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by hayst4ck
1112 days ago
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All of my best engineering happened when I didn't have a single meeting with my manager for 6 months. That being said if you manage to get that one good unicorn manager (that 1 in 50) who knows how to actually manage, they are fantastic. If you you have a standard manager, you have to put in a lot of work to get value out of them. If you have a bad manager, they may actively harm your mental health to the point where you are no longer able to function in your position. The iron test of a 1:1 is asking "do I feel listened to," which is distinctly different than "did they hear the words that I said, and respond." They should also give and solicit feedback and set expectations appropriately. |
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This is a good litmus test. A lot of managers refuse to understand the details of the systems and talk about how engineers need to provide "executive" summaries. This is the most bullshit argument I've ever heard. I spent many years at AWS, and one of my fav parts of working at AWS used to be Charlie Bell randomly picking Directors and Senior Management to answer basic reliability questions about their service. If they are unable to do that, they would be reprimanded infront of the entire organization. It was the perfect way to keep managers inline with the actual reality of their engineering organization.
AWS had many faults, but keeping managers honest was one of the good parts of working there.