[luch]

This may be unpopular to some here, but it is dangerous to let one man run a substantial part of the company's operations. There is a reason why the notion of "bus factor" exists and if you are senior enough, it is expected of you to mentor new recruits that ultimately will take your job.

That being said, they way he has been treated is absolutely infuriating and probably illegal in numerous countries which are not the USA.

[Arrath]

Certainly, redundancy and spreading of responsibilities is a reasonable way to run important divisions like this.

They way SpaceX went about this as outlined in TFA is absolutely not the way to do it. This guy had no input in the process at all, even from the outset or the hiring, and they didn't even report to him!

[jrnichols]

Thing is, this is the way that many companies go about it and they have done so for years.

"Aging out" has been a huge problem in the Silicon Valley for decades, for example.

This is probably only making any news because it's SpaceX.

[Arrath]

That seems like such a terrible way to do it, rife to breed resentment and malicious compliance, and let things fall through the cracks.

When I was involved in a bus problem situation, management came to me and said they were concerned about my workload, the hours I was putting in, and the lack of redundancy my position.

What followed was a 6-month process where I was heavily involved in each step, from scoping out the initial additions to the org chart, writing up job descriptions and expectations, application review and interviews, down to onboarding and training of my new team members. In essence we stood up a new division of what had previously been my one-man show, and I now managed two engineers and an admin assistant to get all the work done. It was, all in all, a marvelous process and I am proud of the team I trained. I got my saturdays back, too.

[q1w2]

> This is probably only making any news because it's SpaceX.

Agreed - This is just getting upvoted for the anti-Musk trendiness.

It's also important to note that we're only getting one side of the story here. It's entirely possible that they directly asked him to train other people on what he's doing and that he was uncooperative. Who knows - one-sided stories are one-sided.

[bottlepalm]

Probably because principal engineer is an independent contributor type role. Also sounds like he wasn't part of the hiring team to begin with - which is a lot of overhead if you're already a busy engineer.

[phkahler]

Yes, the bus factor was high but:

>> I hadn’t even been told that people were being hired, nor was I invited to sit in on interviews—though I was the most qualified to discern candidates’ qualifications and experience.

This has become one of my favorite things to do with my experience, and I've helped hire some great people. To keep him out of this process was a terrible decision.

I don't think it was age discrimination so much as politics and empire building.

There is also a tech-bro factor at play here. I saw this while working at a supplier to another Elon company. They get these 23 year-olds that think they can do anything (them getting hired by XYZ Corp is proof right?) and then they do silly things or don't understand the basics. Hey but when they eventually figure stuff out they can claim a few miles range improvement on that car as their own fabulous innovation!

[treis]

I too don't understand it. Even reading just his side of the story it seems obvious that he got caught in a power struggle between SpaceX and Starlink. A struggle he lost and apparently a struggle he never knew he was in.

I also don't think he has the right attitude for a principle engineer. Junior engineers don't "take over" your roles. They take on the easy parts of projects so that you can focus on the hard stuff. Part of being a senior engineer is training and enabling more junior engineers. A huge part of his job is to eliminate the "bus factor".

[bumby]

That was my original thought as well. But as the article went on, it was made clear that he wasn't part of the process of creating a team where he can delegate. He was later told he wasn't in a management-track position, which seems at odds with the idea that they wanted him to be leading a team of junior engineers.

[treis]

Yeah, that was some manager in Starlink empire building. Once that sort of thing starts you either end up on the winning side or leave.

[tiahura]

It seemed the decimation of my role through the assignments of others to my tasks was coming from managers in the Starlink organization

That was my take away as well - and again, not to mention the fact that we're getting a one-sided accounting of the facts.

[startupsfail]

He has a right attitude. Top management is clearly failing at the job of being respectful and reasonable manager for him, so he should fire that management. And let them fail.

[mbreese]

> probably illegal in numerous countries which are not the USA.

As described, it’s probably illegal in the US too. Hence mentioning the notifications to HR.

There is a difference between increasing your bus factor (which is a thing) and age discrimination. Yes, you mentor new recruits, but you’re also part of hiring them. You’re running the team, not getting parts of your job reassigned until there is nothing left.

Yes, this could have happened ultimately been a person caught between a warring Starlink vs SpaceX — but from an employment point of view, I’m not sure it matters.

[amluto]

The right solution is to hire some more people, with input from the critical employee, and have them gradually learn the ropes. And keep the key employees!

[dist1ll]

True. Siloed knowledge is a liability.

[trident5000]

You have one half of a story from a disgruntled employee. We dont know what actually happened.