4 ms·
I think online software development discussions tend to lean slightly towards blaming management rather than engineers, probably because we're most of us engine
by joshlemer 4y ago
I think online software development discussions tend to lean slightly towards blaming management rather than engineers, probably because we're most of us engineers and can empathize with them better, but in this case I think it's reasonable to blame the engineer. A manager's job isn't to micro-manage every single task and to make sure that an engineer is highly engaged at every hour of the day. If the engineer is blocked on everything, above a certain level of seniority which is not so high, it's incumbent on them to find ways to contribute or find things to do, and if need be convey their situation to their manager.
- 8note 4y agoA managers job is to set prioritization, and see trends. A trend of "everyone's constantly waiting on <blank>" should trigger the manager to think "if we could make <blank> not a bottle neck, we could raise our sprint utilization factor by x%" and thus set prioritization accordingly. Engineers still have to figure out how to do that. The engineers need to surface information about where their processes suck, but they need prioritization to implement fixes
- JohnFen 4y agoI don't know about that particular company, of course, but over my decades in this industry, here's how the average engineer I've worked with would react to being blocked for three days per week. They'd be furious and would be raising hell about it. Very few people want to just warm their seats, especially engineers. They want to do things. I have a hard time believing that most of the affected engineers haven't raised the problem to management.