How to escape meeting hell as an engineer?

[sinwise]

I am working for a large tech scale up - joined them 2 years ago. Pace is intense and I find myself attending 15-20 hours a week in "important" meetings. To the point where I can't find any proper focus time to do meaningful engineering work.

Am I the only one in the situation? Almost thinking to change jobs for a smaller tech firm hoping this provides a better control on my calendar... Curious to hear your thoughts.

[kshahkshah]

1. Are you a manager? You will be limited in success

2. Use something like clockwise to compress meeting times

3. Block your time so people literally can't schedule you

4. Ask for an agenda

5. Actively challenge status update meetings which serve no one. Use tools where you can pull the data. Or ask to have the data pushed to you (email). If this can't be done, work to fix that problem instead.

My biggest piece of advice? Say no to 30 minute meetings. Ask for longer meetings. This is counter intuitive I think, but I feel like 30 meetings give people enough time to get started talking about something and then no ability to finish the discussion. They become filled with "let's circle back" or "let's not get into the weeds" type chatter. No, let's get into the damn weeds and as a result on the same page. For certain things, I demand 2 hour meetings so we can actually hash stuff out.

[SheinhardtWigCo]

> Block your time so people literally can't schedule you

This is the correct answer. There are probably more people doing this than you'd think, including managers.

Don't push back, that's your manager's job and you will only upset people. If you have a "conflict", though, they will respect that.

Get creative if you have to. Nobody will question your "sprint checkpoint", "brainstorm session", "ticket review board", "architecture planning", etc.

[crazygringo]

Unfortunately, it's not the correct answer.

If it's a meeting of 2-3 people they'll just find time when you're not blocked. If the goal is to schedule more meetings back-to-back this might help, but you're not going to avoid any meetings this way.

And if it's a meeting of 5+ people they won't care about your personal schedule, they'll only work around other large meetings, and it's up to you to reschedule your personal events and your one-on-ones.

[flufferstutter]

Hah. I have blocked hours and people will still schedule meetings.

[flufferstutter]

And before you say “Just don’t attend”, I can sometimes use that option. But then other times it becomes all game theory because if they can convince enough other people to attend, you lose politically if people start routing around you on your own project.

[SheinhardtWigCo]

Yep, it's a good first line of defense, not a panacea.

[rozap]

At a previous job, we had "no meetings thursdays". It was great for a while, and then product management started scheduling meetings on thursdays "because it's the only time when everyone is free"

[bruce511]

Bear in mind that as an engineer you don't want meetings, but as a manager your entire job is meetings.

Since, by definition, a manager has to meet with someone, adding 1 manager subtracts 40 hours collectively from everyone else. And it's not like managers can just meet each other - they seldom have the actual knowledge to actually architect.

A really good manager is mostly just observing, checking in now and then (ideally at the start and end of the day), but then gas a lot of hours to fill. This is harder yo get right in Remote working setups (but not impossible.)

Mostly a good manager will spend most of their time "upstream" - solving problems for the team, making sure they have all the right tools etc. Acting as the gatekeeper to the team's time.

Alas good managers are exceedingly rare, partly because there's no training to be a good manager. So if you have one, well, be nice to him.

And if you -are- a manager, perhaps spend so time reflecting if you are helping or hindering your team. Then schedule a meeting to discuss it ;)

I will say this - good management is hard. You can't be absent. But you can't be too present. And every individual has different needs. The skill to recognise who needs what, and how often, is rare.

[vmpost]

I've heard "Let's not get into the weeds" so many times. Somehow, the time for getting into the weeds never seems to arrive, and things never get done... I've started scheduling follow-ups on the spot. You don't want to discuss this now? Alright, we'll meet again in two hours. It's worked once or twice!

[zmmmmm]

If you're an IC, tell your manager.

If you're a manager, start delegating people to go to those meetings.

One of my personal challenges was definitely that, as an introvert, once meetings hit a certain percentage of my calendar I'm just perpetually exhausted. It's amazing, I could code all day and then sit down and code for 3 hours at night. I basically just don't run out of energy for that. But talking to people? I like it, but it's like running up a hill for me. More than 4 hours of that in a day and I'm ruined, I can't code or do anything until I find a proper way to reset (which often means, until the next day).

I don't think extroverts appreciate what they are asking of introverts when they casually schedule meetings - often thinking it's the most efficient way to exchange about 5 mins worth information in an hour long discussion.

[shortcake27]

> More than 4 hours of that in a day and I'm ruined

That is quite impressive and probably better than average for an engineer.

If I have a 1 hour meeting at 1pm, I’ll be fried for the rest of the day. It’s a weakness for sure, but I don’t think there’s anything I can do about it other than work for companies that have minimal meetings. Companies with established meeting cultures will do anything except reduce the number of meetings you need to attend.

[crazygringo]

In a comment you say you're a tech lead. It really depends on what the meetings are, and let's put them into 3 buckets, from least latitude to most:

Are they regular meetings where you're the representative for your team or function? In other words, the types of meetings that all other tech leads also attend -- whether they're the only tech lead present (weekly team meeting), or lots of other tech leads (department tech lead meeting), or your weekly 1-1 with your manager, or your monthly 1-1 with each other team member? Because these are just part of your job, full stop.

Or are they specific one-off problem-solving meetings with 2-6 people total that actually need your input? Because these are generally part of your job as well, especially as a tech lead. If you find yourself regularly contributing nothing though, you can push back or suggest a non-lead team member instead. But really you should bring this up with your manager because you're surely not the only one having this problem, and saying no to these meetings could negatively impact you if your input really is required and you merely find them inefficient.

The last category is one-off special meetings to explore new ideas, build relationships, get feedback, talk about company culture, learn things, etc. These are where the company wants to have a wide range of people present but your specific absence may not be noted. On the one hand, you can try just not going and it might be totally fine, and if anyone asks just say you were fixing a time-sensitive bug (important: don't respond to these calendar invites, so they don't say "Yes" but they also don't say "No".). On the other hand, if your manager/peers are usually there and they start noticing you never are, you might develop a reputation of not caring about the company, not being a good company citizen, etc. You'll have to decide if it's worth the reputational hit and whether that could affect promotions.

[irvingprime]

You left out the most annoying category of meetings: Meetings for the sake of having meetings. They are usually billed as project updates, or planning meetings or something. They are useless and ubiquitous.

[hosh]

Isn’t tech lead in that weird place where your success is starting to get more dependent on your team’s success, while still possibly having to be a subject area expert?

[mathewar]

Here's a few things to try :

1. Ask the meeting organizer if you're needed and why. You'd be surprised how many times meeting organizers just want to include everyone, and don't actually need you.

2. Ask for an agenda from the meeting organizer beforehand. If there isn't one, skip it. Meetings without an agenda before hand have a low value in general.

3. If you're not necessary for a meeting, consider skipping it and reading the notes afterwards.

4. Ask if the meeting will be recorded, so that you can time shift your viewing of it and watch it at 2x.

5. If someone schedules a meeting with you, ask what the question they're trying to answer is beforehand, and if you can reply to them by email, or ideally send them a document or FAQ to refer to - success! You've managed to remove the need for a meeting.

[jollofricepeas]

All of these.

But the most important are:

1. Just don’t go.

2. Fill your calendar with blocks for Engineering and only be available for meetings at certain times of the day. Make sure your managers knows and you should be good.

[wdfx]

1. No. You must communicate before hand if you intend to not attend. To not show up when you are expected is disrespectful to everyone.

[jollofricepeas]

Nah.

Consent matters.

I think it’s more disrespectful to put a meeting on someone’s calendar without an agenda or explaining it’s purpose.

To do so demonstrates that you believe you’re entitled to their time and that your purpose is more important than anything else they had to do at that time.

If you are expected, then that should be communicated before the meeting is scheduled.

For example, a good manager will…

1) tell you during onboarding what/when/where the expected team ceremonies take place.

2) give you at least a heads up via chat before putting a surprise meeting on your calendar

[wdfx]

I also agree with that. It works both ways, both parties should still communicate with each other, but with words and not either entitled or childish actions.

[HeyLaughingBoy]

You can say no. I mentioned this to someone who reported to me (he was just a year out of college) and he was amazed. It never occurred to him that he didn't have to go to every meeting he was invited to.

Discuss with your manager. "I'm being invited to all these meetings and I don't get any value from them. Do I really need to go?" Let him/her figure it out; that's what they're there for.

[dec0dedab0de]

I was recently told that I could ask permission to concentrate for up to four hours in a row, but not every day. When I said that wasn't enough I was told it works for everyone else. I have been on leave and in therapy since. I still don't know if they're being unreasonable, or if it is just affecting me because of my mental health issues.

[brailsafe]

Pretty sure it's them. My manager once inquired why a refactor I was working on was taking so long, and articulated it as "I don't understand what's taking so long, by comparison, Brendan Eich created javascript in two weeks". I was taken aback in the moment, because it had to be easily one of the most petulant, absurd, and frankly idiotic comments I've ever received from a manager. I said "ok" and left a gap of silence for him to fill, then explained the complexity of the nature of getting this particular thing working perfectly (which was what was demanded despite apparently being "agile"), to which he subsequently ignored, as he did with numerous pleas for space to focus and deal with my own mental health issues while still serving my duties. I ended up getting laid off, and I'm much happier, fuck that guy.

[lozenge]

Wow, imagine where we would be now if Brendan Eich had taken another two weeks to really make javascript better.

[TeMPOraL]

Then maybe it would be what it was supposed to be - a Lisp.

AFAIR, JS looks the way it does, because the business side wanted to ride on the hype Java was generating.

[grugagag]

No, its affecting everyone. Productivity has dropped all over. Sometimes it feels as if there’s some hidden ploy to set money on fire

[TeMPOraL]

Plot twist: it's our own doing.

My pet hypothesis is that most of the "productivity improvements" companies achieved thanks to office / business-side software was really accounting trickery, even if unintentional one. A lot of the distracting bullshit we - and everyone else with an office job - has to do regularly, used to be someone's actual job. The flip side of software making a task so easy everyone could do it themselves, is that... everyone has to do it themselves. What used to be done by specialists is now spread evenly across the company, tacked onto the job description or just plain assumed. I called this an accounting trick, because the salaries no longer paid are legible on the balance sheet, while general productivity drop all across the board is not.

[grugagag]

Yes, sounds very reasonable. But what to do about it?

[TeMPOraL]

Despair. Resist creating, promoting or buying technologies that eliminate jobs not by automating them away, but by offloading the work to a much greater population, thereby diluting it until it's seemingly gone. Favor dealing with people over self-service processes. Or, at the very least, understand this failure mode of economic metrics and don't accept claims of productivity gains at face value.

[shortcake27]

Everyone has different tolerances for interruptions and context switching, and I’m really not sure this is something you can change. Sadly, few companies listen/adapt to their employee’s strengths/weaknesses. I would suggest looking for another job which is more suited to you.

[sys_64738]

Don't bother attending meetings. They can always reprimand you or put you on a plan or impact your bonus. Or even fire you. shrug

[f0e4c2f7]

While I've never done this, I have always wondered about it. It honestly seems plausible. For most of my career I've actively ignored most of my email except for a few filters and no one ever even mentions it.

I can imagine a world where you even say "if you have to fire me I understand".

Would people care though? I can even imagine it becoming kind of a running joke.

Would love to hear from someone who attempted this.

[grugagag]

Totally doable if your work speaks for itself. Enough said…

[irvingprime]

There are some tricks you can try. But the most important one is to communicate to people that you don't think you're needed in a particular meeting and you're not going to attend.

You might also defer some meetings to your manager. Another trick I've had some success with is saying, "Sorry. I have a deadline and need to focus on meeting it. Could your record the meeting for me?" Usually they do and I watch the recordings late in the day when I'm tired and don't feel like working anyway.

Aside from that, you can and should insist on an uninterrupted block of time every day. Say four hours in the afternoon. Block it off on your calendar so you can have that focus time you wish you had. The hard part is enforcing it.

I've been in meetings with 20 people, where 17 of them never say a word. In those cases, I'm usually one of the silent ones, doing some real work while barely even paying attention to the meeting. Surprisingly, most people understand that and are okay with it. But it's really a last resort.

Good luck. Being in a meeting heavy environment can be stressful. Learn not to be a slave to it without being a grouch about it and people will respect you for having your priorities straight. You'll respect yourself more, too, for drawing boundaries and getting things done.

[slater]

1) Discuss w/ direct manager.

2) Start blocking off "me time" on your calendar so people can't monopolize your time.

[jen729w]

In my experience 2) doesn’t work. I block time and people just ignore it.

This is especially bad with multi-person meetings. There’s no slot when everyone’s free, so the organiser picks the least-bad slot. Unfortunately it’s when you had booked out your time.

Now what do you do? Decline? Because you’re unavailable? You know you can make it, and you feel compelled to turn up.

[pc86]

Given some of the other responses I have feeling this might be an unpopular opinion, but I generally think it's very difficult to change meeting culture like this company-wide. It grows over time, it's organic, and if every Tech Lead attends 20 hours a week of meetings and you want to change the entire culture to make that 8 hours a week it's going to be an uphill battle, and there will be folks actively working against you. Some may be your other Tech Leads who are more than happy to spend half their time chit-chatting in the conference room or browsing Facebook on a Zoom call.

Think about how many of these meeting you really shouldn't be at ever. Even one where you're there 30 minutes a week and it's only useful for you to be there every couple months, it's going to be hard to get out of. My guess is it's realistic for you to be expected to attend these meetings, or at least know what happens in them (how easy that is, if it's even possible, is also a company culture thing you won't be able to change overnight).

If this is really an issue for you, the easiest way to fix it is to leave and to ask about meeting culture in the interview process.

[realjohng]

Many companies have no meeting days or “maker hours” for deep work. Engineers universally love it. Start making noise about it— mgmt is usually receptive to this.

[bell-cot]

You're an IC, not a /Manager$/ - right?

Cynical quip: Ask that you be scaled up to 40+ hours/week in meetings, so you don't feel guilty about never having enough time to do any serious engineering work.

More realistic: Ask if people at your level could be blank-exempted from meetings on Tuesdays & Thursdays - to let you focus on engineering and get serious stuff done at least on those two days.

[pc86]

I wish it weren't the case, but IME blacking out 40% of your schedule for meetings seems unrealistic for the vast majority of companies. We have 1 day a month and while I've only been here less than a year it is generally very well respected in the [Engineering] team that you do not schedule anything on that day, everything is through Slack (and by and large we're really good at treating Slack as asynchronous, nobody gets bent out of shape if you don't answer a message for several hours or more).

[sinwise]

Love the cynical quip. Yes I am an IC (tech lead). The non-meeting days make a lot of sense. Ironically, this will deserve an additional 1-to-1 meeting with my manager

[jedberg]

Lots of good advice in here, including "ask for an agenda" a couple of times.

As a corollary, provide context and and agenda when scheduling meetings.

Any time I set up a meeting, the first thing I do is put the context: what brought me to my calendar to set up this meeting in the first place? Then I put an agenda. What are we going to talk about? It doesn't have to be long or detailed down the minute or anything like that. Just a list of things I want to talk about.

As a result, my meetings tend to be the ones that go under time and have an outcome at the end. People who aren't relevant self-select out, so our discussion doesn't wander, and people come prepared with data and/or opinions. It's much more efficient.

Being a meeting leader is a skill that is learned, but it can be learned.

[da39a3ee]

- Leave a meeting as soon as you see that your presence is not helping the company, and state why you are leaving when you do so. Push for it to be considered immoral for anyone not to do the same.

- Push for written material to be made available the night before the meeting; all participants must read beforehand; meeting canceled if not.

- After meetings send around a summary of what was achieved, who contributed, who found the contributions useful, and (the remainder) whose presence was a waste of company resources.

- If you really can't excuse yourself from meetings where your presence is not helpful / you don't want to be there, then resign and start doing leetcodes in meetings until your last day.

[pan69]

You need to provide context around your role because;

If you are an engineering manager than it is probably expected that you attend meetings most of your time spend and you shouldn't be wired in to write code as is expected from an IC.

If you are an IC, escalate to your manager. However, if those meetings are with your direct team to discuss product roadmap, PR reviews, solution design, sprint planning, epic grooming, etc, then your manager will probably tell you that you should attend those meetings.

[dawnerd]

I put “focus time” after lunch to end of day to force all of the meetings into the morning. Unfortunately project managers still put time in my calendar as as a lead it’s harder to say no.

Best thing I’ve found is to keep reminding the project people that the meetings will cause deadlines to be missed. At least that puts some blame on someone other than your team. When half of the billed hours end up being meetings it becomes clear.

[fab_cl]

1. Start by always asking for the agenda - many meetings can be addressed as an email 2. Try to understand what do they expect from you in the meeting - if nothing important probably can be addressed by email 3. Block your calendar with hours of focus - let everyone that you need them and are non-negotiable.

[smallerfish]

Yes, quit. You're not going to change the culture of the company if they're that far gone.

[akisej]

Let me ask you something I always ask my reports: if you were your manager, what would you do?

[sinwise]

There are many things to ask to my manager (non-meeting days, remove non mandatory people from invites, open team discussion on the topic). I guess this is more of a culture thing at work where everyone is "expected" to show up. I see my boss' situation as even worst (although one might argue that that is his job, I see this as quite unhealthy no matter the role)

[snapdaddy]

The opposite viewpoint is that you are being included in these meetings so that you can prevent bad decisions by management. What if you aren't in a meeting where it is decided that you should implement feature x because they imagine it to be low cost, not realising the complexity?

[bgarbiak]

First off, I would set the strict max 30 minutes time limit for each and every meeting. If it’s not enough to solve something: do a follow up next day but ask everyone to prepare properly. Or just move the discussion to emails.

2nd: be an ass as a moderator. Cut all the small talk, chit chat, warm ups, derailing, or ad hoc brainstorming (usually performed by two people while the rest of the attendees are slowly dying inside).

[sys_64738]

I wouldn't ask them the question you just asked them.

[pc86]

The point is to see if they already have a solution in mind, and (if you're a good manager) either do it, tell them why it can't or shouldn't be done [yet?], or tell them they can do it themselves.

[deterministic]

You are working for a company managed by incompetent managers. It’s that simple. I highly recommend finding a company that knows how to manage people. I am speaking as a former manager, entrepreneur, and employee.

[Xen9]

I don't currently have a satisfying psychological model on why people do this.

Perhaps meetings keep the illusion that "work" in companies means doing anything at all.

Evolutionary psychology also could explain?

[JoeAltmaier]

Stop going. You're an Engineer, not a mailroom worker. Tell folks "I've got a schedule to keep. Send me an email of your conclusions and action items. Thanks, bye."

[JohnMakin]

Code during meetings if your active participation isn't necessary.

[thepostman0]

Online meetings, yes, in person though, more polite to say you have another meeting to go to, but you're available online if anything urgent.

[grugagag]

I turn on some white noise over virtual meetings to attenuate sudden volume changes and it makes it much more bearable. At times Im all ears but most of the time the meeting should have included 2-3 people instead of 12-14.

[da39a3ee]

That looks immature. Much better to state to the group that you can see that your participation isn't benefitting the company and that you are going to go and do something that will.

[JohnMakin]

well, if your participation is that necessary to warrant people thinking you’re immature if you dont focus all your attention to it - you should probably not do this and participate in it. but, for most meetings, you only really need to have a list of key points you need to bring up or address, and then speak up when it’s required, and otherwise keep working. if people think it’s rude, you get the bonus side effect of not getting invited to further pointless meetings.

[da39a3ee]

I was being a bit rude but what I was trying to say is that IMO it's a bit immature to work in a meeting at all: if you're working then you will work better not in the meeting, and if you have to speak up when required then how can you be sure you have not missed relevant context while you were working?

Basically, people who work on their laptops during meetings are demonstrating that they don't have the confidence to point out to someone that they should not / no longer be in the meeting.

[contingencies]

Your manager should be doing this for you. Complain to them and start saying you are unavailable.

CC each rejected meeting to your management including the cost in scheduling overhead, loss of flow, and actual hours.

If your direct management is inept, go to senior.

[pc86]

There are ways to do this without coming across like an asshole. Unless you have a very good relationship with your boss, or you work in a toxic hellhole, you probably don't want to be forwarding meeting invites with passive aggressive cost analyses about your payroll cost and loss of flow which would probably take you have the length of the meeting to figure out anyway.

[contingencies]

At the end of the day there's only so many hours, they cost, and resource allocation is a management decision. Taking emotional and personal interpretations is a chump's game. What's next, PC second-guess the interpretation of any point at every meeting and email? Not useful. How much time would that waste?

If you can't be direct, go somewhere more engineer-oriented or don't ask for help on HN.

[bigbacaloa]

Engineers believe in three things: money, meetings, and quality control.

[dustingetz]

i recommend leetcode

[thequadehunter]

so true!!