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I stopped reading here: Involve engineering management early and often, so everyone has a chance to contribute to the product vision and buy into where the prod

I stopped reading here: Involve engineering management early and often, so everyone has a chance to contribute to the product vision and buy into where the product is headed. This is tailored to people in inefficient VC-istan companies where engineers don't get to speak for themselves, hence "involve engineering management". Ok, we're done here. I agree that there are a lot of terrible, arrogant PM's out there. PM is the ultimate MacLeod Clueless job in many organizations (with engineers closer to the MacLeod Loser tier) because it involves a lot of context-switching and annoying work, but is ultimately just as subordinate as anything else, since the job still involves serving executives.

bdehaaff 13y ago
Good point. I deleted "management" from the post. The best orgs (and also the most successful) are those where everyone has a voice. Maybe you will keep reading now and let me know if anything else in the post really tweaks you the wrong way.
- michaelochurch 13y ago
  In general, quite good and I agree with it. Minor nit: (1) you used the term "executive team" and I hate that phrase. Don't get me started on teamism. I hate this cargo-cult bullshit where every group of people is called a team. Executives are a court, in the medieval sense. Also, I still sense that you're writing from a closed-allocation perspective. (I'm not even sure that proper open allocation would have a PM/engineer distinction. Why not hire people who are willing to do both?) Closed allocation is doomed to produce garbage and no amount about of telling other people to be better will correct for its foundational problems.
  - seivan 13y ago
    "Closed allocation is doomed to produce garbage and no amount about of telling other people to be better will correct for its foundational problems." I've been thinking on this lately, it does make sense. Never been in a position to try it until now.
    - michaelochurch 13y ago
      What is your strategy for trying it? Are you starting a company?
      - seivan 13y ago
        I quit one.
    - ashcairo 13y ago
      I imagine you can do both in a really small or one man team, but to do both in anything bigger will require a very difficult context switch between job functions.

bdehaaff 13y ago

Good point. I deleted "management" from the post. The best orgs (and also the most successful) are those where everyone has a voice. Maybe you will keep reading now and let me know if anything else in the post really tweaks you the wrong way.

michaelochurch 13y ago
In general, quite good and I agree with it. Minor nit: (1) you used the term "executive team" and I hate that phrase. Don't get me started on teamism. I hate this cargo-cult bullshit where every group of people is called a team. Executives are a court, in the medieval sense. Also, I still sense that you're writing from a closed-allocation perspective. (I'm not even sure that proper open allocation would have a PM/engineer distinction. Why not hire people who are willing to do both?) Closed allocation is doomed to produce garbage and no amount about of telling other people to be better will correct for its foundational problems.
- seivan 13y ago
  "Closed allocation is doomed to produce garbage and no amount about of telling other people to be better will correct for its foundational problems." I've been thinking on this lately, it does make sense. Never been in a position to try it until now.
  - michaelochurch 13y ago
    What is your strategy for trying it? Are you starting a company?
    - seivan 13y ago
      I quit one.
  - ashcairo 13y ago
    I imagine you can do both in a really small or one man team, but to do both in anything bigger will require a very difficult context switch between job functions.