opinion about architects being a BS position, sort of analogous to calling out useless middle managers. But one of my takeaways from her pendulum opinion is that those senior ICs who have pendulumed are better off precisely because they bring a management skillset to IC work and an IC skillset to management work. And a high enough level, that manager's eye might involve recognizing that helping other engineers design their systems is imparting more engineering influence than whatever any one person can do at the code level. And in these cases, I'd argue you're still delivering engineering value rather than just project-management value. Charity knows a lot of these senior ICs, and so it's not as if she's dismissing their potential value out of ignorance. So I'm a little surprised that she's throwing the baby out with the bathwater and arguing not that there are a lot of architects who aren't delivering the value they should be, but that the role itself is inherently not valuable.

flerchin 4y ago
On balance, the role might be net-negative. Like PMs. There are _good people_ doing _hard jobs_, at most orgs. However, a role where you're not responsible for the systems you create is one where the feedback loops are too large to add value beyond random chance.
- SpicyLemonZest 4y ago
  There’s many kinds of responsibility. You can just as easily tell the inverse story, where you need architects and PMs to be in charge because engineers aren’t responsible for the business value of the systems they create.
  - flerchin 4y ago
    PMs seem to be responsible for dates and budgets, but in what way is an Architect held responsible for business value?
    - SpicyLemonZest 4y ago
      Ideally, an architect's job performance is measured in terms of revenue or attributed cost savings for the products they architect. A good architect will produce streamlined designs that make lots of money with little development effort; a bad architect will produce convoluted designs that require more effort to produce less money. How often are architects actually measured that way? I'm not sure, in the areas I work in these days it's not a trendy title to have. I've heard the same horror stories you have of "architecture astronauts", who design pointless frameworks and then get evaluated based on how many people they can bully into adopting the framework. But I know people doing valuable work in similar roles, so I can't get behind the idea that it's illegitimate in some fundamental way.

by jawns 4y ago

flerchin 4y ago

On balance, the role might be net-negative. Like PMs. There are _good people_ doing _hard jobs_, at most orgs. However, a role where you're not responsible for the systems you create is one where the feedback loops are too large to add value beyond random chance.

SpicyLemonZest 4y ago
There’s many kinds of responsibility. You can just as easily tell the inverse story, where you need architects and PMs to be in charge because engineers aren’t responsible for the business value of the systems they create.
- flerchin 4y ago
  PMs seem to be responsible for dates and budgets, but in what way is an Architect held responsible for business value?
  - SpicyLemonZest 4y ago
    Ideally, an architect's job performance is measured in terms of revenue or attributed cost savings for the products they architect. A good architect will produce streamlined designs that make lots of money with little development effort; a bad architect will produce convoluted designs that require more effort to produce less money. How often are architects actually measured that way? I'm not sure, in the areas I work in these days it's not a trendy title to have. I've heard the same horror stories you have of "architecture astronauts", who design pointless frameworks and then get evaluated based on how many people they can bully into adopting the framework. But I know people doing valuable work in similar roles, so I can't get behind the idea that it's illegitimate in some fundamental way.