7 ms·

In many companies people are working on the wrong thing most of the time. It's so endemic that many people don't even see it. When people ask questions like "W

In many companies people are working on the wrong thing most of the time. It's so endemic that many people don't even see it. When people ask questions like "Why does it take X engineers to run twitter?", well that is the reason. If this was already the case at your company before the WFH, then yes, WFH didn't change anything, or even maybe let your emloyees work on the wrong thing even faster. The other thing people don't appreciate is that it's significantly harder to find good managers than good individual contributers. I believe that management is about 300% more efficient in an in-person environment. As in, I can effectively make sure that 3x the number of people are working on the correct things in an in-office environment. I find it nearly impossible to find people with the ability to do this correctly right now, let alone somehow needing to find 3x this number. Even if people worked at half speed at the office (which I don't really believe), that is still worthwhile.

johndhi 3y ago
This is the first writing I've seen in a while that posits something specific that works better in office than remote. It doesn't match my experience though. The person I hired during WFH consistently works on the right things and has great judgment, while the other team members who predate it are either neutral or struggling in the same way they did before the pandemic. Why do you believe seeing a person live makes it easier for you to instruct them on what is worth spending time on? What's your evidence?
- steveBK123 3y ago
  WFH separates good and bad performers but management is too lazy to take the signal.
  - johndhi 3y ago
    I'm a manager. What should I be doing to help elevate my under performing team member? (There is of course a lot of nuance in my specific situation but would love to hear general thoughts on what makes a manager good.)
    - steveBK123 3y ago
      Feedback as to their performance gaps Training materials and “what good looks like” references for self guided study Mentoring from yourself or good performance seniors on team Specific goals and projects to aid in development But emphatically the solution is not to force the rest of the team back to office as some sort of punitive measure.
      - xscott 3y ago
        I can't help but read that list as "criticize and micromanage them". But I was never a good manager, and I don't know how to do better.
        steveBK123 3y ago
        In the context of underperformers, better early and explicit than let it fester & ambush with a PIP when it’s basically too late to fix, no?
        xscott 3y ago
        Like I said, I wasn't a good manager, so my opinion doesn't mean much, but no - I don't agree with you. I've seen two strategies that seemed to work for teams. A) foster a healthy culture of people who want to do a good job and let their interactions increase the standards. B) Have a ton of process. Option A flows top down and requires the people to interact. In-person friendly nudges to bring the new kid up to speed are effective and not taken as criticism. Nudging over email or chat, it's hard to convey that we're all on the same team, and I think it leads to resentment. Option B is unpleasant and achieves maybe 10% efficiency, but progress keeps moving. People tend not to squabble because nobody cares enough to put the energy into it. I hated these environments. There really is a difference between communicating in person vs online. For instance, you'll probably lock your heals in response to what I wrote in this post, whereas in-person we'd probably exchange some smiles and body language and we'd both know it's just a friendly conversation. :-)
- bfung 3y ago
  100% agree here. With Remote, many things have to be put in writing, organized, and referenced back to. Way less room for misinterpretation than the occasional drive-by chat.
  - steveBK123 3y ago
    And as it turns out many people are incapable of putting things in writing because they can’t organize their own thoughts.
  - cyanydeez 3y ago
    culpability might be a detriment to multiple managers.
spullara 3y ago
It turned out not nearly as many people were needed to run Twitter. They are all in office though.
- ojbyrne 3y ago
  It's a smaller company now, so that's obvious.
- katbyte 3y ago
  “Running Twitter” is more then just keeping the website up and running
dehrmann 3y ago
> When people ask questions like "Why does it take X engineers to run twitter?", well that is the reason. What drives (drove) most of it is that as a product matures and the user base grows, polishing smaller features and chasing 0.1% wins can meaningfully drive metrics to a point that having a team focus just on a single user flow is a net positive. Enabling this often means a more modular codebase and system architecture so people aren't stepping on each other's toes. There are also exploratory features that are unlikely to pan out, but at the scale of 500M users, if they do, it's huge. A lot of this work might be wrong, but some of it isn't, and you won't know what's what until you try. At 500M users, you also need more spam detection, account protection, content moderation, etc. You can run status quo Twitter with fewer engineers, but don't expect incremental growth, and expect more issues like the recent SEC mishap.
- nradov 3y ago
  And yet X has launched major new features even after eliminating the majority of engineers. So, at least in that one case it's pretty clear that most employees were just goofing around (regardless of work location).
  - paulryanrogers 3y ago
    How have those new features faired? From what I've heard UX and reliability has degraded. Moderation is non-existent and harassment is increasing. They can't even live stream Elon's own guests to a few million people.
    - lightbritefight 3y ago
      Exactly. Launching is easy. Launching something stable and making incremental improvements is hard. Twitter doesnt seem to be doing the latter.
    - nradov 3y ago
      The Community Notes feature is working great. It's better than the moderation on any other social networks that I use.
kortilla 3y ago
Your post conflates WFH with good management, which makes no sense. Good managers can still prevent people from working on the wrong thing at home
lannisterstark 3y ago
> I believe that management is about 300% more efficient in an in-person environment. I'm going to be a bit blunt but most of management in reality is useless, if not actively harming people under them. 300% of 0 in those cases still remains 0.
TheCleric 3y ago
I’ve worked in person on a project, for over a year, for it to get canned. Having ICs in the office doesn’t suddenly cause managers, product owners, or business people to figure out what the true direction is. And ICs typically only work on what’s assigned to them.

johndhi 3y ago

This is the first writing I've seen in a while that posits something specific that works better in office than remote. It doesn't match my experience though. The person I hired during WFH consistently works on the right things and has great judgment, while the other team members who predate it are either neutral or struggling in the same way they did before the pandemic. Why do you believe seeing a person live makes it easier for you to instruct them on what is worth spending time on? What's your evidence?

steveBK123 3y ago
WFH separates good and bad performers but management is too lazy to take the signal.
- johndhi 3y ago
  I'm a manager. What should I be doing to help elevate my under performing team member? (There is of course a lot of nuance in my specific situation but would love to hear general thoughts on what makes a manager good.)
  - steveBK123 3y ago
    Feedback as to their performance gaps Training materials and “what good looks like” references for self guided study Mentoring from yourself or good performance seniors on team Specific goals and projects to aid in development But emphatically the solution is not to force the rest of the team back to office as some sort of punitive measure.
    - xscott 3y ago
      I can't help but read that list as "criticize and micromanage them". But I was never a good manager, and I don't know how to do better.
      - steveBK123 3y ago
        In the context of underperformers, better early and explicit than let it fester & ambush with a PIP when it’s basically too late to fix, no?
        xscott 3y ago
        Like I said, I wasn't a good manager, so my opinion doesn't mean much, but no - I don't agree with you. I've seen two strategies that seemed to work for teams. A) foster a healthy culture of people who want to do a good job and let their interactions increase the standards. B) Have a ton of process. Option A flows top down and requires the people to interact. In-person friendly nudges to bring the new kid up to speed are effective and not taken as criticism. Nudging over email or chat, it's hard to convey that we're all on the same team, and I think it leads to resentment. Option B is unpleasant and achieves maybe 10% efficiency, but progress keeps moving. People tend not to squabble because nobody cares enough to put the energy into it. I hated these environments. There really is a difference between communicating in person vs online. For instance, you'll probably lock your heals in response to what I wrote in this post, whereas in-person we'd probably exchange some smiles and body language and we'd both know it's just a friendly conversation. :-)
bfung 3y ago
100% agree here. With Remote, many things have to be put in writing, organized, and referenced back to. Way less room for misinterpretation than the occasional drive-by chat.
- steveBK123 3y ago
  And as it turns out many people are incapable of putting things in writing because they can’t organize their own thoughts.
- cyanydeez 3y ago
  culpability might be a detriment to multiple managers.

spullara 3y ago

It turned out not nearly as many people were needed to run Twitter. They are all in office though.

ojbyrne 3y ago
It's a smaller company now, so that's obvious.
katbyte 3y ago
“Running Twitter” is more then just keeping the website up and running

dehrmann 3y ago

> When people ask questions like "Why does it take X engineers to run twitter?", well that is the reason. What drives (drove) most of it is that as a product matures and the user base grows, polishing smaller features and chasing 0.1% wins can meaningfully drive metrics to a point that having a team focus just on a single user flow is a net positive. Enabling this often means a more modular codebase and system architecture so people aren't stepping on each other's toes. There are also exploratory features that are unlikely to pan out, but at the scale of 500M users, if they do, it's huge. A lot of this work might be wrong, but some of it isn't, and you won't know what's what until you try. At 500M users, you also need more spam detection, account protection, content moderation, etc. You can run status quo Twitter with fewer engineers, but don't expect incremental growth, and expect more issues like the recent SEC mishap.

nradov 3y ago
And yet X has launched major new features even after eliminating the majority of engineers. So, at least in that one case it's pretty clear that most employees were just goofing around (regardless of work location).
- paulryanrogers 3y ago
  How have those new features faired? From what I've heard UX and reliability has degraded. Moderation is non-existent and harassment is increasing. They can't even live stream Elon's own guests to a few million people.
  - lightbritefight 3y ago
    Exactly. Launching is easy. Launching something stable and making incremental improvements is hard. Twitter doesnt seem to be doing the latter.
  - nradov 3y ago
    The Community Notes feature is working great. It's better than the moderation on any other social networks that I use.

kortilla 3y ago

Your post conflates WFH with good management, which makes no sense. Good managers can still prevent people from working on the wrong thing at home

lannisterstark 3y ago

> I believe that management is about 300% more efficient in an in-person environment. I'm going to be a bit blunt but most of management in reality is useless, if not actively harming people under them. 300% of 0 in those cases still remains 0.

TheCleric 3y ago

I’ve worked in person on a project, for over a year, for it to get canned. Having ICs in the office doesn’t suddenly cause managers, product owners, or business people to figure out what the true direction is. And ICs typically only work on what’s assigned to them.