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> We don't need weekly 1:1s to check on feelings. As a manager that does weekly 1:1s, I agree with that statement. But I do need 1:1s to check on progress, unc

• pbgcp2026 5mo ago
  all your "progress updates" are in Jira and Git. Go and check. Ask questions if needed.
  • dahart 5mo ago
    I do check, of course. As you can see from the comment you replied to, progress updates aren’t the only reason for 1:1s. But as far as updates go, questions are almost always needed, and face-to-face conversations are faster & easier for both parties, which is why we do a little bit of it each week. We cancel 1:1s when they’re not needed, and cut them short when we’re out of topics. Why do you assume not talking by default is better? Have you considered the downsides of your instinct to save yourself a few minutes a week? One thing a lot of devs don’t seem to realize when they push back on communication is the opportunities they’re missing to affect change in the group, to convince the managers to invest in things they need or want to work on in the future, to make changes to team communication practices, and to brag about what they’ve done, how hard they’ve worked, and what they really care about.
    • siren2026 5mo ago
      what you are describing is a team meeting. Yes, have them. Once a week. I will again say that most 1:1s are BigTech cargocult rituals where you talk about your path to the "next level" or "how are you feeling this week" but it's also a lot of project management and busywork that mainly exists because the manager is in the picture. Without so many managers most of those self-sustained meetings would go away.
      • dahart 5mo ago
        What I’m describing is my 1:1s. I’m describing my experience, from a management perspective. You’re describing your experience from a non-management perspective, and I’m not arguing with your experience, but your claims about other people’s experience, speculation about how many, and assumptions about why, are problematic. Some management isn’t good, that is true. Sometimes there are too many meetings. That is also true, those things sometimes happen. I’m at a ‘BigTech’ company, and the meeting rate and quality of management is not consistent or uniform company wide, it’s something you’d have to evaluate on a case by case basis; One problem with your argument is that right level of meetings is more than a lot of devs want, and just because you don’t know what management does does not mean that meetings aren’t effective. With several decades of experience, I have seen lots and lots of programmers who writhe against budgets and oversight and communication, arguing fiercely that it’s all useless and would people just leave them alone to write code. And my experience is watching some of those people go off the rails when left to their own devices. Once you start managing, or try to run your own company, you might start to see more value in communication. My own views on management absolutely changed over time; when I was young, I was speaking about it similar to how you are.
• twosdai 5mo ago
  It is possible to move most of that discussion to required but intentional async communication.
  • ghaff 5mo ago
    Personally, I think it's good to have at least occasional 1:1s because a lot comes out informally. That said my "weekly" 1:1s with a fairly long-term manager mostly turned into more or less monthlies because we both traveled so much.
    • schrodinger 5mo ago
      Is there any chance you made a typo in this comment? I'm not sure why your manager being long-term would result in less frequent one-on-ones...
  • dahart 5mo ago
    Yes, of course, and I do use both. There are underlying assumptions in your suggestion that it’s one or the other, and that async is somehow better. It’s worth considering whether those are always true, and trying to put a finger on the specific tradeoffs, because there are both advantages and disadvantages. I’m a believer in using the right tool for the job (and also understanding clearly what the job really is). IMO face time is very important and serves more purposes than the explicit information transfer. It’s also a much faster, more efficient, and clearer way to have a conversation, when back-and-forth is needed (which may be more often than you assume.) In my experience, devs (including younger me) often argue for what’s easiest or most comfortable for themselves, but sometimes they don’t see what’s actually best for themselves, nor what’s most effective for the organization, and they sometimes don’t care what’s best for the manager. (And I’m not suggesting they should have to care what’s best for their manager, just pointing it out.) Nobody likes a budget or oversight. Nobody wants to track time and be watched, and have to explain themselves, and have to compromise in order to finish tasks. Still, having budgets are sometimes good for us and sometimes produce better results, when money is limited and when focus is needed. Budgets also inhibit risk taking, which can be good or bad, sometimes we need risks and exploratory work… so, yeah, the right tool for the job…
• shepardrtc 5mo ago
  > uncover blockers that people haven’t surfaced on their own I constantly reiterate to people, whether they're reporting to me or not, that they need to speak up when there's a blocker. I feel its a very telling skill of engineers whether or not they can communicate issues in an effective manner urgently and figure out the best course of action to unblock. I've heard tales of 300k/yr engineers that just sit there and wait for a manager to ask if they're blocked, or just sit there until they're told what to do.
  • grayhatter 5mo ago
    > I feel its a very telling skill of engineers whether or not they can communicate issues in an effective manner urgently and figure out the best course of action to unblock. I could be this person that appears not communicate, but the reason is because I've never had a manager that could unblock me faster than if I didn't tell anyone and just did it myself. For the longest time, every manager I've ever had was mostly useless (for unblocking some issue), it took quite a few years before I got an EM that actually makes shit happen. Only then did it become a habit I had to break. It doesn't make sense to tell someone who can't or won't help you that you're blocked on something. Eventually you just default to never asking.
    • nh23423fefe 5mo ago
      If you can do it yourself, you aren't blocked?
  • tomnipotent 5mo ago
    My personal experience is that programmers confuse what they can do today with what they can learn to do tomorrow.
    • anbotero 5mo ago
      I was perhaps a bit harsher in my comment on this thread, but I like the way you describe it better.
  • etruong42 5mo ago
• siren2026 5mo ago
  > But I do need 1:1s to check on progress, uncover blockers that people haven’t surfaced on their own. That's why historically having managers being strong IC contributors remove that need because they already KNOW the progress and issues on the field. Modern BigTech created that artificial layer of managers that need to know about all the blockers and progress, just to report it to another layer of managers. That layer is so big that they need 8 hours of meetings to sync with each other. This is purely an organizational issue. I'm saying a lot of the managerial work is busywork that got pushed as a need by BigTech need to empire building.
  • dahart 5mo ago
    I’m not sure this framing is accurate. Companies have always had management. All large organizations have layered management; the Catholic Church has had layered management for two thousand years; your government has layered management; all militaries have layered management; Bell Telephone and Standard Oil had layered management for a hundred years before computers in business were a thing. This is purely a function of large groups, because communication is necessary to function, and giving FAANG companies credit for it overstates their influence. Calling it a feature of empire building might be somewhat accurate in the sense that yes all companies and most groups aim to make money, or otherwise grow and succeed. Still, that seems like a pessimistic way to put it. Even small companies and church groups and libraries and PTA associations will have presidents & treasurers. Middle managers appear as soon as group size hits a certain limit.
    • siren2026 5mo ago
      I think what we are arguing is that yes management layers always existed. But the state right now is that: - those management layers are now more disconnected than ever from the actual work. Most managers are career managers that have given up on any actual technical work. Even if they used to be technical ICs, most bigtech actively discourage managers to do anything remotely technical. I still cannot understand this. - There are way more managers per IC than there ever was (Last big tech I was in, my org had ~5 ICs per manager. I couldn't believe it and have no idea what those people actually did the whole day besides meeting each other!). This is directly because Directors decide to hire Managers and have a direct incentive to grow the amount of layers and amount of people in their pyramid. Even if they don't mean to, directors and VPs are managers as well and as such they have a direct belief and incentive that more management is better.
• edmiller287 5mo ago
  > designing clever code and over-engineering things that weren’t needed I agree with keeping sync'd with your devs but these sorts of behaviours should be caught and corrected in code review
  • dahart 5mo ago
    Absolutely agree!