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i like the repeat back but i would hate this. what if the person doesn't feel comfortable correcting them? just so many ways this could go wrong. not to mention

i like the repeat back but i would hate this. what if the person doesn't feel comfortable correcting them? just so many ways this could go wrong. not to mention it's dishonest and manipulative. management is already manipulative in a way, but this is crossing the line.

StevePerkins 3y ago
If it's a junior developer, then they really shouldn't have too much responsibility without heavy supervision anyway. If it's a senior developer, then they should feel comfortable speaking up when there's a disconnect or misunderstanding. I would argue that one trait is the overwhelming majority of what separates a senior developer from a junior one.
- watwut 3y ago
  > If it's a senior developer, then they should feel comfortable speaking up when there's a disconnect or misunderstanding. I would argue that one trait is the overwhelming majority of what separates a senior developer from a junior one. Whether seniors feel confident to correct the manager depends primary on how manager acts when corrected. There are many managers who don't get corrected by seniors and seniors who do learn not to do that - either becabuse it is useless or will be punished. Either way, juniors do talk with management fairly often, whether they have responsibility or not.
  - TrololoTroll 3y ago
    I could not agree more Seems like it'll always be the case that people will chuck the responsibility for X towards people with the lowest capacity to actually be responsible for X People feel fine with correcting managers when managers reward being corrected instead of punishing it. That's got nothing to do with seniority levels
- greenie_beans 3y ago
  > If it's a senior developer, then they should feel comfortable speaking up when there's a disconnect or misunderstanding. I would argue that one trait is the overwhelming majority of what separates a senior developer from a junior one. this is just idealistic and doesn't acknowledge the power dynamics in any organization, nor does it factor in peoples' individual personality traits.
spaceprison 3y ago
Agreed I've seen a scenario play out with a junior engineer and a senior manager who does this. The junior had the right idea but the dialog with the inquisitive senior manger left the junior confused because they didn't feel like they had the chops to push back.
saghm 3y ago
I definitely see how it might seem like it would come across this way, but this was all within the context of a manager who went out of his way to establish himself with his team as someone who did _not_ consider him a technical expert compared to the engineers on the team (to the point where I think he honestly didn't recognize the full extent of his skills). It wasn't uncommon for him to tell people that the reason he switched from being an engineer to a manager was that he didn't think he was good enough at the engineering side of things to be successful at it. He viewed his job as doing whatever he could to make the people working for him successful, and that included setting the expectations that ideas should be judged on their own merits and not based on who they came from. This is obviously not something that just can happen because someone says it should, and I'm not really sure there's any amount of evidence I can offer to be convincing enough that he did try to maintain an environment of trust and lack of judgment, but I can at least say that I genuinely felt like that was the case, and that I only ever experienced and saw encouragement for us to consider any technical question, doubt, or feedback from one member of the team to another in good faith, regardless of the relative tenure or title of the people involved.

StevePerkins 3y ago

If it's a junior developer, then they really shouldn't have too much responsibility without heavy supervision anyway. If it's a senior developer, then they should feel comfortable speaking up when there's a disconnect or misunderstanding. I would argue that one trait is the overwhelming majority of what separates a senior developer from a junior one.

watwut 3y ago
> If it's a senior developer, then they should feel comfortable speaking up when there's a disconnect or misunderstanding. I would argue that one trait is the overwhelming majority of what separates a senior developer from a junior one. Whether seniors feel confident to correct the manager depends primary on how manager acts when corrected. There are many managers who don't get corrected by seniors and seniors who do learn not to do that - either becabuse it is useless or will be punished. Either way, juniors do talk with management fairly often, whether they have responsibility or not.
- TrololoTroll 3y ago
  I could not agree more Seems like it'll always be the case that people will chuck the responsibility for X towards people with the lowest capacity to actually be responsible for X People feel fine with correcting managers when managers reward being corrected instead of punishing it. That's got nothing to do with seniority levels
greenie_beans 3y ago
> If it's a senior developer, then they should feel comfortable speaking up when there's a disconnect or misunderstanding. I would argue that one trait is the overwhelming majority of what separates a senior developer from a junior one. this is just idealistic and doesn't acknowledge the power dynamics in any organization, nor does it factor in peoples' individual personality traits.

spaceprison 3y ago

Agreed I've seen a scenario play out with a junior engineer and a senior manager who does this. The junior had the right idea but the dialog with the inquisitive senior manger left the junior confused because they didn't feel like they had the chops to push back.

saghm 3y ago

I definitely see how it might seem like it would come across this way, but this was all within the context of a manager who went out of his way to establish himself with his team as someone who did _not_ consider him a technical expert compared to the engineers on the team (to the point where I think he honestly didn't recognize the full extent of his skills). It wasn't uncommon for him to tell people that the reason he switched from being an engineer to a manager was that he didn't think he was good enough at the engineering side of things to be successful at it. He viewed his job as doing whatever he could to make the people working for him successful, and that included setting the expectations that ideas should be judged on their own merits and not based on who they came from. This is obviously not something that just can happen because someone says it should, and I'm not really sure there's any amount of evidence I can offer to be convincing enough that he did try to maintain an environment of trust and lack of judgment, but I can at least say that I genuinely felt like that was the case, and that I only ever experienced and saw encouragement for us to consider any technical question, doubt, or feedback from one member of the team to another in good faith, regardless of the relative tenure or title of the people involved.