Comment by deanCommie

Comment by deanCommie 4 days ago

2 replies

I don't know what you think "management" does, but it's not just being a panopticon on making sure every individual employee is performing to their expectations.

In the same environment that is affecting SDEs right now, managers are more and more being asked to do more individual contributor actions, while increasing their span of control.

They have their own work to do, primarily in how they report progress and vision UPWARDS. Most IC's don't realize but depending on their skip level, managing "upwards" may be requiring more than half of a manager's time.

So sure, they know if the overall team work gets done. And they absolutely know their top and bottom performers. But in the middle? Lots of room for variability. Is someone good even if they're not coding becaue they seem to be unblocking others? Is someone good if they're not talking to anyone but cranking out tons of code? This is where most performance management time ends up going to.

And in no point in today's culture, does it account for the possibility of catching people that are moonlighting or coasting.

goostavos 4 days ago

How do you all track sprints / progress / goals on your side of the fence?

At least in the orgs I've been in, it seems to me that everyone is always aware at any given time who the "coasters" are. We have to constantly work around them / isolate them from causing damage. Hell, even Forte should give some signals.

wubrr 4 days ago

Uh, managing their reports and judging their performance is like the primary responsibility for most managers in big tech.

If they can't do that, they will grasp at any reason outside their control as an excuse for why their team is underperforming, WFH is the perfect fall guy, and I can guarantee you that Amazon has no real data to back up the claim that WFH decreases productivity - in fact they published data to the opposite.