6 ms·

To give you some perspective from an ex-softie (been on the outside for 7 years now, so my experience is not recent). PMs are the hated super-political, credit

by melted 11y ago

To give you some perspective from an ex-softie (been on the outside for 7 years now, so my experience is not recent). PMs are the hated super-political, credit grabbing ruling class of Microsoft. She was a junior PM. It's not clear what most of them actually do. When I was there, they pretended to "design" features, where in reality the specs were written by devs, they just took credit for them. Then they sat around in meetings and "managed the schedule" and "reported status" to one another. Since there are (or at least were) so many of them at Microsoft, the whole "reporting status" thing can self-perpetuate, because at some point the communication overhead begins to dominate. As a result, most PMs just interfere with work and slow things down, sometimes dramatically so. This was the result of someone deciding, some 20-25 years ago, that developers couldn't handle talking to one another, and they couldn't test software themselves. I sort of agree with the latter point, but only when it comes to manual and end-to-end testing. Developers have an overriding priority: to get stuff out the door, whether it's ready or not. That's what they get promoted for. Any kind of deep testing beyond unit tests is considered, by and large, a waste of time, especially by junior devs who haven't been through support hell yet. PMs though? You could easily have one or two of them per team of 20 devs if they do their work well, not 1:1 as it sometimes is at Microsoft. Shit, for the past 7 years I haven't worked with any PMs at all, and my productivity is at all time high. So when I found out recently that Microsoft is getting rid of the formal test discipline (a mistake, IMO, for reasons outlined above, should have merely reduced their scope to high value work), I thought about PMs as well. Bite the pillow, my PM brethren, Satya is going in dry. I imagine once the second shoe falls, Microsoft will once again be a pretty decent place to work.

judk 11y ago
That last paragraph is disgusting and inappropriate.
- melted 11y ago
  Good. That means it came across the way I meant it.
judk 11y ago
IIRC, Charles Simonyi invented the PM role and organization.
- melted 11y ago
  He also invented the Hungarian notation, much to the dismay of programmers worldwide.
  - MichaelGG 11y ago
    To be fair, if you're writing in a language with a shitty type system, encoding types into names isn't horrible. For things like units of measurement, like distinguishing int32[seconds] from int32[ticks] it's pretty useful. It's only the dumb use, where you repeat the type name as part of the variable that such notation gets deserved derision. If MS had been a bit more forward thinking, they'd have come up with a language, or extended C/C++, to be able to enforce all that notation via the type, killing the need for special notation.
    - phamilton 11y ago
      F# does a decent job with ADTs.
  - melted 11y ago
    People who downvote this: you should turn in your hacker card, and log out from this site. :-)
    - chris_wot 11y ago
      In your case, downvoting you is a polite but pointed way of asking you to stop spewing ignorant garbage and hit the logout link until you can refrain from doing so.
      - RyanZAG 11y ago
        Well done, good job trying to chase away someone adding an interesting line to the dialogue here - someone who appears to have actual experience with this stuff. You don't have to like what he's saying, but I'd prefer you not try to chase people away. Thanks.
wglb 11y ago
Last paragraph totally distracts from your point.
TheMagicHorsey 11y ago
You've just described PMs pretty much everywhere. The PM role kind of forces people to become political players. Unlike engineers, a good PM often has trouble distinguishing her work from that of a bad PM that is just good at politics. A good engineer can't get away with being garbage if the engineering manager has half a brain. On the other hand, a bad PM can mask his lack of work and talent pretty easily if he can master the political games of a large organization. A lot of the value add of a good PM is the intangible organizational and communication stuff that is difficult to quantify. A good PM can make an organization respond better to customer needs. A bad PM can still take credit for anything good that comes out of an organization. PMs can easily shed blame for organizational failures, especially if there are multiple layers of bureaucracy and scapegoats that haven't mastered politics. In places like Google you'll see the most skillful PMs line up people to share blame with by taking on collaborators mid-way through projects; similarly, they can spot a success story in the making and engineer their own late involvement to benefit from the halo effect of a successful project. At the highest level, the CEO can filter the shit from the gold in the PM ranks, by personally taking an interest in projects ... but a CEO can't get into the weeds of all corners of the organization. So even in companies with great CEOs there are lots of shit PMs sprinkled throughout the organization. Many engineers learn to just live with it. You learn that political skill will be rewarded in large organizations. Its the nature of the world, just like jackals and vultures eat for free after the wolves do all the hard work. Wolves don't get depressed about it. But there will always be some naive kids from college that don't understand the way of the world. And they just can't deal with some PM getting paid well for doing nothing but politics. Instead of making peace with the world the way it is, they leave and go to start ups, thinking that is a refuge. But if the start up has success, the same cycle begins again as the team grows larger and larger. The only way to avoid politics is to become a hermit ... or the tech equivalent ... the solo consultant/gun for hire. Or I suppose, you could start your own company. Another possible solution is Holacracy: https://medium.com/holacracyone-blog/holacracy-vs-hierarchy-vs-flat-orgs-d1545d5dffa7 https://medium.com/holacracyone-blog/holacracy-vs-hierarchy-... I've never worked in a place with Holacracy, so I have no idea if it actually works.
- melted 11y ago
  The trouble with PMs is that being the most political of the bunch, they also tend to get promoted into management in much greater quantities. Once promoted, guess what, they promote their own (because that's their social circle), and hire a ton more PMs, which then get promoted and hire still more PMs. Lather, rinse, repeat, until you've run the company into the ground, then move elsewhere (e.g. to Google).
daok 11y ago
This is quite interesting because we are living a similar experience, but now in Microsoft not 7 years ago. We do not know what is going on with PMs. The ratio is 1 PM per 6 Software Engineers which is justified, by them because they are overwhelming in tasks. However, we do not have clear requirements, neither clear job to do. Most of the time, we also have to work on the same thing again and again because they are changing their mind before we even release any bits. At the end, like you said, I think it is a politician job because they do not do any budget or schedule management, just giving verbal indication of their vision. I do not agree with your last paragraph through. Concerning the removal of testers, I think this is also wrong in some extends. Software Engineers are having a hard time to catch up with the code and testing. The goal was to create a better quality and having more people being able to understand the code but at the end we become more specialize in some part of the system and know less of the overall, mostly because we are working longer on the same part because automating everything take a lots of time. I also think that PM does not help the whole process of being fast to deploy new bits. However, this is something rotten in the code of big business with multiple hierarchy. This goes far beyond the PM problem, it goes with a paramount management hierarchy where everyone can override any decision. Oh well, I guess any big top 500 companies has the same problem at some point. Isn't?
bliti 11y ago
I had the displeasure of working with an EX-PM from MSFT. Her constant pressure for status reports, the inability to properly gather feedback from the client and the awful ability to write a specifications document made me incredulous. How could someone with a master's in technology (CS and something else) could be so awful? Turns out she didn't even know how to program. In fact, the product she lead then project for was significantly different than what the client required. She was fired after the client threatened to pull the project if she stayed on board. I would speak to her and try to understand what was her main goal. Could never find anything aside of just being in charge and aiming to get all the credit. This person was more fit to work at the DMV.
- bigger_cheese 11y ago
  To be fair shouldn't your manger be the one shielding you from all this crap. Thats how things work in my job - which is in the "non-software" engineering world. I'm an engineer I do technical work it is the responsibility of my manager, (who is a former engineer) to sit in on all the meetings so I can get on with my work if something relevent to me or our team comes up he disseminates it to us. We had an issue last year. Our team was working on a largish project and we had one of those micromanaging PM's who was bugging a collegaue and I, similar thing to your complaints constainly demanding status updates from us trying to sneak scope/specification changes through the backdoor etc. All it took was one complaint to our manager and he tore the meddling PM a new one. After that everything came down through the approriate chanels and we were able to deal with things in peace, we didn't have to waste hours dealing with an incompetant project manager. I'm not usually a fan of "top heavy" management structures but in this case perfect example of management working as intended.
  - bliti 11y ago
    I'm glad that worked out for you. In my case the PM reported to the CEO. Who was a passive aggressive tool. All management in this company was just awful, but somehow the tech team that was based in the america and europe was pretty awesome (the minority). Consequently, management's actions and lack of common sense lead them to get sued and lose clients. They did a rebranding and moved most development to India.
crandycodes 11y ago
I'm a PM at Microsoft and this post hits close to home. I think there are a good number of PMs that you're talking about. It's easy for the PM role to evolve into pure politics because our job is to represent the customer. Just like our government's politicians sometimes claim to represent the people and end up making selfish decisions, PMs aren't immune from that weakness. The role attracts people who are good at politics, so you tend to see a high concentration there. Why do I still do the role? Well, it kind of fits what I wanted to do for a living. I always enjoyed doing lots of diversity in my job and trying all kinds of new technologies out. I get to be a customer for a living. I try out our product and think about where I want it to go. I can be annoying (a real customer would probably be a bit annoying sometimes too, they challenge your product and your hard worked design). I get to care for a living. As an engineer, I could see myself needing to let things go because it's gotta get out the door. As a PM, I know a customer is going to hit that issue and I need to get it in front of people so we can fix it. I'm building applications using our technology and competitors and technology not obviously related just to see if could be relevant. The problems with PMs vs Engineers is that it is super hard to tell a good PM from a bad PM who is good at politics; but I'm still super happy the role exists. I'd likely have to become an evangelist to do the things I do everyday still, but I'd have less influence with the engineers and it'd often be reactive if I wasn't on the product team. To any people considering a job as a PM, do me and your other future customers a favor and ask if you can care more about your customer than having your job or being promoted? I've held fast to the notion that customers are why I'm here and my career hasn't been too bad so far, management still recognizes good work with customers. But if it all goes to hell, I can always find some other job and be happy with myself.
- melted 11y ago
  >> if you can care more about your customer than >> having your job or being promoted The honest answer to that is "no" 100% of the time, for any rational person. Anyone who says otherwise is either stupid, or trying to BS you, or both. Simply put, incentives should align to desired outcomes, otherwise you get the outcomes your incentives _do_ align with.
  - crandycodes 11y ago
tajen 11y ago
Question for the ex-softie you are: How is it legal to talk, potentially critically, about the company after someone leaves? Don't they have lawyer-written employment contracts with a confidentiality clause saying "The first rule about things that happens within the company is, you don't talk about things that happens within the company"?
- eru 11y ago
  If they had, they'd probably be unenforceable in most jurisdictions.
krylon 11y ago
A couple of years back I was lucky enough to get a copy of Fred Moody's "I Sing The Body Electronic" for cheap. It is fairly old, obviously, but it was a very interesting read. (The problems it describes are slightly different from the ones you or the blog post describe, but not totally unrelated, either.)

by melted 11y ago

judk 11y ago

That last paragraph is disgusting and inappropriate.

melted 11y ago
Good. That means it came across the way I meant it.

judk 11y ago

IIRC, Charles Simonyi invented the PM role and organization.

melted 11y ago
He also invented the Hungarian notation, much to the dismay of programmers worldwide.
- MichaelGG 11y ago
  To be fair, if you're writing in a language with a shitty type system, encoding types into names isn't horrible. For things like units of measurement, like distinguishing int32[seconds] from int32[ticks] it's pretty useful. It's only the dumb use, where you repeat the type name as part of the variable that such notation gets deserved derision. If MS had been a bit more forward thinking, they'd have come up with a language, or extended C/C++, to be able to enforce all that notation via the type, killing the need for special notation.
  - phamilton 11y ago
    F# does a decent job with ADTs.
- melted 11y ago
  People who downvote this: you should turn in your hacker card, and log out from this site. :-)
  - chris_wot 11y ago
    In your case, downvoting you is a polite but pointed way of asking you to stop spewing ignorant garbage and hit the logout link until you can refrain from doing so.
    - RyanZAG 11y ago
      Well done, good job trying to chase away someone adding an interesting line to the dialogue here - someone who appears to have actual experience with this stuff. You don't have to like what he's saying, but I'd prefer you not try to chase people away. Thanks.

wglb 11y ago

Last paragraph totally distracts from your point.

TheMagicHorsey 11y ago

You've just described PMs pretty much everywhere. The PM role kind of forces people to become political players. Unlike engineers, a good PM often has trouble distinguishing her work from that of a bad PM that is just good at politics. A good engineer can't get away with being garbage if the engineering manager has half a brain. On the other hand, a bad PM can mask his lack of work and talent pretty easily if he can master the political games of a large organization. A lot of the value add of a good PM is the intangible organizational and communication stuff that is difficult to quantify. A good PM can make an organization respond better to customer needs. A bad PM can still take credit for anything good that comes out of an organization. PMs can easily shed blame for organizational failures, especially if there are multiple layers of bureaucracy and scapegoats that haven't mastered politics. In places like Google you'll see the most skillful PMs line up people to share blame with by taking on collaborators mid-way through projects; similarly, they can spot a success story in the making and engineer their own late involvement to benefit from the halo effect of a successful project. At the highest level, the CEO can filter the shit from the gold in the PM ranks, by personally taking an interest in projects ... but a CEO can't get into the weeds of all corners of the organization. So even in companies with great CEOs there are lots of shit PMs sprinkled throughout the organization. Many engineers learn to just live with it. You learn that political skill will be rewarded in large organizations. Its the nature of the world, just like jackals and vultures eat for free after the wolves do all the hard work. Wolves don't get depressed about it. But there will always be some naive kids from college that don't understand the way of the world. And they just can't deal with some PM getting paid well for doing nothing but politics. Instead of making peace with the world the way it is, they leave and go to start ups, thinking that is a refuge. But if the start up has success, the same cycle begins again as the team grows larger and larger. The only way to avoid politics is to become a hermit ... or the tech equivalent ... the solo consultant/gun for hire. Or I suppose, you could start your own company. Another possible solution is Holacracy: https://medium.com/holacracyone-blog/holacracy-vs-hierarchy-vs-flat-orgs-d1545d5dffa7 https://medium.com/holacracyone-blog/holacracy-vs-hierarchy-... I've never worked in a place with Holacracy, so I have no idea if it actually works.

melted 11y ago
The trouble with PMs is that being the most political of the bunch, they also tend to get promoted into management in much greater quantities. Once promoted, guess what, they promote their own (because that's their social circle), and hire a ton more PMs, which then get promoted and hire still more PMs. Lather, rinse, repeat, until you've run the company into the ground, then move elsewhere (e.g. to Google).

daok 11y ago

This is quite interesting because we are living a similar experience, but now in Microsoft not 7 years ago. We do not know what is going on with PMs. The ratio is 1 PM per 6 Software Engineers which is justified, by them because they are overwhelming in tasks. However, we do not have clear requirements, neither clear job to do. Most of the time, we also have to work on the same thing again and again because they are changing their mind before we even release any bits. At the end, like you said, I think it is a politician job because they do not do any budget or schedule management, just giving verbal indication of their vision. I do not agree with your last paragraph through. Concerning the removal of testers, I think this is also wrong in some extends. Software Engineers are having a hard time to catch up with the code and testing. The goal was to create a better quality and having more people being able to understand the code but at the end we become more specialize in some part of the system and know less of the overall, mostly because we are working longer on the same part because automating everything take a lots of time. I also think that PM does not help the whole process of being fast to deploy new bits. However, this is something rotten in the code of big business with multiple hierarchy. This goes far beyond the PM problem, it goes with a paramount management hierarchy where everyone can override any decision. Oh well, I guess any big top 500 companies has the same problem at some point. Isn't?

bliti 11y ago

I had the displeasure of working with an EX-PM from MSFT. Her constant pressure for status reports, the inability to properly gather feedback from the client and the awful ability to write a specifications document made me incredulous. How could someone with a master's in technology (CS and something else) could be so awful? Turns out she didn't even know how to program. In fact, the product she lead then project for was significantly different than what the client required. She was fired after the client threatened to pull the project if she stayed on board. I would speak to her and try to understand what was her main goal. Could never find anything aside of just being in charge and aiming to get all the credit. This person was more fit to work at the DMV.

bigger_cheese 11y ago
To be fair shouldn't your manger be the one shielding you from all this crap. Thats how things work in my job - which is in the "non-software" engineering world. I'm an engineer I do technical work it is the responsibility of my manager, (who is a former engineer) to sit in on all the meetings so I can get on with my work if something relevent to me or our team comes up he disseminates it to us. We had an issue last year. Our team was working on a largish project and we had one of those micromanaging PM's who was bugging a collegaue and I, similar thing to your complaints constainly demanding status updates from us trying to sneak scope/specification changes through the backdoor etc. All it took was one complaint to our manager and he tore the meddling PM a new one. After that everything came down through the approriate chanels and we were able to deal with things in peace, we didn't have to waste hours dealing with an incompetant project manager. I'm not usually a fan of "top heavy" management structures but in this case perfect example of management working as intended.
- bliti 11y ago
  I'm glad that worked out for you. In my case the PM reported to the CEO. Who was a passive aggressive tool. All management in this company was just awful, but somehow the tech team that was based in the america and europe was pretty awesome (the minority). Consequently, management's actions and lack of common sense lead them to get sued and lose clients. They did a rebranding and moved most development to India.

crandycodes 11y ago

I'm a PM at Microsoft and this post hits close to home. I think there are a good number of PMs that you're talking about. It's easy for the PM role to evolve into pure politics because our job is to represent the customer. Just like our government's politicians sometimes claim to represent the people and end up making selfish decisions, PMs aren't immune from that weakness. The role attracts people who are good at politics, so you tend to see a high concentration there. Why do I still do the role? Well, it kind of fits what I wanted to do for a living. I always enjoyed doing lots of diversity in my job and trying all kinds of new technologies out. I get to be a customer for a living. I try out our product and think about where I want it to go. I can be annoying (a real customer would probably be a bit annoying sometimes too, they challenge your product and your hard worked design). I get to care for a living. As an engineer, I could see myself needing to let things go because it's gotta get out the door. As a PM, I know a customer is going to hit that issue and I need to get it in front of people so we can fix it. I'm building applications using our technology and competitors and technology not obviously related just to see if could be relevant. The problems with PMs vs Engineers is that it is super hard to tell a good PM from a bad PM who is good at politics; but I'm still super happy the role exists. I'd likely have to become an evangelist to do the things I do everyday still, but I'd have less influence with the engineers and it'd often be reactive if I wasn't on the product team. To any people considering a job as a PM, do me and your other future customers a favor and ask if you can care more about your customer than having your job or being promoted? I've held fast to the notion that customers are why I'm here and my career hasn't been too bad so far, management still recognizes good work with customers. But if it all goes to hell, I can always find some other job and be happy with myself.

melted 11y ago
>> if you can care more about your customer than >> having your job or being promoted The honest answer to that is "no" 100% of the time, for any rational person. Anyone who says otherwise is either stupid, or trying to BS you, or both. Simply put, incentives should align to desired outcomes, otherwise you get the outcomes your incentives _do_ align with.
- crandycodes 11y ago

tajen 11y ago

Question for the ex-softie you are: How is it legal to talk, potentially critically, about the company after someone leaves? Don't they have lawyer-written employment contracts with a confidentiality clause saying "The first rule about things that happens within the company is, you don't talk about things that happens within the company"?

eru 11y ago
If they had, they'd probably be unenforceable in most jurisdictions.

krylon 11y ago

A couple of years back I was lucky enough to get a copy of Fred Moody's "I Sing The Body Electronic" for cheap. It is fairly old, obviously, but it was a very interesting read. (The problems it describes are slightly different from the ones you or the blog post describe, but not totally unrelated, either.)