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cover of episode Episode 435: How to make my boss actually do something and kindly shooting down

Episode 435: How to make my boss actually do something and kindly shooting down

2024/11/18
logo of podcast Soft Skills Engineering

Soft Skills Engineering
AI Deep Dive AI Chapters Transcript
People
D
Dave
活跃的房地产投资者和分析师，专注于房地产市场预测和投资策略。
J
Jamison
通过播客分享软件工程和软技能知识，帮助工程师解决日常工作中的问题。
S
Songbody
Topics
Songbody 提问关于其老板的管理风格以及如何处理与同事的技术分歧。Songbody 感到其老板反馈不足，且决策武断，希望能在不影响关系的情况下，专注于技术难题。Dave 和 Jamison 认为，随着资历的提升，管理者的反馈价值会降低，Songbody 应该更专注于自身目标，并从业务结果中获取反馈。他们建议 Songbody 更加独立自主，并主动承担团队的技术愿景规划。对于同事提出的新架构，Jamison 建议 Songbody 明确表达自己的意见，同时也要理解对方的出发点，并列出新架构的优缺点，以便进行更深入的讨论。

Deep Dive

Chapters
A listener seeks advice on managing a boss who makes snap decisions, has a narrow vision, and provides little feedback, while also dealing with the responsibilities of a principal engineer.
  • Senior engineers often receive less feedback and must rely more on business outcomes.
  • Principle engineers are responsible for influencing technical vision and supporting team output.
  • Delegating some management tasks can help balance responsibilities.

Shownotes Transcript

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

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First! I recently listened to episode 178 (huge backlog of episodes to work through!) and Dave made the assertion (in 2019!) that 47% of all companies would be remote by 2023: wildly close, what else do you see in the future?

Second: my work situation continues to confound and external insight would be helpful! My boss and I have a long working history going back to an entirely separate company. I’m a high-ownership/high-drive Principal level IC and feedback has been lackluster. Takeaway from last years performance review would be best summarized as “I agree with your self review. End message.” I’ve been working to “manage up” and mentor (reverse mentor?) him, but he always makes snap decisions and then refuses to reevaluate after presented with more info. Coupled with his myopic view of our team’s scope and general preference for speaking only (not much for action), I’m trying to figure out how to get where I want to be without burning an old and historically very useful bridge! I want to work on big technical problems, instead I’m de facto manager of a team… I managed before and did not enjoy being responsible for people. As a principal I’m responsible for their output somewhat, but if they underperform I work with their manager and them to prioritize, and do up front work to incentivize their investment in what we’re doing… help!

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What do I do when my teammate proposes a new architecture or framework in a new project? It might solve some existing problems but has a high chance to create technical debt and make the onboarding harder for new engineers.

How can I convince them to use the existing solution while still helping them feel comfortable sharing their opinion next time?

If I follow their suggestion but things don’t go well, how can I convince them to refactor the structure without them feeling like I’m blaming them?