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More of a tech lead myself, but my personal policy is that I put my coworkers above my career. I am willing to quit before doing anything to throw them under th

More of a tech lead myself, but my personal policy is that I put my coworkers above my career. I am willing to quit before doing anything to throw them under the bus or be fired before remaining silent if they are treated unfairly. This does not imply corruption or favoritism, just a lot of transparency. If I think they have a lot of potential, I try to help them optimize their career growth even if this means they may one day overtake me and I end up reporting to them. If I don't think they are likely to be successful in their current team or company, I will suggest alternatives and invest my personal time in helping them apply for a transfer or an outside job. If required to mislead people on matters that are important to their long term wellbeing, I will refuse to do so and accept getting fired as a consequence. Maybe that's one reason I am not a manager, but I do feel my current manager, unlike a couple of others before, is in this ballpark. In these conditions, I do feel there is space for genuine friendships. A true friend is respectful of their friends station in life. If you are friends with someone in more humble financial circumstances than yourself, you go to affordable places for get togethers. If you are friends with someone more junior professionally, you make sure that personal and professional boundaries are clearly separated and that you will never act to their detriment for your own selfish gain. If it's a real friendship, they will also understand that you have your job to do and so do they. Now if you plan to use people for your own ends, it's certainly very creepy and unfair to imply you care about them on a personal level. But on the other hand, who wouldn't want a senior person at a new company to be their mentor and ally? Act with honesty, compassion and integrity and then friendships are not a problem.

slg 3y ago
>More of a tech lead myself, but my personal policy is that I put my coworkers above my career. I am willing to quit before doing anything to throw them under the bus or be fired before remaining silent if they are treated unfairly... Maybe that's one reason I am not a manager, Yep, that is what ended my management career. I became a middle manager a few years before the pandemic, but I'm back to being an IC again. I just couldn't handle managing through that first few months of the pandemic and how my bosses wanted me to treat my direct reports. Unless you are working on some lifesaving or world changing job, which almost none of us are, I just couldn't imagine prioritizing my job over my coworkers. Why put the profits of some people I don't know above the lives of people I worked with every day? It's a messed-up world that this opinion makes me a bad manager.
- alexeys 3y ago
  If you don’t try to make it a better world, who will?
  - slg 3y ago
    I guess that is the point of my rambling comment above. I tried and failed and I'm surprised more people don't even try.
  - wahnfrieden 3y ago
    Try organizing workers instead of managing them if you want them better off.
nine_zeros 3y ago
People like you keep the industry alive. Middle/upper management is so distant from the trenches that they really don't understand how their decisions may affect something. Honestly, they don't even care because their stocks will continue to vest. I really hope that the execs realize that they need to make VPs and directors more responsible for their reports. Not just accountable. These managers should be the first to go in a layoff or a PIP. Only then will this industry change.
- P_I_Staker 3y ago
  So you think if someone doesn't improve with a PIP, they should fire the manager. That's quite an idea, and I don't know how else to interpret: > These managers should be the first to go in a layoff or a PIP I'm not sure what to do with a truly unqualified employee, but implying a manager should be fired if, eg. an employee refuses to work, seems a little much.
  - nine_zeros 3y ago
    > So you think if someone doesn't improve with a PIP, they should fire the manager. A PIP should be used only for project failures in the first place, not for people failures. And, a manager should be responsible for allocating the right amount of resources and tools to get a project done. They should not be able to abscond from this responsibility by Pipping ICs. If a truly unqualified employee doesn't work, they can just fire them.
ochronus 3y ago
100% my experience, both as being such a manager and having had such managers.

slg 3y ago

>More of a tech lead myself, but my personal policy is that I put my coworkers above my career. I am willing to quit before doing anything to throw them under the bus or be fired before remaining silent if they are treated unfairly... Maybe that's one reason I am not a manager, Yep, that is what ended my management career. I became a middle manager a few years before the pandemic, but I'm back to being an IC again. I just couldn't handle managing through that first few months of the pandemic and how my bosses wanted me to treat my direct reports. Unless you are working on some lifesaving or world changing job, which almost none of us are, I just couldn't imagine prioritizing my job over my coworkers. Why put the profits of some people I don't know above the lives of people I worked with every day? It's a messed-up world that this opinion makes me a bad manager.

alexeys 3y ago
If you don’t try to make it a better world, who will?
- slg 3y ago
  I guess that is the point of my rambling comment above. I tried and failed and I'm surprised more people don't even try.
- wahnfrieden 3y ago
  Try organizing workers instead of managing them if you want them better off.

nine_zeros 3y ago

People like you keep the industry alive. Middle/upper management is so distant from the trenches that they really don't understand how their decisions may affect something. Honestly, they don't even care because their stocks will continue to vest. I really hope that the execs realize that they need to make VPs and directors more responsible for their reports. Not just accountable. These managers should be the first to go in a layoff or a PIP. Only then will this industry change.

P_I_Staker 3y ago
So you think if someone doesn't improve with a PIP, they should fire the manager. That's quite an idea, and I don't know how else to interpret: > These managers should be the first to go in a layoff or a PIP I'm not sure what to do with a truly unqualified employee, but implying a manager should be fired if, eg. an employee refuses to work, seems a little much.
- nine_zeros 3y ago
  > So you think if someone doesn't improve with a PIP, they should fire the manager. A PIP should be used only for project failures in the first place, not for people failures. And, a manager should be responsible for allocating the right amount of resources and tools to get a project done. They should not be able to abscond from this responsibility by Pipping ICs. If a truly unqualified employee doesn't work, they can just fire them.

ochronus 3y ago

100% my experience, both as being such a manager and having had such managers.