7 ms·
Ask HN: My director got fired. His rival is taking his place. What to expect?
As title says, my director, my initial hiring manager, was fired, presumably for underperformance. He was apparently pretty broadly disliked, since he came through a startup acquisition and ruffled feathers early on and had continual territory conflicts with the guy who eventually took his place.
So my director was very suddenly fired one morning. Just gone. New director shows up.
In the shuffle a few things happen. My manager, who manages two teams, will only manage one team, the team I am not on. The team of 3 I am on will be merged with a team of 4 from his side. These teams happened to be working on the same problem space. (They should’ve been one team from the beginning, but due to territory issues and bad blood, they weren’t.)
The new director met with me, presumably to figure out what team I will be landing on. The conversation turned out very poorly. I had excellent performance reviews and feel very respected by my peers and manager. I thought he would be reaching out to convince me to stay on that team, which he may have been at first. By the end he seemed intent on making my team out to be underperforming — while my director got fired, this team was performing fine, was my understanding, but my manager’s other team was on fire.
So what can I expect might happen? As of the day before my director got fired, I felt very secure in my career. As of now, I feel like I’m on this new director’s shit list.
I would probably change companies if not for the fact that the companies stock price tripled in the last year. And I would probably move organizations if not for the fact that I work in a specialty that I can’t work in elsewhere in the company.
- yunamanga 2y ago> I would probably change companies if not for the fact that the companies stock price tripled in the last year. Wow.
- KuriousCat 2y agoTrust your gut, keep the stock and find a gig where you feel welcome.
- drunkenmagician 2y agoTalk to the new director with your team (ask for a meeting. You need clarity from him on a) his expectations on what the teams needs to be considered performing - his expectation of good. b) clarity on goals for next period (6-12 months) c) how he likes to work, his processes and preferences for the working relations ship. i.e email vs messaging, meetings to explore a topic vs written proposals and then a discussion. Clarity on some of these topics will help you navigate the uncertainly - ask questions, open ended, ask for examples of how specific things work with the current team), listen more, talk less. Basically show that your team wants to work constructively with them.
- kstenerud 2y agoThis is a political battle that will only be won with politics. Your performance won't save you; only your display of loyalty stands a chance. Display your allegiance to the new director before he makes his final decision on who to cut. Find out what the new director wants to hear, and say it. If that means slagging on the old director, then so be it. Show that you can be a member of the new pack. This is about survival.
- Cypher 2y agoAs an autistic worker, I find it impossible to lie... could this help in a discrimination case?
- kstenerud 2y agoThat might be a tall order... It would likely be more fruitful in the long run to learn by rote how and when to lie. Learn some human psychology to help you. The patterns aren't that complicated.
- manfre 2y agoIt won't help a case of you phrase it as not being as good of a liar. It would come across as you attempting to deceive the employer, but failing.
- Attummm 2y agoSoftware engineering used to be focused more on actual engineering. It was more about building cool things that created business value. The layer of politics seeping more into software engineering is giving developers a finance/management experience. That's not to say politics didn't exist before, but the idea of showing allegiance for survival feels more like Game of Thrones than software development. I guess the time when software culture had an abundance mindset has ended.
- socksy 2y agoAh yes, back when spirits were brave, the stakes were high, men were real men, women were real women and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri
- codingdave 2y agoChange is hard, but to succeed in a political organization with political currents in the mix, you have to embrace it, so if you choose to stay, I recommend adopting a fresh perspective -- Your old job is over. This is a new job. Forget all past attachments to your old boss and walk into this new team with an open mind. Maybe the new boss is a decent leader, maybe not, but go in without any preconceived notions, do the work and see what happens. Realize that even though it may be political, the leadership chose your new boss, so he is doing something they like. You are tanking your own role if you go in fighting. So go in and see what is going on that is working. There may be completely different measures of success vs. what you were striving for, which is why there is a discrepancy in how people view performance. Learn what the desired outcomes and expectations are, and why. And if you spend some time in that mode of learning and acceptance and find they are all idiots, then leave. It is never too late to walk out. But give them a chance - there is a possibility that teams other than your own are different, but still decent teams.
- RaftPeople 2y ago> you have to embrace it, so if you choose to stay, I recommend adopting a fresh perspective -- Your old job is over Agree with everything in above post, will add this: From new director/mgr perspective, he/she wants people that are on board with the mission, which is always success measured by whatever their view is, and frequently their particular experience probably emphasizes some things a previous mgr didn't. Show him/her that you are on board and that your goal is to help that person achieve their vision. You do that by listening and understanding their perspective and making it happen. I once got a new CIO mgr and when I met with him, this is what I told him (at some point during the conversation): "I'm an analytical person and I like to debate the pros and cons of things, so I tend to offer my opinion, but don't mistake that for being an obstructionist, I fully understand and respect the chain of command, once a decision is made I'm on board and just want things to get done successfully."
- golly_ned 2y agoFrankly it seems like he is upset my team wasn’t prioritizing his team. He managed an upstream service that called mine, and called my service out for not meeting our availability SLO — in our case, we host applications, so degraded availability depends in part on application availability, not platform. Instead, we onboarded an entire organization, tripling our request volume and meeting a very strict latency SLO. It was much higher priority than supporting his own platform. Since I have the option to move teams, I will probably do that to stick with my manager even if he ends up being my director anyway. I just don’t want to be leaving over a years work for which I received great praise in a position where it ends up not being appreciated by this new director. I think the big turning point in the conversation was when I expressed doubts about staying on his team. I sensed a few sour grapes statements. I really don’t want to deal with this fallout from the conflict between these directors. It’s unnecessary except for the fact that I now feel like I have to defend myself from this guy.
- User23 2y agoUpdate your resume immediately. If you want to remain at the company then start looking for an internal transfer before he inevitably gives you a bad rating for your next review (and a PIP will inevitably follow). Also start looking externally either way. The only alternative is to brown nose good and hard and convince the new boss you will be an asset for his shenanigans. But odds are good he’s already decided you aren’t a piece in the puzzle he’s building and nothing you can do will change that.
- andrewmcwatters 2y agoYou will most likely be fired.
- p1esk 2y agoStart interviewing.
- odshoifsdhfs 2y agoWell, just come out as gay or recovering alcoholic or something that will make them think twice about firing you by being afraid of a lawsuit. Should work at least for a few months until you have some time to figure your next move
- sloaken 2y agoEvil but might actually work ... I am now worried about you ...
- odshoifsdhfs 2y agoHaha don't! But appreciate the concern, and evil is in the eye of the beholder or something like that no? Just after 20+ years in the business, as the LP song went, in the end it doesn't even matter. So just look after yourself, your own, and f* the rest. If there is something you can take advantage of, do so, because companies will do their most on their end to do the same. Saw friends thrown out in the street while manager/bosses took big bonuses for 'reducing costs' (aka firing people). So just flip that shit, make them pay, make them suffer. make them PAY!!!
- oriettaxx 2y ago> So my director was very suddenly fired one morning. Just gone this is not good to me sound pretty medioeval
- betaby 2y agoHad a similar situation and decided to leave. In the hindsight that was a correct decision. In the end one works for a manager, not a whole company. At least it feels like that for an individual contributor.
- golly_ned 2y agoI have the choice to follow my current manager, who is very supportive of me, to the manager’s other team, but it will likely end up reporting to the new director. It’s just a bad situation where I’m leaving my current team where the new director happens to have a poor impression of my work, since we weren’t prioritizing his team in particular.
- daghamm 2y agoIsn't your manager supposed to be a buffer between you and the director? Stay with your manager and if you feel the director is trying to make life harder for either of you then leave the company. (What you described actually happened to me once. It took me a year to realise that the new director doesn't like me and is sabotaging my work. I left immediately once I saw that)
- WorldWideWebb 2y agoSimilar thing has happened to me. Close to a year ago, it was decided that my old manager had too many direct reports, so our group was split into 2. I was asked by my manager if I wanted to apply to manage the new team, which I was not enthusiastic about. I had considered it and weighed my options: 1. Known quality of life and work decrease for having to focus on middle management tasks instead of getting my hands dirty. 2. Big gamble on not knowing what kind of manager we might get. So, I declined and gambled on a new manager. So far, this has gone terribly. Our group morale and productivity is super low as we now have a petty micromanager with no technical skills a technical team. They insert themselves into our processes with no knowledge of how any of it works, demand that they are cc’d on all communications with any manager or above, and complain when we disagree with their opinions, calling that disagreement disrespectful. I have been looking at job boards just about every day since.
- golly_ned 2y agoSorry to hear that. In my case, the director who is new actually has a good reputation among engineers. The manager who would be replacing mine seems fine and not a power monger.
- rekabis 2y ago> By the end he seemed intent on making my team out to be underperforming Just like a male lion defeating the old king and taking over a pride, he’s looking to clear out all the “dead wood” (kits from the prior king) with his entrance. You may want to update your CV and start putting yourself out there, as you might end up getting canned no matter what you do or how well you perform. After all, the best time to look for a new job is while you are still employed.
- yunamanga 2y ago> After all, the best time to look for a new job is while you are still employed. That advice comes from people with no other leverage other than the fact that they can remain in a (in a case like this one) miserable job indefinitely if needed…doesn’t sound like much in the way of leverage to me. Better to have some other leverage, like real skill or financial independence.
- rekabis 2y ago> That advice comes from people with no other leverage other than the fact that they can remain in a (in a case like this one) miserable job indefinitely if needed…doesn’t sound like much in the way of leverage to me. Better to have some other leverage, like real skill or financial independence. This sounds like someone who hasn’t had to look for a new job in well over a decade. Hint: shit has changed in the employment sector, and dramatically so. Ghost jobs, job ads that demand an entire IT team of skills for a single position, employers stuck with analysis paralysis trying to find perfect employees, and wildly toxic employers for starters. If you don’t start looking while you are still employed, you run a very real risk of exhausting all savings before you do find one. And no, vanishingly few people under the age of 40 are “financially independent”. The retirement plans of most millennials, for example, are wholly dependent on catastrophic societal and economic collapse. And when almost 80% of Americans are living paycheque to paycheque, not many over 50 are such either.
- jeffrallen 2y agoMake your boss successful and you'll be successful. Unless your boss is an asshole, in which case you'll just be another asshole.
- perceptronas 2y agoNot what you asked, but: Accept this challenge as an opportunity. Find ways to deal with it. You will grow a lot because of that. Good luck! (Opposite suggestion to some sibling comments which recommend to look for another job)
- sloaken 2y agoThis is a VERY clear sign your days there are numbered. Remember you will often loss 15 to 30 percent if you let them fire you verses finding a new job. The groups merging is like a corporate merge, or buy out. The people bought out are at risk. I have so many stories but not the time.
- CodeWriter23 2y agoThe way we eliminate all politics where I work, all problem-solving interactions are solution-focused. Someone may lay some blame, that is immediately met with one of the team asking “what’s the solution look like to you?” Enough repetition of this creates an environment where nobody opens their mouth unless prepared to suggest a solution to be discussed.
- yunamanga 2y ago> I would probably change companies if not for the fact that the companies stock price tripled in the last year. And I would probably move organizations if not for the fact that I work in a specialty that I can’t work in elsewhere in the company. You seem to be an “I would…if not for…”. Those people never amount to anything. Try to be something else.
- tensility 2y agoAs with any new role/team/etc, the best course forward is to set some "evaluation time frames" at the start and then follow through with the process of deeply reconsidering whether it is actually a good fit at each checkpoint. My rough set of early such milestones happen at one month, three months, six months, and one year. If it is not, then the best way forward is to simply start looking for a new role/team/etc either internally or externally.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- deafpolygon 2y agoAnyone who is perceived as close to your director will be pushed out.