7 ms·

Lions get a better deal: take pride and fuck it. Ok, to be serious... I perceive a dissonance here. On one hand, we're essentially a degraded tribe. Most soft

Lions get a better deal: take pride and fuck it. Ok, to be serious... I perceive a dissonance here. On one hand, we're essentially a degraded tribe. Most software engineers work for managers. We're not a profession, we don't pick our tools, and most of us work on uninspiring bullshit and are subjected to Brownian Management that has one team digging holes and another filling them in. Management has its place, but in most companies it's a class of intermediate extortionist thugs who keep talent down: you support my career goals, or you're gone yesterday. Only the most progressive companies (Valve, Github) trust engineers to work directly for the company. No wonder our industry is so fucked. On the other hand, the fact that Yahoo bought a small team of high-schoolers for $30 million and canned the product means that there is a lot of value in what we do. As engineers, we have a lot of muscle. We're good at something for which the world has almost infinite demand (not "programming" only, but the more abstract talent of solving problems and improving shit.) We're just terrible, as a class, at negotiation. We need to get better. We also have a tendency to want to put our heads down and ignore "the boring business stuff", then we get pissed when non-technical executives drink our autonomy milkshake. We need to stop that, too.

jbattle 14y ago
Which profession doesn't work under the meddling of administrators, managers, or partners?
- taytus 14y ago
  I don't think the problem are the managers per se, but our lack of confidence on the negotiation process.
- michaelochurch 14y ago
  Management has its place, but the power relationship is all fucked up. It should be more of a symbiotic guidance/mentoring relationship than a "serve my career goals or I fire you" extortion that generates buttloads of Fourth Quadrant Work ( http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/01/01/fourth-quadrant-work/ http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/01/01/fourth-quadra... ).
  - abduhl 14y ago
    You've answered the question "What do you think management's role should be?" instead of the question he asked. And how can you have a symbiotic guidance/mentoring relationship when most devs consider management to be just about the worst scum on the planet? Relationships are a two-way street.
    - michaelochurch 14y ago
      And how can you have a symbiotic guidance/mentoring relationship when most devs consider management to be just about the worst scum on the planet? Relationships are a two-way street. Well, management is a class of work, not necessarily an entitled set of elevated people. The way you do it is to have a Valve or Github structure (self-executive culture) where everyone is responsible for keeping focus on business goals and the administrative work of the company. So now, management is everyone's job. Don't like how the company's being run? Go fucking do something about it. You're part of the management. Now act like it. I don't have much love for the idea of a professional executive, though. When you have people whose job it is to Make Decisions and nothing else, then you end up with a small group of people who feel entitled to make their ideas unassailable. That's horrible. The company loses the ability to shred up a bad idea without attacking the person. No idea should be unassailable, and no one should be in the position where the job description is to Make Decisions and there's no participation in the actual work. By the way, I don't think "managers" are "the worst scum on the planet". Many are fine human beings. Nazis and serial killers and date-raping HS/college alpha types are "the worst scum on the planet", not managers. I think management is a job that most companies structure extremely poorly.
      - dclowd9901 14y ago
        This is definitely an inherited notion, and one that's quickly (at least in the tech industry) becoming more fuzzy. I get told routinely to push back against project managers if I feel their decision making is flawed. Thankfully, it's not as common an occurrence as it could be. Our PMs are pretty good at seeing product viability and have likely considered most angles that I'll only see as I'm working on it. But it all goes back to feeling empowered, and its up to your horizontal managers to give you that breathing room.
- pitt1980 14y ago
  I don't think thats something that happens at the pick a profession level no matter which profession you pick there will be administrators, managers, or partners who will be looking to exploit workers willing to take the shit rolling downhill and in any profession there will be workers who are adept at standing up for themselves and not taking the shit rolling down hill at somepoint you have to stop viewing your self as a replaceable cog, and stop letting others view you as a replaceable cog, and realize that if the people you work for a view you as such, you're better off working somewhere else anyway
  - Nursie 14y ago
    I'm a replaceable cog. It's how I make my living. I'm very good at being a replaceable cog. I'm very quick when becoming a replaceable cog, and I get paid precisely because I can slot in, get things done and then leave again. This is also how I like to work - I'm constantly immersed in new systems, learning how they work and hopefully helping to improve the underlying stuff as well as churn out functionality. This doesn't mean I take 'shit rolling downhill' from management, but it does mean that I am there to facilitate them, their ideas and their projects rather than make good stuff on their own. I play my part as best I can, advising them what to do better but ultimately deferring to them even when I know what they're doing is wrong, because they are the customer. Hopefully (as mentioned upthread) I'll someday be able to cobble together all the wrong into a coherent set of thoughts and either become the best dev manager ever or start selling consultancy services.
sethetter 14y ago
I agree with this. We are hired to be technical experts. Though management doesn't want to hear our suggestions if it doesn't line up with their business model, or what customers are yelling about. They hear the people who pay them money over the people they pay money to all day. It's a difficult situation to try and stand up to an employer who is telling you to do one thing when you know it's the worst possible decision they can make. It's a great idea to think we should stand up for our knowledge better, but chances are the arrogance and determination of the employer is going to stomp you right back into place, or even worse, out of a job. If you're in a position to comfortably take a stand in this fashion, congratulations, you must be very well off. I consider myself lucky to have a boss that listens and understands when we have a concern. That doesn't mean the rest of the company does, but to have one layer between me and the real decision makers that will listen to what I have to say and protect my job in the process is a blessing. That said, until developers are the ones with all the cash and say-so, it's going to be difficult to take this stand.
- mindcrime 14y ago
  It's a difficult situation to try and stand up to an employer who is telling you to do one thing when you know it's the worst possible decision they can make. The thing I've realized as I've gotten older and more experienced is this: The worst technical decision is not always the worst business decision. Let's over-simplify a bit and go with the notion that "the point of a business is to make money, and a highly optimized business is one that generates the maximum return on invested capital". Given that, the optimization that leads to the best ROIC might not be the most elegant technical solution or the cleanest, most maintainable, well-engineered bit of code. Of course there is some correlation, and I'd definitely argue that many companies do make short-sighted technical decisions that are also bad business decisions. But we have to understand that the business does not (usually) exist for the primary purpose of creating beautiful, elegant, marvellous technical artifacts that will be revered for centuries. They hear the people who pay them money over the people they pay money to all day. Well, yeah... if the customers aren't paying them money, there won't be any money to pay us. It's a great idea to think we should stand up for our knowledge better, but chances are the arrogance and determination of the employer is going to stomp you right back into place, or even worse, out of a job. My experience has been that leaders at most organizations are quite willing to listen to your concerns, and aren't going to "stomp you out of a job" for stating a concern and giving your opinion. But when we (techies) start our "holier than thou, we are the techno wizards and you are all brainless sheep" routine, then yeah, what do you expect? This "respect" thing has to be a two way street. And we (techies) as long as we desire to have paying jobs with for-profit companies as our outlet for our desire to build technology, must, must start doing a better job of understanding business, and the concerns of the "business side of the house". Of course a manager is going to get frustrated when one of us comes to him carrying on about the need to switch to functional programming in Erlang, but without any ability to articulate what the business case is. That doesn't mean the rest of the company does, but to have one layer between me and the real decision makers that will listen to what I have to say and protect my job in the process is a blessing. Here's a thought: learn to speak the language of the "real decision makers" and learn more about their problems, concerns, issues, etc. to the point that you can talk with them directly and have meaningful, productive conversations that span the lines between "the business" and "the technology". Ideally they would meet you halfway, but if they don't... well, what can ya do?
RougeFemme 14y ago
Unfortunately, in most of the environments you describe,the engineers are viewed as interchangeable cogs, quite adept at catching the shit rolling down the hill towards them. Sometimes it seems that the best you can do is not look up, with your mouth open, when you know it's about to happen.
dangrover 14y ago
"Brownian Management"? What does that mean? I couldn't find a definition online.
- pekk 14y ago
  Pretty obvious joke, management as Brownian Motion
  - dangrover 14y ago
    Aaaaah, I get it! I can never tell something on HN is a Michael O'Church-ishm or something I ought to be familiar with. I am going to have to start using that one.
    - pekk 14y ago
      I've never heard it before, it's a Churchism, it just seemed obvious to me.
- voodoomagicman 14y ago
  I think it is an analogy to brownian motion - the random movement of particles in a fluid.
- michaelochurch 14y ago
  Brownian Motion is a fractal that is the limiting case (step size -> 0) of a Random Walk. It scales as O(x^0.5). For example, the per-day volatility of a stock might be 1%; then the per-year volatility is (in theory) 16% (assuming a 256-day year). At work, there seems to be an accurate square-root metaphor (probably unrelated to actual Brownian motion) in the use of resources and time. You really get stuff done in 3 hours out of your 9-hour day; the other 6 are meetings and face time and bullshit. 2 days out of your work week see real, macroscopic progress; 3 are wasted. Seven of your 49 work-weeks are on projects that actually get used, and the other 42 are on manager-blessed busywork. Six years of your career end up actually mattering; the other 30 are wasted on jobs that go nowhere. So you get 3 h/d * 2 d/w * 7 w/y * 6 y = 252 hours per career that really mean something. Better make the fuckers count. That's depressing and probably not that accurate. If you can take charge of your time and responsibility for your progress, you can do a lot better. Brownian Management is the pointless drifting about that goes on when no one has any sense of direction. It generates the world where (as they say in many businesses) 90% of work is counteracting negative side effects of other work.
benihana 14y ago
>Management has its place, but in most companies it's a class of intermediate extortionist thugs who keep talent down: you support my career goals, or you're gone yesterday. Only the most progressive companies (Valve, Github) trust engineers to work directly for the company. No wonder our industry is so fucked. Wow. In three sentences you likened management to the mafia, said they were only concerned about themselves, complained about lack of trust towards engineers, then said our industry is fucked, all without a hint of irony. It sounds like you want everyone to trust you for your genius talent but you don't feel you should have to extend any trust the other way. That's now how trust or human interaction works, and the whole statement makes you come off like an immature prima donna. You're making us look bad and I'm almost embarrassed to share the same job title as you.
- seivan 14y ago
  Let me ask you something, why do you think the person in question brought up Valve and Github as examples when likening management to the mafia? I see management more like political parties than mafia. But they are more or less the same I guess :-).
- michaelochurch 14y ago
  Most companies give managers the ability to be extortionists if they want to be. That doesn't mean that all managers go black hat. Many do not. I've seen companies where 90% of the managers were decent people, and companies where zero percent were decent people. It seems to average about 70, but that bad 30 percent can do a lot of harm.
  - flogic 14y ago
    In my experience, managers are like programmers. Good managers can be really effective. Most are semi effective. Some are downright harmful. For the most part though companies seem to have limited ability to tell which is which. I went through a major re-org over year ago. Just from the management switch my stress level went down by a factor of 10.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
jiggy2011 14y ago
Problem is, if I'm good at negotiation they can negotiate me down by saying "we can hire someone who is worse at negotiation than you".
- dpritchett 14y ago
  That sounds like a reasonable variant of "you are overqualified for our opening".
- michaelochurch 14y ago
  Problem is, if I'm good at negotiation they can negotiate me down by saying "we can hire someone who is worse at negotiation than you". If you are good at negotiation, you'll get past that. Negotiation isn't just about the meeting and the table. Everything you do for years before even meeting each other is part of it.
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    Well , to a point. As long as there isn't another developer with >= development skills and worse negotiation.
    - dpritchett 14y ago
      You're still allowing the other party to frame the transaction. Sell a vision of a positive outcome: by retaining you they'll work with someone cool and they'll get lots of money and respect out of the association. Don't sell a close match on resume filters. It's possible that you won't be able to make the case, and that's okay. They can keep looking for someone willing to take their opening offer.
      - RougeFemme 14y ago
        The key point is selling. Unfortunately, many of us are very poor salespeople and are especially poor at selling ourselves.
gamesurgeon 14y ago
I wholeheartedly concur. I explained this exact phenomenon to a friend in finance, who looked at me like I was some crazy shithead. I think we need to somehow make "the boring business stuff" seem cool to engineers. It'd do wonders for our industry as a whole.
- pekk 14y ago
  What makes it boring isn't anything inherent, it's that it is full of business people with business culture.
  - blindhippo 14y ago
    Remove the MBA crowd, sales people and lawyers from "business culture" and I suspect the technical people will embrace it whole heartedly. All those "business people" should work for the companies talent, not the other way around.
    - michaelochurch 14y ago
      Remove the MBA crowd, sales people and lawyers from "business culture" and I suspect the technical people will embrace it whole heartedly. No, let them stay. They have important skills (what, you want to sell rather than right code? by all means) and most of the are fine people. Just don't give them 100% of the power. They work for us, we work for them. Keep it symbiotic rather than parasitic.
wissler 14y ago
If you ask why this happens and go as deep as you can, I think you'll find that the root of the problem is not per se management, but politics/government/regulations/legislation.
rayiner 14y ago
So here's a question: what's stopping engineers from behaving more like a profession? Is there something inherent about engineer owned consultancies that makes them unstable? If you look at accounting, consulting, law, or finance, even the biggest organizations are structured internally like small partnerships. There is of course a certain set of crazy internal politics that goes with that, but one dynamic that is pervasive in engineering that doesn't really exist in those organization is: "my boss just doesn't get what I'm doing." If you're a young, talented banker at Morgan Stanley, not only is your boss just as talented, technically, as you, but he's got a 8-10 year head start on you in the experience department. It's not really clear to me what market forces push engineering companies to be a somewhat odd amalgam of "idea people" and "execution people." If I've got an interesting idea, why do I need to hire a bunch of engineers? Why can't I just hire a firm of highly experienced engineers who can execute my product. On the idea side that would free idea people from the burden of HR, and on the execution side that would allow highly skilled engineering teams to build up valuable institutional knowledge that could be passed down to new recruits in a structured way, instead of all that collective experience scattering to the winds every time some startup fails and the engineers head to other projects.
- jeremycole 14y ago
  Secrecy is keeping it this way. Every startup wants to believe that their thing, or their idea, is the most amazing thing on planet earth, and they hide it away and don't let others touch it.
rhizome 14y ago
On the other hand, the fact that Yahoo bought a small team of high-schoolers for $30 million and canned the product means that there is a lot of value in what we do. Not sure that last part follows. To me, your point reads like a validation of the Fundamental Attribution Error, that there's a lot of value in being lucky.
alanfalcon 14y ago
Or, as Scott Adams put it, "management exists to minimize the problems created by its own hiring mistakes." http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/the_managementfree_organization/ http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/the_managementfree_organizatio...

jbattle 14y ago

Which profession doesn't work under the meddling of administrators, managers, or partners?

taytus 14y ago
I don't think the problem are the managers per se, but our lack of confidence on the negotiation process.
michaelochurch 14y ago
Management has its place, but the power relationship is all fucked up. It should be more of a symbiotic guidance/mentoring relationship than a "serve my career goals or I fire you" extortion that generates buttloads of Fourth Quadrant Work ( http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/01/01/fourth-quadrant-work/ http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/01/01/fourth-quadra... ).
- abduhl 14y ago
  You've answered the question "What do you think management's role should be?" instead of the question he asked. And how can you have a symbiotic guidance/mentoring relationship when most devs consider management to be just about the worst scum on the planet? Relationships are a two-way street.
  - michaelochurch 14y ago
    And how can you have a symbiotic guidance/mentoring relationship when most devs consider management to be just about the worst scum on the planet? Relationships are a two-way street. Well, management is a class of work, not necessarily an entitled set of elevated people. The way you do it is to have a Valve or Github structure (self-executive culture) where everyone is responsible for keeping focus on business goals and the administrative work of the company. So now, management is everyone's job. Don't like how the company's being run? Go fucking do something about it. You're part of the management. Now act like it. I don't have much love for the idea of a professional executive, though. When you have people whose job it is to Make Decisions and nothing else, then you end up with a small group of people who feel entitled to make their ideas unassailable. That's horrible. The company loses the ability to shred up a bad idea without attacking the person. No idea should be unassailable, and no one should be in the position where the job description is to Make Decisions and there's no participation in the actual work. By the way, I don't think "managers" are "the worst scum on the planet". Many are fine human beings. Nazis and serial killers and date-raping HS/college alpha types are "the worst scum on the planet", not managers. I think management is a job that most companies structure extremely poorly.
    - dclowd9901 14y ago
      This is definitely an inherited notion, and one that's quickly (at least in the tech industry) becoming more fuzzy. I get told routinely to push back against project managers if I feel their decision making is flawed. Thankfully, it's not as common an occurrence as it could be. Our PMs are pretty good at seeing product viability and have likely considered most angles that I'll only see as I'm working on it. But it all goes back to feeling empowered, and its up to your horizontal managers to give you that breathing room.
pitt1980 14y ago
I don't think thats something that happens at the pick a profession level no matter which profession you pick there will be administrators, managers, or partners who will be looking to exploit workers willing to take the shit rolling downhill and in any profession there will be workers who are adept at standing up for themselves and not taking the shit rolling down hill at somepoint you have to stop viewing your self as a replaceable cog, and stop letting others view you as a replaceable cog, and realize that if the people you work for a view you as such, you're better off working somewhere else anyway
- Nursie 14y ago
  I'm a replaceable cog. It's how I make my living. I'm very good at being a replaceable cog. I'm very quick when becoming a replaceable cog, and I get paid precisely because I can slot in, get things done and then leave again. This is also how I like to work - I'm constantly immersed in new systems, learning how they work and hopefully helping to improve the underlying stuff as well as churn out functionality. This doesn't mean I take 'shit rolling downhill' from management, but it does mean that I am there to facilitate them, their ideas and their projects rather than make good stuff on their own. I play my part as best I can, advising them what to do better but ultimately deferring to them even when I know what they're doing is wrong, because they are the customer. Hopefully (as mentioned upthread) I'll someday be able to cobble together all the wrong into a coherent set of thoughts and either become the best dev manager ever or start selling consultancy services.

sethetter 14y ago

I agree with this. We are hired to be technical experts. Though management doesn't want to hear our suggestions if it doesn't line up with their business model, or what customers are yelling about. They hear the people who pay them money over the people they pay money to all day. It's a difficult situation to try and stand up to an employer who is telling you to do one thing when you know it's the worst possible decision they can make. It's a great idea to think we should stand up for our knowledge better, but chances are the arrogance and determination of the employer is going to stomp you right back into place, or even worse, out of a job. If you're in a position to comfortably take a stand in this fashion, congratulations, you must be very well off. I consider myself lucky to have a boss that listens and understands when we have a concern. That doesn't mean the rest of the company does, but to have one layer between me and the real decision makers that will listen to what I have to say and protect my job in the process is a blessing. That said, until developers are the ones with all the cash and say-so, it's going to be difficult to take this stand.

mindcrime 14y ago
It's a difficult situation to try and stand up to an employer who is telling you to do one thing when you know it's the worst possible decision they can make. The thing I've realized as I've gotten older and more experienced is this: The worst technical decision is not always the worst business decision. Let's over-simplify a bit and go with the notion that "the point of a business is to make money, and a highly optimized business is one that generates the maximum return on invested capital". Given that, the optimization that leads to the best ROIC might not be the most elegant technical solution or the cleanest, most maintainable, well-engineered bit of code. Of course there is some correlation, and I'd definitely argue that many companies do make short-sighted technical decisions that are also bad business decisions. But we have to understand that the business does not (usually) exist for the primary purpose of creating beautiful, elegant, marvellous technical artifacts that will be revered for centuries. They hear the people who pay them money over the people they pay money to all day. Well, yeah... if the customers aren't paying them money, there won't be any money to pay us. It's a great idea to think we should stand up for our knowledge better, but chances are the arrogance and determination of the employer is going to stomp you right back into place, or even worse, out of a job. My experience has been that leaders at most organizations are quite willing to listen to your concerns, and aren't going to "stomp you out of a job" for stating a concern and giving your opinion. But when we (techies) start our "holier than thou, we are the techno wizards and you are all brainless sheep" routine, then yeah, what do you expect? This "respect" thing has to be a two way street. And we (techies) as long as we desire to have paying jobs with for-profit companies as our outlet for our desire to build technology, must, must start doing a better job of understanding business, and the concerns of the "business side of the house". Of course a manager is going to get frustrated when one of us comes to him carrying on about the need to switch to functional programming in Erlang, but without any ability to articulate what the business case is. That doesn't mean the rest of the company does, but to have one layer between me and the real decision makers that will listen to what I have to say and protect my job in the process is a blessing. Here's a thought: learn to speak the language of the "real decision makers" and learn more about their problems, concerns, issues, etc. to the point that you can talk with them directly and have meaningful, productive conversations that span the lines between "the business" and "the technology". Ideally they would meet you halfway, but if they don't... well, what can ya do?

RougeFemme 14y ago

Unfortunately, in most of the environments you describe,the engineers are viewed as interchangeable cogs, quite adept at catching the shit rolling down the hill towards them. Sometimes it seems that the best you can do is not look up, with your mouth open, when you know it's about to happen.

dangrover 14y ago

"Brownian Management"? What does that mean? I couldn't find a definition online.

pekk 14y ago
Pretty obvious joke, management as Brownian Motion
- dangrover 14y ago
  Aaaaah, I get it! I can never tell something on HN is a Michael O'Church-ishm or something I ought to be familiar with. I am going to have to start using that one.
  - pekk 14y ago
    I've never heard it before, it's a Churchism, it just seemed obvious to me.
voodoomagicman 14y ago
I think it is an analogy to brownian motion - the random movement of particles in a fluid.
michaelochurch 14y ago
Brownian Motion is a fractal that is the limiting case (step size -> 0) of a Random Walk. It scales as O(x^0.5). For example, the per-day volatility of a stock might be 1%; then the per-year volatility is (in theory) 16% (assuming a 256-day year). At work, there seems to be an accurate square-root metaphor (probably unrelated to actual Brownian motion) in the use of resources and time. You really get stuff done in 3 hours out of your 9-hour day; the other 6 are meetings and face time and bullshit. 2 days out of your work week see real, macroscopic progress; 3 are wasted. Seven of your 49 work-weeks are on projects that actually get used, and the other 42 are on manager-blessed busywork. Six years of your career end up actually mattering; the other 30 are wasted on jobs that go nowhere. So you get 3 h/d * 2 d/w * 7 w/y * 6 y = 252 hours per career that really mean something. Better make the fuckers count. That's depressing and probably not that accurate. If you can take charge of your time and responsibility for your progress, you can do a lot better. Brownian Management is the pointless drifting about that goes on when no one has any sense of direction. It generates the world where (as they say in many businesses) 90% of work is counteracting negative side effects of other work.

benihana 14y ago

>Management has its place, but in most companies it's a class of intermediate extortionist thugs who keep talent down: you support my career goals, or you're gone yesterday. Only the most progressive companies (Valve, Github) trust engineers to work directly for the company. No wonder our industry is so fucked. Wow. In three sentences you likened management to the mafia, said they were only concerned about themselves, complained about lack of trust towards engineers, then said our industry is fucked, all without a hint of irony. It sounds like you want everyone to trust you for your genius talent but you don't feel you should have to extend any trust the other way. That's now how trust or human interaction works, and the whole statement makes you come off like an immature prima donna. You're making us look bad and I'm almost embarrassed to share the same job title as you.

seivan 14y ago
Let me ask you something, why do you think the person in question brought up Valve and Github as examples when likening management to the mafia? I see management more like political parties than mafia. But they are more or less the same I guess :-).
michaelochurch 14y ago
Most companies give managers the ability to be extortionists if they want to be. That doesn't mean that all managers go black hat. Many do not. I've seen companies where 90% of the managers were decent people, and companies where zero percent were decent people. It seems to average about 70, but that bad 30 percent can do a lot of harm.
- flogic 14y ago
  In my experience, managers are like programmers. Good managers can be really effective. Most are semi effective. Some are downright harmful. For the most part though companies seem to have limited ability to tell which is which. I went through a major re-org over year ago. Just from the management switch my stress level went down by a factor of 10.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

jiggy2011 14y ago

Problem is, if I'm good at negotiation they can negotiate me down by saying "we can hire someone who is worse at negotiation than you".

dpritchett 14y ago
That sounds like a reasonable variant of "you are overqualified for our opening".
michaelochurch 14y ago
Problem is, if I'm good at negotiation they can negotiate me down by saying "we can hire someone who is worse at negotiation than you". If you are good at negotiation, you'll get past that. Negotiation isn't just about the meeting and the table. Everything you do for years before even meeting each other is part of it.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  Well , to a point. As long as there isn't another developer with >= development skills and worse negotiation.
  - dpritchett 14y ago
    You're still allowing the other party to frame the transaction. Sell a vision of a positive outcome: by retaining you they'll work with someone cool and they'll get lots of money and respect out of the association. Don't sell a close match on resume filters. It's possible that you won't be able to make the case, and that's okay. They can keep looking for someone willing to take their opening offer.
    - RougeFemme 14y ago
      The key point is selling. Unfortunately, many of us are very poor salespeople and are especially poor at selling ourselves.

gamesurgeon 14y ago

I wholeheartedly concur. I explained this exact phenomenon to a friend in finance, who looked at me like I was some crazy shithead. I think we need to somehow make "the boring business stuff" seem cool to engineers. It'd do wonders for our industry as a whole.

pekk 14y ago
What makes it boring isn't anything inherent, it's that it is full of business people with business culture.
- blindhippo 14y ago
  Remove the MBA crowd, sales people and lawyers from "business culture" and I suspect the technical people will embrace it whole heartedly. All those "business people" should work for the companies talent, not the other way around.
  - michaelochurch 14y ago
    Remove the MBA crowd, sales people and lawyers from "business culture" and I suspect the technical people will embrace it whole heartedly. No, let them stay. They have important skills (what, you want to sell rather than right code? by all means) and most of the are fine people. Just don't give them 100% of the power. They work for us, we work for them. Keep it symbiotic rather than parasitic.

wissler 14y ago

If you ask why this happens and go as deep as you can, I think you'll find that the root of the problem is not per se management, but politics/government/regulations/legislation.

rayiner 14y ago

So here's a question: what's stopping engineers from behaving more like a profession? Is there something inherent about engineer owned consultancies that makes them unstable? If you look at accounting, consulting, law, or finance, even the biggest organizations are structured internally like small partnerships. There is of course a certain set of crazy internal politics that goes with that, but one dynamic that is pervasive in engineering that doesn't really exist in those organization is: "my boss just doesn't get what I'm doing." If you're a young, talented banker at Morgan Stanley, not only is your boss just as talented, technically, as you, but he's got a 8-10 year head start on you in the experience department. It's not really clear to me what market forces push engineering companies to be a somewhat odd amalgam of "idea people" and "execution people." If I've got an interesting idea, why do I need to hire a bunch of engineers? Why can't I just hire a firm of highly experienced engineers who can execute my product. On the idea side that would free idea people from the burden of HR, and on the execution side that would allow highly skilled engineering teams to build up valuable institutional knowledge that could be passed down to new recruits in a structured way, instead of all that collective experience scattering to the winds every time some startup fails and the engineers head to other projects.

jeremycole 14y ago
Secrecy is keeping it this way. Every startup wants to believe that their thing, or their idea, is the most amazing thing on planet earth, and they hide it away and don't let others touch it.

rhizome 14y ago

On the other hand, the fact that Yahoo bought a small team of high-schoolers for $30 million and canned the product means that there is a lot of value in what we do. Not sure that last part follows. To me, your point reads like a validation of the Fundamental Attribution Error, that there's a lot of value in being lucky.

alanfalcon 14y ago

Or, as Scott Adams put it, "management exists to minimize the problems created by its own hiring mistakes." http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/the_managementfree_organization/ http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/the_managementfree_organizatio...