4 ms·

A friend of mine works in Boeing as a data scientist. His team has 10 people. Two of them can write code for analytics and models. The other 8 "manage projects"

A friend of mine works in Boeing as a data scientist. His team has 10 people. Two of them can write code for analytics and models. The other 8 "manage projects", whatever that means. They spend their days creating processes, managing tickets, enforcing specific formats of tickets and stories and what not. Yet, none of the eight knew how to write product specs nor could be bothered with basic things like understanding how git works. I have a hard time imagining how Boeing could survive in the long run with this level of bureaucracy. Edit: Saw the summary of the book Flying Blind: "A fast-paced look at the corporate dysfunction--the ruthless cost-cutting, toxic workplaces, and cutthroat management--that contributed to one of the worst tragedies in modern aviation". One has to ask: where did the cost cutting go? What's cutting throat? It looks to me that the management of Boeing is grossly incompetent.

ImaCake 3y ago
I find this genuinely incomprehensible. I have never encountered a single person who was not technically proficient in the team’s tasks across the 10 years of my hodgepodge career in a variety of semi-independent small teams and currently a small business. Small teams don’t have the margin for non technical folk. It often falls on people like me to become, temporarily, the admin or become the GIS department as such things are needed.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
varispeed 3y ago
Been there. It's half bad if the "managers" can swallow their ego and let developers lead while only just keeping an eye on any potential troubles. At many big corporations these "management" hires are just political. To fill in the certain quotas and tick the boxes. Problems starts if they put their egos first. Then talented staff quit and projects go down the pan.
- H8crilA 3y ago
  And BTW, we have a market mechanism for this: bankruptcy. Preferably restructuring, not liquidating, though both are useful. Just leave the job and maybe one day the whole thing gets rewired.
  - pi-e-sigma 3y ago
    Let me introduce you to this relatively new concept: Too Big To Fail.
Symmetry 3y ago
That would be a very efficient way of running things under a cost plus military contract. For a single contract win they're able to spend four times as much money on salaries and therefore earn four times as much profit.
game_the0ry 3y ago
> One has to ask: where did the cost cutting go? Stock buy-backs, executive compensation, and lobbying. That's where the cost cutting goes.
ajcp 3y ago
I feel like this is especially pervasive in the data and ML fields. Perhaps just to many formally cloistered academic PhDs are cashing in on the corporate rush to data and ML "everything", but have no actual ability to execute or even code. I went to a large "AI" conference this year and was surprised to see some talks being given by the "VP of ML" at the company I work at. I'd never heard of him or the position before, and when I looked him up in our company directory he appeared to sit somewhere in Pharmacy data science. But it's a massive company, so who knows? When I attended his first talk wearing our company swag he seemed visibly uncomfortable and...grumpy(?) after he noticed me. His talk was a very non-technical, superficial fly-over of how ML can be used to profile and predict customer spending habits on our company e-commerce domains. Nothing even to do with pharma! At another table session in the day he dropped that his PhD is from MIT. Our company is big -name brand in its field- but by no means does it attract "MIT level" talent; not in pay, problems, or prestige. But again, it's a massive company, so who know? Yet at this point I'm entertaining my own little conference conspiracy theory that this guy is just a corporate cutout. The next day I ran into him at the conference lunch line and gave him a: "Hey, how's it going! I'm at {our company} too, over in {line-of-business}". He nodded, chuckled to himself, and without even looking up said "oh yeah, you here to call me on my bullshit"? I was so confused that this would be the first thing out of his mouth with no context between us, even as a seeming joke, that I didn't know what to say. He politely excused himself to run to another table session before I could figure out how to respond. Since then I've tried to track his team and any work/product/output they might provide but for the life of me cannot find anything other than some Jira tickets that get pushed around. But it's a massive company, so who knows?
- 7thaccount 3y ago
  This doesn't surprise me at all lol. Someone higher up maybe wanted an AI bullet point on the accomplishments/goals and just made it happen on paper-only.
  - ajcp 3y ago
    Reminds me of the ol' adage: what's the difference between ML and AI? ML is written in Python, while AI is written in Power Point.
danpalmer 3y ago
> His team has 10 people. Two of them can write code for analytics and models. The other 8 "manage projects", whatever that means. Not disregarding your point, I think we all agree Boeing sounds like bureaucracy hell, but could it be that the 8 who are "managing projects" are in fact managing contractors or outsourced employees who are writing code? I worked with a large multi-national fashion company, and they had an app development team that consisted of a product manager, scrum master, and senior technical advisor. You could look at them and say that 2/3 being non-technical was a problem, or you could look past that team to the several developers in India who weren't exposed to the rest of the company or clients/collaborators, and who actually got the work done.
- hintymad 3y ago
  Unfortunately no. They are just an internal team that take internal requirements from different orgs and does not handle contractors or vendors.
  - danpalmer 3y ago
    Damn. I was hoping there was a charitable explanation! This is a pattern I've seen several times and while it's not ideal I don't think it's as bad as what you described.
qaq 3y ago
They have "people skills"

ImaCake 3y ago

I find this genuinely incomprehensible. I have never encountered a single person who was not technically proficient in the team’s tasks across the 10 years of my hodgepodge career in a variety of semi-independent small teams and currently a small business. Small teams don’t have the margin for non technical folk. It often falls on people like me to become, temporarily, the admin or become the GIS department as such things are needed.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

varispeed 3y ago

Been there. It's half bad if the "managers" can swallow their ego and let developers lead while only just keeping an eye on any potential troubles. At many big corporations these "management" hires are just political. To fill in the certain quotas and tick the boxes. Problems starts if they put their egos first. Then talented staff quit and projects go down the pan.

H8crilA 3y ago
And BTW, we have a market mechanism for this: bankruptcy. Preferably restructuring, not liquidating, though both are useful. Just leave the job and maybe one day the whole thing gets rewired.
- pi-e-sigma 3y ago
  Let me introduce you to this relatively new concept: Too Big To Fail.

Symmetry 3y ago

That would be a very efficient way of running things under a cost plus military contract. For a single contract win they're able to spend four times as much money on salaries and therefore earn four times as much profit.

game_the0ry 3y ago

> One has to ask: where did the cost cutting go? Stock buy-backs, executive compensation, and lobbying. That's where the cost cutting goes.

ajcp 3y ago

I feel like this is especially pervasive in the data and ML fields. Perhaps just to many formally cloistered academic PhDs are cashing in on the corporate rush to data and ML "everything", but have no actual ability to execute or even code. I went to a large "AI" conference this year and was surprised to see some talks being given by the "VP of ML" at the company I work at. I'd never heard of him or the position before, and when I looked him up in our company directory he appeared to sit somewhere in Pharmacy data science. But it's a massive company, so who knows? When I attended his first talk wearing our company swag he seemed visibly uncomfortable and...grumpy(?) after he noticed me. His talk was a very non-technical, superficial fly-over of how ML can be used to profile and predict customer spending habits on our company e-commerce domains. Nothing even to do with pharma! At another table session in the day he dropped that his PhD is from MIT. Our company is big -name brand in its field- but by no means does it attract "MIT level" talent; not in pay, problems, or prestige. But again, it's a massive company, so who know? Yet at this point I'm entertaining my own little conference conspiracy theory that this guy is just a corporate cutout. The next day I ran into him at the conference lunch line and gave him a: "Hey, how's it going! I'm at {our company} too, over in {line-of-business}". He nodded, chuckled to himself, and without even looking up said "oh yeah, you here to call me on my bullshit"? I was so confused that this would be the first thing out of his mouth with no context between us, even as a seeming joke, that I didn't know what to say. He politely excused himself to run to another table session before I could figure out how to respond. Since then I've tried to track his team and any work/product/output they might provide but for the life of me cannot find anything other than some Jira tickets that get pushed around. But it's a massive company, so who knows?

7thaccount 3y ago
This doesn't surprise me at all lol. Someone higher up maybe wanted an AI bullet point on the accomplishments/goals and just made it happen on paper-only.
- ajcp 3y ago
  Reminds me of the ol' adage: what's the difference between ML and AI? ML is written in Python, while AI is written in Power Point.

danpalmer 3y ago

> His team has 10 people. Two of them can write code for analytics and models. The other 8 "manage projects", whatever that means. Not disregarding your point, I think we all agree Boeing sounds like bureaucracy hell, but could it be that the 8 who are "managing projects" are in fact managing contractors or outsourced employees who are writing code? I worked with a large multi-national fashion company, and they had an app development team that consisted of a product manager, scrum master, and senior technical advisor. You could look at them and say that 2/3 being non-technical was a problem, or you could look past that team to the several developers in India who weren't exposed to the rest of the company or clients/collaborators, and who actually got the work done.

hintymad 3y ago
Unfortunately no. They are just an internal team that take internal requirements from different orgs and does not handle contractors or vendors.
- danpalmer 3y ago
  Damn. I was hoping there was a charitable explanation! This is a pattern I've seen several times and while it's not ideal I don't think it's as bad as what you described.

qaq 3y ago

They have "people skills"