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Comment by wiseowise | Hacker News Reader

> I also believe that being too helpful leaves you vulnerable to predators. Tech companies are full of people who want to extract uncompensated work from software engineers4. This is different from work that arrives via normal channels, and for which you’re compensated by promotions, bonuses (and just your normal salary). I’m talking about work that arrives via backchannels, from people who don’t have the ability or willingness to ensure that work is formally recorded under your name. For instance, a product manager from another organization messaging you to say “you’re so good at querying data, would you mind pulling some statistics for me about X?”, or an engineer from another team asking you to “pair” on a piece of work that will ultimately involve you writing all the code and them quietly submitting the change under their own name.

Put this in a frame.

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> willingness to ensure that work is formally recorded under your name

Where I work the title "Principal Engineer" is a coveted, well compensated, and rarely achieved. Those I've worked with are all highly effective and personable, but I interviewed one about how he achieved the title at his previous company.

His strategy had been to help people and actively give away the credit. In 1 on 1s or in meetings with multiple layers of managers, he would consistently emphasized the value of his other team mate's work. This ingratiated him with his team; years later, when a high dollar project was behind schedule and several key engineers had quit, he carried the project to victory with some late nights, and was awarded the title+raise at his next review. While the key project pushed him over the edge, he wasn't the only engineer there working late nights. He credits his promotion to the goodwill he'd built during his tenure by actively giving others credit.

I know a guy who did all what you've listed and the only thing he received was a burnout.

Now you know two, hello. I'd take those nights back, the credit (hah), and peace of mind in an instant. Short of the learning experience, I regret nearly every bit. The good will I built was... useless to say the least.

I got the bump in the end. How? Finding new company, both literally and figuratively. Overextension/sacrifice played no part and I'd like a refund, were it possible.

More often true than not!

This is one of those things where you have to be aware of the Prisoner's Dilemma; to a certain extent you can elevate a place by better pro-social behavior, or forming a pro-social clique within it, but you need to be aware if/when other people are playing Defect against you.

(one such way to retaliate against defectors is similar workplace anti-social behavior. For example if someone asks you to do something off the books, you can agree and then just flake on them and not actually do it, while hinting that if it was in the ticketing system it would be prioritized)

Unfortunately this can work both ways - if it's a low politics environment yes, it will work to the engineer's advantage but in environments rife with politicking, people will be quick to swoop in and take credit and at the same time give 2 hoots about throwing you under the bus.

Eh, I think it depends on how engaged your supervisor is. One of the last people I want to work with is the “it’s not my job” guy. I want to work with people who see a problem and offer a solution, whether it’s in their job description or not.

If you’re not being recognized for your work that’s a leadership problem. Stiff arming work feels like a way towards an ossified lumbering work culture.

Startup vs incumbent

Or, "we're in this together" vs "every man for himself".

Seems insane that the latter can even be a functional business, but monopolistic profit can enable all sorts of tomfoolery.

unless you're contracted (fixed bid) working on jobs then you're getting paid hourly, salary, whatever... boss tells you to stand around and shoot the shit, thats what you do. I dont know why people think 'not my job' is a relevant answer... the job is what they tell you to do...

I do agree with you, and most jobs have a "and other duties as assigned" for that reason.

But I'll equivocate by saying there are exceptions. If you work a union gig (technically a contract), you have to be careful to stay in your lane unless you want a grievance filed. If you are a licensed engineer and your boss tells you to design/stamp something outside your domain of competence, you have a duty to say no. But that kind of stuff is the exception.

Yes I sincerely doubt that the court of opinion, or the real court, would see the difference between "I use MySQL not MSSQL! you cant make me write this analysis" versus sometihng understandable like, you are a for example, a aging and lovable secretary who is being tasked to clean radioactive material from a jobsite because there are no calls coming in.

As for unions - yeah thats what got them kicked out of the convention center. Only certified electricians are smart enough to plug in laptops into sockets!

I don't think you need that dramatic of a strawman for the point. I think a more plausible one in a grey area could be a structural engineer who has experience in low rise commercial buildings being asked to quickly approve a steel scaffolding for a concert venue in the coming weekend. To the uninitiated, it may seem like a reasonable request but to those in the domain it's far enough outside the area of competence to be questionable.

My pushback isn’t the credit part it is when they try to spring things on you directly instead of going through normal channels. A lack of planning on someone’s part is not automatically an emergency on my part. I see this far more often than credit stealing

I can see that. The counterpoint is that it can create bureaucratic bloat.

If the proper channel means coordinating with finance to allocate money, get it assigned to labor codes, and reflected in my bi-monthly time allotment, I think I'd rather just jump the job and get it done this week than get it properly assigned two months from now. It does require a certain amount of cover and trust within an organization, though.

I've never worked somewhere where the proper channels meant "coordinate with finance", but "file a bug/feature request to track this work and time time spent on it" should be standard. If it's not worth 5 minutes for the requester to do that, it's not worth however long it would take me.

This makes it easier to query and show what you've done in a time period. It makes it easier to go through the list of your assigned tasks and understand where it fits in the priority order.

Sure, but the HN crowd cuts much wider than just people working on mobile business apps.

what you should put in a frame is "put in a ticket"

I mean it's true, but I don't see it as so black and white. Even more than I'm looking out directly for my own compensation, I'm also incentivized to help the company itself succeed, so it can make sense to help out with small requests that won't get you a parade.

Likewise, there may come a day when I need something from coworkers, and when it comes, I'd appreciate enthusiastic help instead of being swatted away and told to go through the "proper" channels (which could take much longer).

hmmm...

At good companies, they have a culture, and people help each other out.

Like lunch-table talk that helps people understand things.

But yeah, maybe not doing hours of work for someone.

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