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That might be true in certain kinds of companies. I never worked in consulting, and I've always been so far down the totem pole that nobody has ever expected me

That might be true in certain kinds of companies. I never worked in consulting, and I've always been so far down the totem pole that nobody has ever expected me to adhere to a monetary budget. I suppose I am extremely lucky, but at all places I've worked, I had no idea how much our software cost to build or how much revenue it brought in. If we needed a software license or development systems, or a specialized piece of hardware, we just requested it and it materialized. Often I didn't even know the per-customer unit price of the software. The only constraint that ever made it down through the huge tree of managers was the due date. Someone five managers above me was probably sweating the budget but to us low level developers, budget was never even a concept.

parasubvert 8mo ago
It varies on company culture and business model. Your situation sounds like R&D shops and how they often manage things. R&D usually is budget constrained at the company or division level (% of revenue) and you can only ask for it once a year. Next year's budget time determines if you get more or less. Time constraints come indirectly (proof of progress for budget expansion or more importantly declining revenue from existing products), But the only way management knows how to hold R&D accountable to ship is with dates as a forcing function, and those dates are often invented or organized around industry events (conferences, press events, etc). There are other ways to manage progress, dates are the most common lever. That can work but can be abused by bad management. I've usually preferred shops that say "it ships when it's ready", but they require special circumstances to maintain funding and measure progress. In general if what you build is more important than when it ships, "it ships when it's ready" is better than hitting a date with a dud. So long as there's value for the budget and a way to measure it.
- doctorpangloss 8mo ago
  Hacker News discusses "deadlines" as one of many management strategies. How much depth is there really? Other industries use bonuses as a simple management strategy. The kinds of people writing blog posts like this do terribly boring work, which is the real problem.

parasubvert 8mo ago

It varies on company culture and business model. Your situation sounds like R&D shops and how they often manage things. R&D usually is budget constrained at the company or division level (% of revenue) and you can only ask for it once a year. Next year's budget time determines if you get more or less. Time constraints come indirectly (proof of progress for budget expansion or more importantly declining revenue from existing products), But the only way management knows how to hold R&D accountable to ship is with dates as a forcing function, and those dates are often invented or organized around industry events (conferences, press events, etc). There are other ways to manage progress, dates are the most common lever. That can work but can be abused by bad management. I've usually preferred shops that say "it ships when it's ready", but they require special circumstances to maintain funding and measure progress. In general if what you build is more important than when it ships, "it ships when it's ready" is better than hitting a date with a dud. So long as there's value for the budget and a way to measure it.

doctorpangloss 8mo ago
Hacker News discusses "deadlines" as one of many management strategies. How much depth is there really? Other industries use bonuses as a simple management strategy. The kinds of people writing blog posts like this do terribly boring work, which is the real problem.