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Comment by notabot | Hacker News Reader

I don't think being led / managed by someone younger is a big deal, but this is a weird story. The author was just 6 months into his first job then made a leader of three much more experienced employees. That makes me think someone up the chain wanted those three guys gone.

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I've worked in companies where standard practice was to give new managers senior-level engineers, because senior engineers were less likely to require some of the more complex management issues that someone more junior might.

Speaking as someone who, when I was a junior, only ever worked for first time managers -- I hated it, and wished that I had a more experienced manager. Meanwhile, my senior friends who had a first time manager enjoyed the process of teaching a new manager the ropes.

That makes a lot of sense. I remember having bad managers early in my career as well, but I was also in a customer facing position that required much more feedback from management (weekly one-on-ones). Compare that to now, when the only time I hear anything from management is when I get a raise, or a shout out at the end of year "all hands" meeting.

I think mainly what's wrong is our thinking of it as hierarchical. The "leadership" position should be/is a support position to help production staff perform to the best of their abilities. That could be someone less experienced as long as they're good at eliminating obstacles for their team(s) and communication.

I agree with you in general. I just don't think a person 6 months out of college can effectively do what you describe.

When I was six months into the job I certainly didn't know how the org functioned, nor did I have any political capital to move things my way.

That I agree with. Experience is hard to shortcut.

It definitely helps to be familiar with an organization to actively participate in it. You can accumulate political capital independent from the management structure, though, and you can manage without playing politics.

I always suggest folk to embrace and understand an existing organization's culture before attempting to effect change within it.

It's usually a bad idea to try to change a process without understanding the reason behind it. It's always a bad idea to try and change it without TRYING to understand the reason behind. it.

That might be true if you didn’t actually get power over your team.

I'm one of the most senior/revered software engineers at the company I work for, and my manager is just a few years out of school. He's interested in developing his management skills, whereas I and many others on the team are not. It seems to be working well. Our company culture highly values servant leadership, though.

Except that those guys later went on to be on another team? I don't know. It does seem weird, no matter how you slice it.

It's not really that strange. My first full-time gig as a software engineer threw me into the team lead position at the six month mark as well. I found that we simply work in a field where most people do not want to be in a leadership position.

> where most people do not want to be in a leadership position

This happened to me too. I didn't picture myself as a manager and I thought I wasn't legitimate to lead the team, being less experienced. But it turned out my team members were quite introverted and none of them wanted to take that role. In the end, it was a fruitful collaboration and a very good experience. I never saw that position as hierarchical, more of a different role within the team.

Yes I couldn't agree more. I am currently in a leadership role and I feel like I spend most of my time taking bullets for the team. I am not trying to act like a martyr or anything but someone has to go to a bunch of stupid meetings and if that means a marginal increase in pay then I am happy to do it. I don't get to write as much code as I want but it still is a means to an end.

Lots of engineers just want to be engineers, and have no desire to be involved in tedium of management.

Perhaps that's why these seniors are being managed by someone with less experience?

Guess it depends on the team concerned.

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