4 ms·

> are not allowed to admit/work on them publicly since that might "out" oneself as "not good enough"; we have to become "posers/fakers" if we want to "play the

by jupp0r 3y ago

> are not allowed to admit/work on them publicly since that might "out" oneself as "not good enough"; we have to become "posers/fakers" if we want to "play the game" and get ahead. I don't think that is true in the places I've worked at. Whether in interviews or in daily work, people only pretending to know things are not rewarded (unless nobody notices, but that means that nobody in the room is knowledgeable, which is a problem in itself). People not being transparent about the limits of their knowledge is a big red flag for me in interviews.

rramadass 3y ago
You have either been very lucky or have a very optimistic viewpoint :-) These things are never overt (they get weeded out early) but subtle and one has to read between the lines (and take into consideration one's own biases) to correctly gauge someone else's depth. Enthusiasm should not be mistaken for Capability. The key for proper Management is to read Engineers correctly and provide Training (introductory or more) where they might be deficient/needed/based-on-company-domain without anybody asking for it explicitly. AFAIK nobody does this; you are supposed to be magically "productive" from day 1 and are expected to continue at a "high-level of productivity" independent of the stage of the project/product/your life problems/etc. which is an impossibility.
- MichaelZuo 3y ago
  > AFAIK nobody does this; you are supposed to be magically "productive" from day 1 and are expected to continue at a "high-level of productivity" independent of the stage of the project/product/your life problems/etc. which is an impossibility. This is clearly possible, if we assume literal geniuses are 1 in a thousand, then there are 8 million actual bonafide geniuses in the world, maybe a quarter million of which are in tech in some fashion.
  - rramadass 3y ago
    No, this is not a Numbers Game but Human Factors. No living organism can be at their best w.r.t. a given task every day over long periods of Time. There are too many Environmental/Contextual factors at play here.
    - MichaelZuo 3y ago
      They can be the best every day for a few decades at least and from day 1 of joining too. I'm not claiming it from cradle to grave here.
badpun 3y ago
Knowledge is easy. In most places, the pretenders don’t pretend to have knowledge, but pretend to have a much larger impact that they actually have. This is how you get a promo, or don’t get fired if your actual output is miniscule.

by jupp0r 3y ago

rramadass 3y ago

You have either been very lucky or have a very optimistic viewpoint :-) These things are never overt (they get weeded out early) but subtle and one has to read between the lines (and take into consideration one's own biases) to correctly gauge someone else's depth. Enthusiasm should not be mistaken for Capability. The key for proper Management is to read Engineers correctly and provide Training (introductory or more) where they might be deficient/needed/based-on-company-domain without anybody asking for it explicitly. AFAIK nobody does this; you are supposed to be magically "productive" from day 1 and are expected to continue at a "high-level of productivity" independent of the stage of the project/product/your life problems/etc. which is an impossibility.

MichaelZuo 3y ago
> AFAIK nobody does this; you are supposed to be magically "productive" from day 1 and are expected to continue at a "high-level of productivity" independent of the stage of the project/product/your life problems/etc. which is an impossibility. This is clearly possible, if we assume literal geniuses are 1 in a thousand, then there are 8 million actual bonafide geniuses in the world, maybe a quarter million of which are in tech in some fashion.
- rramadass 3y ago
  No, this is not a Numbers Game but Human Factors. No living organism can be at their best w.r.t. a given task every day over long periods of Time. There are too many Environmental/Contextual factors at play here.
  - MichaelZuo 3y ago
    They can be the best every day for a few decades at least and from day 1 of joining too. I'm not claiming it from cradle to grave here.

badpun 3y ago

Knowledge is easy. In most places, the pretenders don’t pretend to have knowledge, but pretend to have a much larger impact that they actually have. This is how you get a promo, or don’t get fired if your actual output is miniscule.