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> I cant work for someone who doesn't understand what I do. But you already do. Unless you're working for a tiny startup, your CEO or the Board probably doesn'

> I cant work for someone who doesn't understand what I do. But you already do. Unless you're working for a tiny startup, your CEO or the Board probably doesn't understand the specifics of your code. You can't run a large company by making every person super-involved in every detail. You have layers of abstraction that make it possible to reason about an org of hundreds or thousands of employees. The Board trusts the CTO to oversee technology. Your CTO trusts your director / VP / whatever to run a large chunk of it. That person delegates a smaller part of running the company to your boss. The whole point of each layer is to abstract away some of the underlying messiness. They exercise professional judgment for day-to-day operations and provide a clean interface that provides health signals, requests resources as needed, etc. And I think what many folks miss is that it doesn't stop with their boss. It stops with you! Your boss generally trusts you to make design and implementation decisions and is expecting you to provide a reasonable interface to that. If your boss has a reasonably-sized team but is spending their day writing code, then honestly, why are they in a management position to begin with?

protocolture 2y ago
Specifics sure. I dont expect them to understand the specifics. I dont want them across every task. But I also dont want to (and currently dont have to) explain specific risks regarding what I do, I dont have to justify how long things take, because my management understands that. We speak the same language. Its glorious. I mean just comparing my clients that have relevant technical knowledge, vs the ones that dont, the clients that dont have that knowledge need "meetings" and "catchups" and immense email threads in the order of 10 times the ones that do understand. Thats measurable (to me) waste. Another observation of mine is that non technical people really have no ability to recruit and manage technical people. I have seen multiple businesses brought low because the "technical" person brought in to manage the "technical" side of the startup actually had NFI. Or when they do accidentally hire someone competant, their requests for resources or time are ignored, even when well justified. The non technical founder or CEO either has to trust someone (which fails a lot) or they dont trust someone (and thats even worse).
- jt2190 2y ago
  > I mean just comparing my clients that have relevant technical knowledge, vs the ones that dont, the clients that dont have that knowledge need "meetings" and "catchups" and immense email threads in the order of 10 times the ones that do understand. Thats measurable (to me) waste. Which they pay you for? Otherwise why don’t you drop them as clients? I’m unclear how that’s “waste” from a business perspective.
  - protocolture 2y ago
    Waste from their perspective. And TBH I would rather be doing technical work than reexplaining technical work.
protocolture 2y ago
>If your boss has a reasonably-sized team but is spending their day writing code They dont need to spend all day writing code, they need to spend their nights and weekends making sure their skills dont rust.
- joeblubaugh 2y ago
  > they need to spend their nights and weekends making sure their skills dont rust. Life is more than work
  - protocolture 2y ago
    Yeah, theres also personal and professional development.
    - KittenInABox 2y ago
      There's also maybe being an involved parent. Or a caretaker.
      - locusofself 2y ago
        Thank you
- GlacierFox 2y ago
  So you want them to come to work and do their job, then go home and waste their nights and weekends doing a variation of your job? How about, a proportion of their work day must be allocated to keeping up to date with the tools behind the thing they're attempting to manage?
  - tyre 2y ago
    > waste their nights and weekends doing a variation of your job Why is that a waste? I'm an EM and code both at work and on nights/weekends. During the work day, I spend most of my time helping other people directly (code review, talking through designs, 1:1s, xfn collab, etc.) To build larger things, I do them nights and weekends. It's not a waste. I'm better as an EM because of it. And being a better EM gets me more of what I want (fixing healthcare). Not everyone can do this—and at some point in my life maybe I can't either—but it absolutely makes me better at my job. I don't consider that a waste.
jayd16 2y ago
For the sake of argument, a company could be structured such that your boss knows what you do and their boss knows what they do but not necessarily what you do.
- howthewut 2y ago
  There are a lot of jobs where the bosses bosses boss does know the job as that’s where they started. Your post has an authoritative tone but is too reductive and dismisses the real world often working in a completely opposite way, so I’m not sure it’s a credible argument.
  - cutemonster 2y ago
    > jobs where the bosses bosses boss does know the job Doesn't make sense. With 7 - 10 reports per manager, that means the higher up boss or CEO should know how to do the jobs of 350 - 1000 different people. (7*7*7)
    - benrutter 2y ago
      Hypothetically, those jobs could all be very similar if your company did more or less one thing lots, like managing a whole bunch of plumbing contractor teams. This is pretty far from the original example though.
    - HWR_14 2y ago
      If you promote up, and you have 3 levels, then the CEO should have done the exact job of 3 people below him on his ascent.
      - sosborn 2y ago
        Hard disagree. Would it be helpful? Sure. But a good boss just needs to know when to trust the judgement and opinions of his subordinates. Trouble comes when they don’t understand the work, but make decisions as if they do.
  - 2y ago
asdf6969 2y ago
> you already do Most of us rarely interact with these people so it doesn't matter. They're just the newest placeholder name in the emails I get every few months as they're shuffled around.
roeles 2y ago
> But you already do. Unless you're working for a tiny startup, your CEO or the Board probably doesn't understand the specifics of your code. From what I understand, Elon Musk previously spent his time on the line in Tesla.

protocolture 2y ago

Specifics sure. I dont expect them to understand the specifics. I dont want them across every task. But I also dont want to (and currently dont have to) explain specific risks regarding what I do, I dont have to justify how long things take, because my management understands that. We speak the same language. Its glorious. I mean just comparing my clients that have relevant technical knowledge, vs the ones that dont, the clients that dont have that knowledge need "meetings" and "catchups" and immense email threads in the order of 10 times the ones that do understand. Thats measurable (to me) waste. Another observation of mine is that non technical people really have no ability to recruit and manage technical people. I have seen multiple businesses brought low because the "technical" person brought in to manage the "technical" side of the startup actually had NFI. Or when they do accidentally hire someone competant, their requests for resources or time are ignored, even when well justified. The non technical founder or CEO either has to trust someone (which fails a lot) or they dont trust someone (and thats even worse).

jt2190 2y ago
> I mean just comparing my clients that have relevant technical knowledge, vs the ones that dont, the clients that dont have that knowledge need "meetings" and "catchups" and immense email threads in the order of 10 times the ones that do understand. Thats measurable (to me) waste. Which they pay you for? Otherwise why don’t you drop them as clients? I’m unclear how that’s “waste” from a business perspective.
- protocolture 2y ago
  Waste from their perspective. And TBH I would rather be doing technical work than reexplaining technical work.

protocolture 2y ago

>If your boss has a reasonably-sized team but is spending their day writing code They dont need to spend all day writing code, they need to spend their nights and weekends making sure their skills dont rust.

joeblubaugh 2y ago
> they need to spend their nights and weekends making sure their skills dont rust. Life is more than work
- protocolture 2y ago
  Yeah, theres also personal and professional development.
  - KittenInABox 2y ago
    There's also maybe being an involved parent. Or a caretaker.
    - locusofself 2y ago
      Thank you
GlacierFox 2y ago
So you want them to come to work and do their job, then go home and waste their nights and weekends doing a variation of your job? How about, a proportion of their work day must be allocated to keeping up to date with the tools behind the thing they're attempting to manage?
- tyre 2y ago
  > waste their nights and weekends doing a variation of your job Why is that a waste? I'm an EM and code both at work and on nights/weekends. During the work day, I spend most of my time helping other people directly (code review, talking through designs, 1:1s, xfn collab, etc.) To build larger things, I do them nights and weekends. It's not a waste. I'm better as an EM because of it. And being a better EM gets me more of what I want (fixing healthcare). Not everyone can do this—and at some point in my life maybe I can't either—but it absolutely makes me better at my job. I don't consider that a waste.

jayd16 2y ago

For the sake of argument, a company could be structured such that your boss knows what you do and their boss knows what they do but not necessarily what you do.

howthewut 2y ago
There are a lot of jobs where the bosses bosses boss does know the job as that’s where they started. Your post has an authoritative tone but is too reductive and dismisses the real world often working in a completely opposite way, so I’m not sure it’s a credible argument.
- cutemonster 2y ago
  > jobs where the bosses bosses boss does know the job Doesn't make sense. With 7 - 10 reports per manager, that means the higher up boss or CEO should know how to do the jobs of 350 - 1000 different people. (7*7*7)
  - benrutter 2y ago
    Hypothetically, those jobs could all be very similar if your company did more or less one thing lots, like managing a whole bunch of plumbing contractor teams. This is pretty far from the original example though.
  - HWR_14 2y ago
    If you promote up, and you have 3 levels, then the CEO should have done the exact job of 3 people below him on his ascent.
    - sosborn 2y ago
      Hard disagree. Would it be helpful? Sure. But a good boss just needs to know when to trust the judgement and opinions of his subordinates. Trouble comes when they don’t understand the work, but make decisions as if they do.
- 2y ago

asdf6969 2y ago

> you already do Most of us rarely interact with these people so it doesn't matter. They're just the newest placeholder name in the emails I get every few months as they're shuffled around.

roeles 2y ago

> But you already do. Unless you're working for a tiny startup, your CEO or the Board probably doesn't understand the specifics of your code. From what I understand, Elon Musk previously spent his time on the line in Tesla.