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While I don’t disagree, I think labeling and calling people “bad” is wrong. Derek is doing the best he can. He hired you to help make the company better, more p

While I don’t disagree, I think labeling and calling people “bad” is wrong. Derek is doing the best he can. He hired you to help make the company better, more profitable, etc etc. He’s trying anything to get you to understand that you need to deliver value, a product, a service, research output, something so the Bob’s have something to sell/offer/justify grant money. I’ve met a lot of engineers that think they were hired to perfect the art of software engineering. Not the case, not unless that is your mantra and you work at FAANG or Big Blue. The rest of the 90% have to deliver value. For managers, that’s getting the product/service/research out the door. For directors, it’s that X N where N is the number of managers, for VP’s the same - Product/Service/Output X Directors X Managers. Often the more inception you have (higher up you go) the more confusing the management and meetings as everything becomes strategic. I usually work a bit with the team to prove myself, talk the talk and walk the walk, before I ever ask to lead them. Let me solve a hard problem with you so we both know how we problem solve and I’ll handle “The Business”. I’ve taken my fair share of punches. What doesn’t help is the black and white thinking that this article is written in. If 98 of 100 dashboards aren’t used or even viewed. Build a grafana dashboard of stuff that is useful and present it as a means for cost cutting Power BI. Build a bunch of widgets they can use if they need it. I’m saying - take a step back and look not at the individuals behavior but at the situation that drives it. How can you, the engineer, provide better tooling so Derek looks like a genius. They clearly know what you’re working on, how production is going. Bob has stuff to sell and people to drink with. You get more time to work on perfecting the art of software engineering. Stop looking at ineptitude as someone’s failure and start looking at it as an opportunity to provide solutions to help those who can’t Rust, rust. Or those who are stuck on C++. Or Brian who keeps committing small revisions to PRs and makes 30-80 commit PRs in a sprint. These are not signs of individual failure, they are symptoms.

specialist 3y ago
> Derek is doing the best he can. Yup. Few people go to work every day to do a bad job. Like the OC's epiphany about Sturgeon's Law, I chilled (a little bit) once I realized that most people are already playing at their highest level. > ...start looking at it as an opportunity to provide solutions to help... Back when I was doing proper product development, eg burning CDs and printing manuals, this was a pretty good strategy. Something changed. And I'm not smart enough to see it. My best guess is that most dev work is now "IT". Agile. Everything is make believe. Nothing ever really ships or is considered done. Then 18 - 36 elapse and its time for a do over. Any knowledge, culture, or lessons learned sent to /dev/null. I've been binging the Oxide Computer podcast. They're actually making something. Concrete, real, shippable, useful. That'd be nice.
- ozim 3y ago
  To add to that by Strugeon law organizations cannot hire “best of the best”. Organization has option to hire crud and have stuff done where other option is not having done anything at all. Other option of course is to work best employees to the ground.
uoaei 3y ago
So what do we call it when "the best they can" is not very good or is actively harmful? Do you mean to imply that intention factors into outcomes?
- ludicity 3y ago
  A few people really fixated on "bad", even though I'd never endorse calling a non-fictional person bad right to their face, if only because I don't think work is a good reason to make anyone feel bad (unless they're interfering with something important like lifesaving work and it's necessary). But yes, intentions are unrelated to outcomes. There are many things that I do not do professionally because I don't want to make people's lives worse or do a bad job. That said, I'm sympathetic because the world is crazy and I'm sure these people have families to feed. Just, you know, don't get invested in them improving if they don't seem like they want to.
marcosdumay 3y ago
> Derek is doing the best he can. He's doing what is best to keep his job. Not what leads to his best work.

specialist 3y ago

> Derek is doing the best he can. Yup. Few people go to work every day to do a bad job. Like the OC's epiphany about Sturgeon's Law, I chilled (a little bit) once I realized that most people are already playing at their highest level. > ...start looking at it as an opportunity to provide solutions to help... Back when I was doing proper product development, eg burning CDs and printing manuals, this was a pretty good strategy. Something changed. And I'm not smart enough to see it. My best guess is that most dev work is now "IT". Agile. Everything is make believe. Nothing ever really ships or is considered done. Then 18 - 36 elapse and its time for a do over. Any knowledge, culture, or lessons learned sent to /dev/null. I've been binging the Oxide Computer podcast. They're actually making something. Concrete, real, shippable, useful. That'd be nice.

ozim 3y ago
To add to that by Strugeon law organizations cannot hire “best of the best”. Organization has option to hire crud and have stuff done where other option is not having done anything at all. Other option of course is to work best employees to the ground.

uoaei 3y ago

So what do we call it when "the best they can" is not very good or is actively harmful? Do you mean to imply that intention factors into outcomes?

ludicity 3y ago
A few people really fixated on "bad", even though I'd never endorse calling a non-fictional person bad right to their face, if only because I don't think work is a good reason to make anyone feel bad (unless they're interfering with something important like lifesaving work and it's necessary). But yes, intentions are unrelated to outcomes. There are many things that I do not do professionally because I don't want to make people's lives worse or do a bad job. That said, I'm sympathetic because the world is crazy and I'm sure these people have families to feed. Just, you know, don't get invested in them improving if they don't seem like they want to.

marcosdumay 3y ago

> Derek is doing the best he can. He's doing what is best to keep his job. Not what leads to his best work.