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Aren't you just replacing the word manager with the word "team lead"? What in your view is the difference between the responsibilities of a manager vs a team le

by yibg 4y ago

Aren't you just replacing the word manager with the word "team lead"? What in your view is the difference between the responsibilities of a manager vs a team lead if the team still reports to the team lead?

moomoo11 4y ago
In my mind the team lead wouldn’t have reports. The whole team is responsible for carrying out the business objective, and the team lead is the best IC on the team to guide the other ICs to the end. the director level (it could be multiple people) receive leadership objectives for the quarter or year. Their only job is to take their resources/battalion and divvy the work up into small atomic fire teams. Obviously there are many players from UX product QA devops etc. There is a directive, and everyone needs to be on board to WORK. The team lead is in charge of ensuring the eng work gets done. There might be product or other folks, they’re specialists on the team like a marksman or medic or automatic weapons specialist. This is a tech company we are taking about, the output is a product backed by technology. They need to be strong technically and take their team to the finish line. They don’t need to waste their time with 1:1 where they can’t remember the last session or making up stupid stories and wasting time in meetings. Just do the work. The team lead is the best engineer on the team and the rest of the team just does their job. Maybe incentive structure could be set up where the entire team is rewarded for completion. If people don’t feel it’s fair they can leave, but when things work out the reward would be 100s of thousands of dollars for everyone. If you just need bodies to throw at some low hanging problem outsource that work. Otherwise focus on execution. Like imagine trying to take a building with many doors and floors from an enemy. You want each team nimble enough to move independently of each other while working together via the team leads talking to each other. They lead their teams towards their objective of taking the building. Engineering managers would just be dead weight. They’re not in the building and don’t have line of sight. They are far away (rarely have I seen eng managers code or get their hands dirty) and because of this cause confusion and disarray. They get information that gets lost in translation or some hero noob on the team wants to try their own plan and the manager gives them time to try it out. Good luck taking that building. Just keep the work lean, and keep focused on work. Like so many managers allow their teams to waste time and effort with “finding the right process” or bullshit meetings. Just focus on taking that building.
- UncleMeat 4y ago
  This is... just management. You've got middle managers (directors) who link teams with leadership priorities. You've got line managers (tech leads) who are in charge of ensuring that work gets done.
  - moomoo11 4y ago
    never worked somewhere that directors are considered middle management. I’ve been at places where there was Associate Manager, Manager, Sr Manager, Group Manager, Director, Senior Director, VP, SVP. That is insane imo. Anyone below director is useless, and the director should just report to the VP or CTO. My point is that managers should be rare. And teams should be small. I’m not taking career or technical advice from an associate/manager because they’re usually the worst ICs and overall lowest performers in like 80% or more of the time. This is how they struggle to stay in the game. You have probably heard many people who are the best IC say they don’t want to manage. They then get managed by the worst people. And they just leave like that when they can’t take their managers BS anymore. You ever gotten feedback like “you need to speak more in meetings” from one of these low tier managers? All they do is waste everyone’s time in useless meetings. I’m there to work, not pretend I’m smart by making dumb diagrams and writing/sharing 20 page documents on things that have nothing to do with the job. You see these people come out of the woodwork during late stage. And that’s when most of the beat engineers leave and you have commodity tier folks running the show. It’s just facts. I’m giving my perspective. And it’s frustrating that I have to keep changing jobs because management is always the weak link. People missing deadlines, people putting effort into things that don’t matter, just talking/wasting time.
    - UncleMeat 4y ago
      > That is insane imo. Anyone below director is useless, and the director should just report to the VP or CTO. Cool. Advocating for fewer layers of managers is very different than what you proposed in your original post, which included the phrase "Get rid of eng managers." > I’m not taking career or technical advice from an associate/manager because they’re usually the worst ICs and overall lowest performers in like 80% or more of the time. This is how they struggle to stay in the game. You have probably heard many people who are the best IC say they don’t want to manage. But you will. They'll just be called a Tech Lead and they'll have manager responsibilities.

by yibg 4y ago

moomoo11 4y ago

In my mind the team lead wouldn’t have reports. The whole team is responsible for carrying out the business objective, and the team lead is the best IC on the team to guide the other ICs to the end. the director level (it could be multiple people) receive leadership objectives for the quarter or year. Their only job is to take their resources/battalion and divvy the work up into small atomic fire teams. Obviously there are many players from UX product QA devops etc. There is a directive, and everyone needs to be on board to WORK. The team lead is in charge of ensuring the eng work gets done. There might be product or other folks, they’re specialists on the team like a marksman or medic or automatic weapons specialist. This is a tech company we are taking about, the output is a product backed by technology. They need to be strong technically and take their team to the finish line. They don’t need to waste their time with 1:1 where they can’t remember the last session or making up stupid stories and wasting time in meetings. Just do the work. The team lead is the best engineer on the team and the rest of the team just does their job. Maybe incentive structure could be set up where the entire team is rewarded for completion. If people don’t feel it’s fair they can leave, but when things work out the reward would be 100s of thousands of dollars for everyone. If you just need bodies to throw at some low hanging problem outsource that work. Otherwise focus on execution. Like imagine trying to take a building with many doors and floors from an enemy. You want each team nimble enough to move independently of each other while working together via the team leads talking to each other. They lead their teams towards their objective of taking the building. Engineering managers would just be dead weight. They’re not in the building and don’t have line of sight. They are far away (rarely have I seen eng managers code or get their hands dirty) and because of this cause confusion and disarray. They get information that gets lost in translation or some hero noob on the team wants to try their own plan and the manager gives them time to try it out. Good luck taking that building. Just keep the work lean, and keep focused on work. Like so many managers allow their teams to waste time and effort with “finding the right process” or bullshit meetings. Just focus on taking that building.

UncleMeat 4y ago
This is... just management. You've got middle managers (directors) who link teams with leadership priorities. You've got line managers (tech leads) who are in charge of ensuring that work gets done.
- moomoo11 4y ago
  never worked somewhere that directors are considered middle management. I’ve been at places where there was Associate Manager, Manager, Sr Manager, Group Manager, Director, Senior Director, VP, SVP. That is insane imo. Anyone below director is useless, and the director should just report to the VP or CTO. My point is that managers should be rare. And teams should be small. I’m not taking career or technical advice from an associate/manager because they’re usually the worst ICs and overall lowest performers in like 80% or more of the time. This is how they struggle to stay in the game. You have probably heard many people who are the best IC say they don’t want to manage. They then get managed by the worst people. And they just leave like that when they can’t take their managers BS anymore. You ever gotten feedback like “you need to speak more in meetings” from one of these low tier managers? All they do is waste everyone’s time in useless meetings. I’m there to work, not pretend I’m smart by making dumb diagrams and writing/sharing 20 page documents on things that have nothing to do with the job. You see these people come out of the woodwork during late stage. And that’s when most of the beat engineers leave and you have commodity tier folks running the show. It’s just facts. I’m giving my perspective. And it’s frustrating that I have to keep changing jobs because management is always the weak link. People missing deadlines, people putting effort into things that don’t matter, just talking/wasting time.
  - UncleMeat 4y ago
    > That is insane imo. Anyone below director is useless, and the director should just report to the VP or CTO. Cool. Advocating for fewer layers of managers is very different than what you proposed in your original post, which included the phrase "Get rid of eng managers." > I’m not taking career or technical advice from an associate/manager because they’re usually the worst ICs and overall lowest performers in like 80% or more of the time. This is how they struggle to stay in the game. You have probably heard many people who are the best IC say they don’t want to manage. But you will. They'll just be called a Tech Lead and they'll have manager responsibilities.