8 ms·

> Helping a colleague doesn't show up on the dashboards? Fuck that. Digging into what looks like a security vulnerability isn't on the sprint board? Fuck that.

> Helping a colleague doesn't show up on the dashboards? Fuck that. Digging into what looks like a security vulnerability isn't on the sprint board? Fuck that. Managers who are the sort of people who don't value helping your colleagues or being curious/concerned enough about potential security problems, are most likely the sort of people who won't pick up on any of that being a valuable use of your time during one on ones or in standups either. I think fundamentally you agree 100% with Rachel, shit managers are shit and nobody owes them tooling to make their job of being a shit manager easier. If you want all the employee loyalty and long tenure institutional knowledge of a micro managed call centre, sure - implement checkin and LOC dashboards, or Jira ticket "velocity" charts. Watch all your talented people leave and don';t be surprised when everybody is only there because they're desperate or comfortable. Your entire dev team will eventually be only working-visa-prisoners, talentless-seatwarmers, or people who've dialled the give-a-shit down so low it doesn't bother them just picking up their pay checks.

chipdart 2y ago
> Managers who are the sort of people who don't value helping your colleagues or being curious/concerned enough about potential security problems, are most likely the sort of people who won't pick up on any of that being a valuable use of your time during one on ones or in standups either. This is not a "sort of people" problem. This is a metrics problem. It's not only developers who are evaluated by using useless metrics that don't track the value you add to an organization. Low-level managers are too. Low-level managers need to evaluate the people assigned to them, they need to evaluate them objectively, and they need to give an unbiased and objectively verifiable score. This means something they can measure, such as metrics or verifiable goals. If low-level managers cannot do this, they will need to answer why they gave X and Y this score whereas poor little Z who outworked them both was scored lower. Not being able to objectively justify a score is a problem that no manager wants to have, as this is a major liability. Hence the bullshit metrics and absurd goals. They need something on paper to back up their decisions. A manager might be fully aware that you unblocked half your team members throughout the year with critical help, and that you are the go-to guy to solve critical issues. But if your team members close twice the tickets you did, they will have trouble justifying you are contributing as much as them.
- gradstudent 2y ago
  > But if your team members close twice the tickets you did, they will have trouble justifying you are contributing as much as them. The metrics make reporting to higher ups easier, no doubt. But the situation you describe is a classic sign of a shit manager: one who cannot justify their decisions except via reference to made up metrics.
  - passwordoops 2y ago
    >the situation you describe is a classic sign of a shit manager Well then it means the vast, vast, vast majority of companies with a coherent corporate structure are shit. Welcome to reality
  - Arainach 2y ago
    Unfortunately, a lot of things boil down to metrics, even at companies with great engineering cultures. If you have four L4 engineers on the team, all of whom are performing at the level described in the career profile as L5, but only budget to promote two of them, how do you pick which two? What if they have different managers, all of whom sincerely believe their report is the one delivering essential value? If you have an organization with forced bucketing where X% of your team need to be given a subpar rating, how do you decide which one? If you don't have an obvious low performer you'd better have metrics. This system is soul crushing but it exists all over the industry.
    - alextingle 2y ago
      > If you have an organization with forced bucketing where X% of your team need to be given a subpar rating, how do you decide which one? Easy. You quit, and find a better job. That practice is so toxic that it's sufficient to condemn the organisation as unworthy of any buy-in whatsoever. Just leave.
      - jart 2y ago
        Nah you make sure X% of your team is staffed with losers. It's a nutty system I know. But I'd imagine that's how things worked at companies that have stack ratings. Managers probably traded low performers like baseball cards.
Simon_ORourke 2y ago
> Managers who are the sort of people who don't value helping your colleagues Helping, yes certainly one of the core requirements being a manager is unblocking direct reports from whatever they're doing. But it has limits, because you as a manager have finite time. I've got seven direct reports, three are relatively new hires and so consume most of my "help". Of the remainder another three are great senior devs who can be trusted with getting the broad brush strokes of a problem and going off independently to delve in. One however, a struggling senior dev with junior dev capabilities, and having major childcare issues at home is totally floundering, pulling sick days and basically failing. As a manager I basically don't have capacity to commit the amount of time required to pull them out of it, and I'm trying to move them off the team.
- alextingle 2y ago
  Have you talked to your "failing" team member about this? Have you worked together to try and identify a path towards improvement? Off the top of my head, perhaps they would benefit from more WFH time? Or perhaps a period of part-time work? Perhaps their duties could be shifted around so that they can contribute in a different way for a while? Could they take over some of your mentoring duties? I mean, this is the bread and butter of your job as a manager, right? Getting the best out of your people?
  - cutemonster 2y ago
    > Could they take over some of your mentoring duties? They wrote that the person has junior skills. > so that they can contribute in a different way for a while? Seems to me that this is what they're doing already: >> I'm trying to move them off the team. (To another team where the person fits better, presumably.)
    - Brian_K_White 2y ago
      I don't read it so charitably. They only see a problem they want to go away. How do I know what they see? Because that is what they said.
- 2y ago
agentultra 2y ago
> people who've dialled the give-a-shit down so low In the age of stock buy-backs, cyclical lay-offs, and record-high executive compensation I sympathize with these folks. It might even be morally correct thing to do.
- Jcampuzano2 2y ago
  As someone who's company has gone through the constant cycle of layoffs including one that happened just a few weeks ago, I'm at this point now and I have no qualms of all the other people who are also here at this moment. I get exactly what is asked of me to do and nothing more, no longer respond to things outside of work hours and collect my paychecks. I still enjoy learning new tech and whatever the next thing is, but my interest in applying myself to my day job is at an all time low. Oh forgot to mention our execs bonuses and stock went up despite everyone hating it here now.
  - alsetmusic 2y ago
    > I still enjoy learning new tech and whatever the next thing is, but my interest in applying myself to my day job is at an all time low. I’d say you’re relatively lucky. I found it soul-crushing when my work changed from something in which I took pride to something where I just wanted to coast and no longer cared. Management sucked and I was depressed at my lot in life. I didn’t have much energy to look for and apply to other positions. Layoffs came twice and getting let go was the biggest favor they could have done for me. My next (current) job is rewarding, and I’m again having fun learning new things in my downtime instead of vegging out on streaming content after work.
- gtirloni 2y ago
  I don't. All you mentioned have zero impact on my daily work. I could as well say that in the age of Tiktokers earning millions, why should I care about my work? I care about my work because it's my work and I don't want to just collect paychecks. If you're not happy and can leave, just leave. Go do something productive with your life that makes you proud of. Life is too short to play by others' rules.
nisegami 2y ago
>Managers who are the sort of people who don't value helping your colleagues or being curious/concerned enough about potential security problems, are most likely the sort of people who won't pick up on any of that being a valuable use of your time during one on ones or in standups either. I think in a lot of cases these managers do value those things, but the fundamental issue is that those things aren't reflected on the dashboard.
FireBeyond 2y ago
100%. At my last org, my eng team (I'm a PM) had no manager for a while, during which leadership instituted metrics that tracked "Planned Points versus Planned Points achieved". My team also handled support escalations and defects. That work is ... unplanned. That was not tracked in their system. I had to go in and advocate for them... "You have work that they are being required to do that not only doesn't show up on metrics that you are using to evaluate developer productivity, but in fact, you're actually dinging them by flagging that 'planned versus completed points' as unacceptably low. How do you think morale is going?" They would do things like "The team planned 30 points to be completed in this sprint. They only completed 10 points, 33%, and we expect 90%. Oh? What's that, they actually also completed 25 points in unplanned work due to Sev-0 and -1 bugs and defects? That doesn't count."
yesiamyourdad 2y ago
Yet the author wrote tools to do that. Part of what I thought from looking at these dashboards is that the author by their own admission[1] arbitrarily doubly prioritized customer communications over internal discussion and gave credit for doing things in the ticketing system when presumably none of the actual work takes place in the ticketing system. I know those events were over a decade ago and I appreciate the author's willingness to reexamine their beliefs, but that's what's meant by second-order thinking. What I got from reading a few of their writings is that this is a person I probably would avoid interacting with. [1] https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2011/11/16/onfire/ https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2011/11/16/onfire/

chipdart 2y ago

> Managers who are the sort of people who don't value helping your colleagues or being curious/concerned enough about potential security problems, are most likely the sort of people who won't pick up on any of that being a valuable use of your time during one on ones or in standups either. This is not a "sort of people" problem. This is a metrics problem. It's not only developers who are evaluated by using useless metrics that don't track the value you add to an organization. Low-level managers are too. Low-level managers need to evaluate the people assigned to them, they need to evaluate them objectively, and they need to give an unbiased and objectively verifiable score. This means something they can measure, such as metrics or verifiable goals. If low-level managers cannot do this, they will need to answer why they gave X and Y this score whereas poor little Z who outworked them both was scored lower. Not being able to objectively justify a score is a problem that no manager wants to have, as this is a major liability. Hence the bullshit metrics and absurd goals. They need something on paper to back up their decisions. A manager might be fully aware that you unblocked half your team members throughout the year with critical help, and that you are the go-to guy to solve critical issues. But if your team members close twice the tickets you did, they will have trouble justifying you are contributing as much as them.

gradstudent 2y ago
> But if your team members close twice the tickets you did, they will have trouble justifying you are contributing as much as them. The metrics make reporting to higher ups easier, no doubt. But the situation you describe is a classic sign of a shit manager: one who cannot justify their decisions except via reference to made up metrics.
- passwordoops 2y ago
  >the situation you describe is a classic sign of a shit manager Well then it means the vast, vast, vast majority of companies with a coherent corporate structure are shit. Welcome to reality
- Arainach 2y ago
  Unfortunately, a lot of things boil down to metrics, even at companies with great engineering cultures. If you have four L4 engineers on the team, all of whom are performing at the level described in the career profile as L5, but only budget to promote two of them, how do you pick which two? What if they have different managers, all of whom sincerely believe their report is the one delivering essential value? If you have an organization with forced bucketing where X% of your team need to be given a subpar rating, how do you decide which one? If you don't have an obvious low performer you'd better have metrics. This system is soul crushing but it exists all over the industry.
  - alextingle 2y ago
    > If you have an organization with forced bucketing where X% of your team need to be given a subpar rating, how do you decide which one? Easy. You quit, and find a better job. That practice is so toxic that it's sufficient to condemn the organisation as unworthy of any buy-in whatsoever. Just leave.
    - jart 2y ago
      Nah you make sure X% of your team is staffed with losers. It's a nutty system I know. But I'd imagine that's how things worked at companies that have stack ratings. Managers probably traded low performers like baseball cards.

Simon_ORourke 2y ago

> Managers who are the sort of people who don't value helping your colleagues Helping, yes certainly one of the core requirements being a manager is unblocking direct reports from whatever they're doing. But it has limits, because you as a manager have finite time. I've got seven direct reports, three are relatively new hires and so consume most of my "help". Of the remainder another three are great senior devs who can be trusted with getting the broad brush strokes of a problem and going off independently to delve in. One however, a struggling senior dev with junior dev capabilities, and having major childcare issues at home is totally floundering, pulling sick days and basically failing. As a manager I basically don't have capacity to commit the amount of time required to pull them out of it, and I'm trying to move them off the team.

alextingle 2y ago
Have you talked to your "failing" team member about this? Have you worked together to try and identify a path towards improvement? Off the top of my head, perhaps they would benefit from more WFH time? Or perhaps a period of part-time work? Perhaps their duties could be shifted around so that they can contribute in a different way for a while? Could they take over some of your mentoring duties? I mean, this is the bread and butter of your job as a manager, right? Getting the best out of your people?
- cutemonster 2y ago
  > Could they take over some of your mentoring duties? They wrote that the person has junior skills. > so that they can contribute in a different way for a while? Seems to me that this is what they're doing already: >> I'm trying to move them off the team. (To another team where the person fits better, presumably.)
  - Brian_K_White 2y ago
    I don't read it so charitably. They only see a problem they want to go away. How do I know what they see? Because that is what they said.
2y ago

agentultra 2y ago

> people who've dialled the give-a-shit down so low In the age of stock buy-backs, cyclical lay-offs, and record-high executive compensation I sympathize with these folks. It might even be morally correct thing to do.

Jcampuzano2 2y ago
As someone who's company has gone through the constant cycle of layoffs including one that happened just a few weeks ago, I'm at this point now and I have no qualms of all the other people who are also here at this moment. I get exactly what is asked of me to do and nothing more, no longer respond to things outside of work hours and collect my paychecks. I still enjoy learning new tech and whatever the next thing is, but my interest in applying myself to my day job is at an all time low. Oh forgot to mention our execs bonuses and stock went up despite everyone hating it here now.
- alsetmusic 2y ago
  > I still enjoy learning new tech and whatever the next thing is, but my interest in applying myself to my day job is at an all time low. I’d say you’re relatively lucky. I found it soul-crushing when my work changed from something in which I took pride to something where I just wanted to coast and no longer cared. Management sucked and I was depressed at my lot in life. I didn’t have much energy to look for and apply to other positions. Layoffs came twice and getting let go was the biggest favor they could have done for me. My next (current) job is rewarding, and I’m again having fun learning new things in my downtime instead of vegging out on streaming content after work.
gtirloni 2y ago
I don't. All you mentioned have zero impact on my daily work. I could as well say that in the age of Tiktokers earning millions, why should I care about my work? I care about my work because it's my work and I don't want to just collect paychecks. If you're not happy and can leave, just leave. Go do something productive with your life that makes you proud of. Life is too short to play by others' rules.

nisegami 2y ago

FireBeyond 2y ago

100%. At my last org, my eng team (I'm a PM) had no manager for a while, during which leadership instituted metrics that tracked "Planned Points versus Planned Points achieved". My team also handled support escalations and defects. That work is ... unplanned. That was not tracked in their system. I had to go in and advocate for them... "You have work that they are being required to do that not only doesn't show up on metrics that you are using to evaluate developer productivity, but in fact, you're actually dinging them by flagging that 'planned versus completed points' as unacceptably low. How do you think morale is going?" They would do things like "The team planned 30 points to be completed in this sprint. They only completed 10 points, 33%, and we expect 90%. Oh? What's that, they actually also completed 25 points in unplanned work due to Sev-0 and -1 bugs and defects? That doesn't count."

yesiamyourdad 2y ago

Yet the author wrote tools to do that. Part of what I thought from looking at these dashboards is that the author by their own admission[1] arbitrarily doubly prioritized customer communications over internal discussion and gave credit for doing things in the ticketing system when presumably none of the actual work takes place in the ticketing system. I know those events were over a decade ago and I appreciate the author's willingness to reexamine their beliefs, but that's what's meant by second-order thinking. What I got from reading a few of their writings is that this is a person I probably would avoid interacting with. [1] https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2011/11/16/onfire/ https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2011/11/16/onfire/