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Comment by y-c-o-m-b | Hacker News Reader

> So stop putting them under a lot of pressure. The second tip hints at this, but it only seems to be a reactionary measure. Maybe all this goalsetting, OKRs and such is exactly the problem with the industry, always having to feel pressured to an extreme by metrics and stats which effectively mean nothing, when most people just want to put in an honest day's work and progress.

You nailed it. The entire article can be summed up by your statement. It's great they're acknowledging it, but putting corporate make-up on it is cringey; it almost comes off like we are the problem and not the other way around.

I don't give a damn about "drinking the kool-aid" and I don't give a damn about your business theatrics nor the political drama that goes with it. Give me work to do and leave me alone to do it. That'll solve a lot of the burn-out.

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American Corporations drink their own kool-aid, which is probably why they can sit there and talk about what's wrong concisely without knowing what to do about it. The days of servant leadership, or leading from the front are gone in terms of management. Instead, they're a self-serving bunch. Engineers are effectively the lowest on the hierarchy and their happiness matters to no one in the chain because everyone is serving the link above them. If software ever does unionize I don't think it'll be over pay, it'll be over stuff like this.

You have a very negative opinion about management. Please remember that managers are people too and they're (likely) trying their best too. Just as they give you feedback, it is often helpful to give upward feedback too. Especially if it's in the form of "I need you to do X to help me"

Won't people please think of the poor managers making ten times our income, come on guys, just because I will literally fire you when some VP demands it, were all on the same side. Here, have a cookie and forget this whole thing.

Interesting you thought I haven't tried to have those conversations upward. The problem is there's zero incentive for managers to listen or change.

I do have a negative opinion about managers. Managers mandated themselves into making x times the amount of their top paid report, control decision making, and have hiring and firing powers all in one position. Managers being people doesn't make them immune from criticism, and if me describing the status quo upsets you, then maybe we should be having a bigger discussion about what being in a captured ideology looks like from the ground.

> The problem is there's zero incentive for managers to listen or change.

Yeah, there is now only incentive to get rid of you since you are having a negative impact on the manager's (perceived) success, and you have also banned yourself from ever being promoted to management by being disloyal.

"Managers mandated themselves into making x times the amount of their top paid report, control decision making, and have hiring and firing powers all in one position."

I'm curious where you work (not specifically, I'm talking about generally the industry), because it's not been my experience either as a manager nor my understanding of anyone else in silicon valley or large or mid sized software companies. I've managed engineers who get paid more than me, never have had unilateral hiring or firing powers, and don't control much decision making power other than my ability to hopefully influence engineers or upper management.

I could imagine your case being true in other places (finance, for example) where managers usually aren't engineers and there is much more of a fiefdom organizational structure, but it hasn't been my experience in software.

I work in Fintech. On average, managers make more than their reports and heavily influence how much their reports make. Just based on levels.fyi managers earn a base of $40k over their engineering equivalent, with a higher bonus and stock margin as well (at my company). My company also doesn't position technical leaders at the same level as their manager, so technical leaders are already in an odd position when trying to represent the team. Generally I've figured out that many managers don't know what "influencing" is, so it starts to feel like "pressuring" from someone who doesn't understand the product from a technical perspective. I don't think any of this is uncommon to the larger software landscape, but certain companies may hire better managers than others.

Not OP, but I don't feel this has anything to do with any specific people, but more an indictment of the system itself that we've created. Historically, there has never been an incentive or compensation structure that exists in companies that would lead management to begin to care about this stuff over their other priorities and deliverables.

There is when the employees join together in a union.

Speaking as a manager, a lot of managers seems to resort to the "managers are people too" truism whenever they're called out on managerial misbehavior. I think a lot of people in the occupation can't own up to abuses of our power so our gut reaction is to handwave away the very idea of power.

"We're all on the same level, so you can't hold us to a higher standard" is a silly but common way to confuse this sort of ethical problem.

Shout-out to you for saying this. I'm not anti-manager by any means, but I'm very vocal that our existing (and most common) system is not working well, or to the benefit of most people or the corporation.

All the way up to the CEO who’s setting the tone. The farther up the ladder, the “best” is more likely to serve their own interest, it’s why they’ve pursued that rank in the first place.

Aren't you a kiss ass

That’s exactly why many of the best engineers move to Silicon Valley and start their own startup, or work at an engineer-founded one.

Ironically or not, GitLab is actually both.

> Give me work to do and leave me alone to do it. That'll solve a lot of the burn-out.

Yeah but this really translates to asking management to actually do their job, and letting you do yours. Any hint at this attitude will get you in a world of trouble.

This touches on a theme I see in a lot of US organizations I work at: Lack of accountability at the management and executive level.

If you're well established in your career as an engineer today, you have leverage. Many of us have the very privileged luxury of being able to refuse to work at a place with poor management, or under a bad manager.

We likewise have the ability to say "no" to things. I wouldn't recommend making it a habit, and I'd also suggest qualifying any "no" you give to your supervisors, but it's important to push back when it's reasonable to do so. e.g. "I won't be on call because it is not in my employment contract and wasn't a responsibility I agreed to."

that's super right. Got first hand unfortunate experience. The simple thing is: please managers don't buy the work-hard-to-compete ethos. It's not because you can take it that others can or should.

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