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> Most of the time someone just wants to put a number on their powerpoint for some organisational politics nonsense. Yes. Thats how coalition-building, budgeti

by 23B1 3y ago

nine_zeros 3y ago
> Most of the time someone just wants to put a number on their powerpoint for some organisational politics nonsense. Yes. Thats how coalition-building, budgeting, and reporting works in business. Not saying it should dominate your schedule, but it's just how organizations work. Engineers/Developers are part of the org – not some special snowflakes that are above or beyond politics. And yet, none of the politicians are going to toil to make the deadline work. There is no gain to be had for the actual engineers or the actual business. How about this, tie a deadline to a well-defined bonus that only the engineers would receive and staff the project with ALL the engineers you can get. This will allow political heads to keep doing their coalition-building while engineers also receive some benefit for their toil. If you are unwilling to share the rewards of the toil, it is no surprise that the actual people doing the toil don't care about your coalition-building nonsense that doesn't even help the business in anyway. Your coalition-building vs their own time with family/friends, not a difficult choice to make.
- 23B1 3y ago
  Wrong. Organizations don’t exist without administration, as a necessary requirement for doing business. Part of your time, as part of that org, will contribute to that if for nothing else because a company is required to comply with baseline regulatory compliance (accounting, taxes, investor relations, etc.). Happy to share in the spoils and many companies do this with stock/options of course - but don’t think for a minute you live in a walled garden. I mean, you can, but then you get zero input into things like deadlines; you’ll simply be ignored or moved out of the org. Your comment is essentially “I want all of the responsibility and none of the accountability”
  - nine_zeros 3y ago
    > Wrong. Organizations don’t exist without administration, as a necessary requirement for doing business. Part of your time, as part of that org, will contribute to that if for nothing else because a company is required to comply with baseline regulatory compliance (accounting, taxes, investor relations, etc.). Where exactly did I say that organizations exist without administration. All I pointed out was that if the rewards are not shared with people, people will not do the work. But since you are writing this from a org structure perspective, I can alsosay that administrative work can be done by HR. Eng management can be left to handle engineering direction and task. Specifically, the political org structure is not a necessity - it is only something that low IQ can understand. A smarter structure is technical leadership all the way up to VP + HR that manages pay and promos.
    - 23B1 3y ago
      Nothing personal but I’m guessing you are either relatively inexperienced or maybe in a market that is different than the U.S. The reward is your salary/bonus/stock, and it obviously works… because work gets done and tech talent is well-remunerated for it. The technical leadership structure you seem to be recommending already exists; plenty of ELTs have or are comprised of experienced people with deep technical roots.
      - nine_zeros 3y ago
        > Nothing personal but I’m guessing you are either relatively inexperienced or maybe in a market that is different than the U.S. No offense taken. I am in the US and worked for 2 of the FAANGs and 2 FAANG-adjacent startups. The work culture in each of these companies is so terrible that even $400k/year is not enough renumeration for that kind of pressure and political nonsense. What I learned by working at startups after FAANG is that FAANGs are able to have such poor management practices (e.g. fiefdoms, politics, perf reviews) only because they can hide behind infinite revenue. Startups (<1000 employees) that copied FAANG practices crashed quickly because guess what, those practices are actually harmful to the producers of services (engineers, product) and that leads to a quick drop in revenue.
lmm 3y ago
> Thats how coalition-building, budgeting, and reporting works in business. Not saying it should dominate your schedule, but it's just how organizations work. Nah. Internal competition is a negative for the business. Selfish individuals do it so that they can get better results for themselves. Refusing to take part is the right thing for the business.
- 23B1 3y ago
  I never said it had to be competitive nor is my comment recommending that. You don’t own 100% of your time when participating in group activities.
  - lmm 3y ago
    > I never said it had to be competitive nor is my comment recommending that. You said "Thats how coalition-building, budgeting, and reporting works in business." In my experience that's only true in the bad kind of business where there's too much internal competition. > You don’t own 100% of your time when participating in group activities. You're responsible for your time. You should share it generously with people who want to put it towards something productive, but you should also push back when people want to waste it.
    - 23B1 3y ago
      Internal competition can be good and bad, just like any other management principle. But at the end of the day, an organization needs consensus or it’ll implode, and some people are required to help build that consensus, amongst other duties that extend well beyond product. This is as true for business as it is in any other group dynamic.
      - lmm 3y ago
        You need consensus, sure. You don't time estimates from engineering estimates for it, and even if you did, badgering engineers to make their numbers smaller wouldn't make getting consensus any easier.

by 23B1 3y ago

nine_zeros 3y ago

> Most of the time someone just wants to put a number on their powerpoint for some organisational politics nonsense. Yes. Thats how coalition-building, budgeting, and reporting works in business. Not saying it should dominate your schedule, but it's just how organizations work. Engineers/Developers are part of the org – not some special snowflakes that are above or beyond politics. And yet, none of the politicians are going to toil to make the deadline work. There is no gain to be had for the actual engineers or the actual business. How about this, tie a deadline to a well-defined bonus that only the engineers would receive and staff the project with ALL the engineers you can get. This will allow political heads to keep doing their coalition-building while engineers also receive some benefit for their toil. If you are unwilling to share the rewards of the toil, it is no surprise that the actual people doing the toil don't care about your coalition-building nonsense that doesn't even help the business in anyway. Your coalition-building vs their own time with family/friends, not a difficult choice to make.

23B1 3y ago
Wrong. Organizations don’t exist without administration, as a necessary requirement for doing business. Part of your time, as part of that org, will contribute to that if for nothing else because a company is required to comply with baseline regulatory compliance (accounting, taxes, investor relations, etc.). Happy to share in the spoils and many companies do this with stock/options of course - but don’t think for a minute you live in a walled garden. I mean, you can, but then you get zero input into things like deadlines; you’ll simply be ignored or moved out of the org. Your comment is essentially “I want all of the responsibility and none of the accountability”
- nine_zeros 3y ago
  > Wrong. Organizations don’t exist without administration, as a necessary requirement for doing business. Part of your time, as part of that org, will contribute to that if for nothing else because a company is required to comply with baseline regulatory compliance (accounting, taxes, investor relations, etc.). Where exactly did I say that organizations exist without administration. All I pointed out was that if the rewards are not shared with people, people will not do the work. But since you are writing this from a org structure perspective, I can alsosay that administrative work can be done by HR. Eng management can be left to handle engineering direction and task. Specifically, the political org structure is not a necessity - it is only something that low IQ can understand. A smarter structure is technical leadership all the way up to VP + HR that manages pay and promos.
  - 23B1 3y ago
    Nothing personal but I’m guessing you are either relatively inexperienced or maybe in a market that is different than the U.S. The reward is your salary/bonus/stock, and it obviously works… because work gets done and tech talent is well-remunerated for it. The technical leadership structure you seem to be recommending already exists; plenty of ELTs have or are comprised of experienced people with deep technical roots.
    - nine_zeros 3y ago
      > Nothing personal but I’m guessing you are either relatively inexperienced or maybe in a market that is different than the U.S. No offense taken. I am in the US and worked for 2 of the FAANGs and 2 FAANG-adjacent startups. The work culture in each of these companies is so terrible that even $400k/year is not enough renumeration for that kind of pressure and political nonsense. What I learned by working at startups after FAANG is that FAANGs are able to have such poor management practices (e.g. fiefdoms, politics, perf reviews) only because they can hide behind infinite revenue. Startups (<1000 employees) that copied FAANG practices crashed quickly because guess what, those practices are actually harmful to the producers of services (engineers, product) and that leads to a quick drop in revenue.

lmm 3y ago

> Thats how coalition-building, budgeting, and reporting works in business. Not saying it should dominate your schedule, but it's just how organizations work. Nah. Internal competition is a negative for the business. Selfish individuals do it so that they can get better results for themselves. Refusing to take part is the right thing for the business.

23B1 3y ago
I never said it had to be competitive nor is my comment recommending that. You don’t own 100% of your time when participating in group activities.
- lmm 3y ago
  > I never said it had to be competitive nor is my comment recommending that. You said "Thats how coalition-building, budgeting, and reporting works in business." In my experience that's only true in the bad kind of business where there's too much internal competition. > You don’t own 100% of your time when participating in group activities. You're responsible for your time. You should share it generously with people who want to put it towards something productive, but you should also push back when people want to waste it.
  - 23B1 3y ago
    Internal competition can be good and bad, just like any other management principle. But at the end of the day, an organization needs consensus or it’ll implode, and some people are required to help build that consensus, amongst other duties that extend well beyond product. This is as true for business as it is in any other group dynamic.
    - lmm 3y ago
      You need consensus, sure. You don't time estimates from engineering estimates for it, and even if you did, badgering engineers to make their numbers smaller wouldn't make getting consensus any easier.