Post #4166169
2026-07-28 13:36 UTC
Replies (1)
-
@sashag@anarres.family 2026-07-28 14:30
@CordiallyChloe@tech.lgbt @faithisleaping@anarres.family Some thoughts from someone (me) who has worked with engineers and managers who work with engineers (I hate „to manage" or „to lead“, I work with a team, full stop). For the best of us (and here I include myself generously) we don't see engineers and architects as code producing machines. The art of middle management is, to keep whatever weird stuff the executive layer produces (and they WILL do, because they rarely have domain or technical knowledge, or worse they have outdated knowledge) away from the people doing the work. And to create a meaningful roadmap/goals. Apart from that, we stay the fuck out of the way. I trust the folks I work with, so when they say „it's on track, no real risks“ I'm fine. I can see the technical progress in the repository and tickets. So when I ask how things are going I want to know how they are doing personally. I don't need the tickets being read to me. And if it's not an update in a ticket, the engineer probably thinks it's not yet worthwhile to know. So I don't ask for more. I then go and translate what I know into something the executive folks can understand. That's when I speak managementese as Michael Lopp (randsinrepose) calls it. To exaggerate this is when I translate a "not yet" into five minutes of yapping in tongues. So the exec people have something *they* can work with.