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As I read it, the actual problem during the initial Slack conversation was that Pei did not understand who the author was and why he was there. And it's complet

As I read it, the actual problem during the initial Slack conversation was that Pei did not understand who the author was and why he was there. And it's completely the author's fault! He started the conversation with deliberately obtuse corp-speak: > I'm eager to hear your ideas about how the company should move forward. What are the biggest problems? What are the biggest opportunities? Can we schedule some time to talk? Instead he should have started with the plain truth, something like: > I am a hired gun working directly for the CTO. To be quite frank, I am here because senior management is extremely concerned about state of the company's tech stack, and they want an outsider's perspective about what changes should or should not be made. In a couple of weeks, I will write up my report which will land directly on the CTO's desk. You are the most experienced Rails engineer in the company, so any insight and suggestions you have would be invaluable. I would like to schedule an hour's meeting with you within the next few days to pick your brain.

AndrewKemendo 3y ago
Not to toot my own horn, but that second example is almost verbatim how I talk with engineer, and pretty much anybody who knows how to specify a problem and devise hypotheses for solutions. I’ve been told that this is approach is completely different and depending on who you are either refreshed unnerved shocked excited etc… Generally, the people that have the hardest time with this kind of direct approach, have the least capacity or ability to actually build or change or implement something. Think along the lines of chief of strategy, often times it’s a COO, most likely though it’s somebody within the sales BD realm who is non-technical, or somebody in the operational side who is not technical but was put into a technical leadership role. Alternatively, people who really love this have been waiting to be empowered to do what they know is correct but have generally been impeded by other people who have opaque goals. These are mid-level software engineers, junior software engineers, often times though it’s most impactful to senior engineers who are super cynical or burnt out and just playing out the clock.

AndrewKemendo 3y ago

Not to toot my own horn, but that second example is almost verbatim how I talk with engineer, and pretty much anybody who knows how to specify a problem and devise hypotheses for solutions. I’ve been told that this is approach is completely different and depending on who you are either refreshed unnerved shocked excited etc… Generally, the people that have the hardest time with this kind of direct approach, have the least capacity or ability to actually build or change or implement something. Think along the lines of chief of strategy, often times it’s a COO, most likely though it’s somebody within the sales BD realm who is non-technical, or somebody in the operational side who is not technical but was put into a technical leadership role. Alternatively, people who really love this have been waiting to be empowered to do what they know is correct but have generally been impeded by other people who have opaque goals. These are mid-level software engineers, junior software engineers, often times though it’s most impactful to senior engineers who are super cynical or burnt out and just playing out the clock.