[ryandrake]

A little off topic, but I love how you mention his career progression before sharing the example of his ignorance, because this seems to be a pretty common theme in tech companies (I've witnessed it more times than I can remember or count). The people I knew in my career who were most full of shit are pretty much all now Directors and VPs, enjoying a life of success, and the ones who were the most actually knowledgable are still grinding away as IC's, worried about layoffs. This industry is really bad about rewarding competence.

[meepmorp]

> This industry is really bad about rewarding competence.

If you promote the competent people, you leave the incompetent ones to do the actual work.

[noduerme]

The trick then is not hiring bozos in the first place.

[psd1]

The team I described in GGGP were all strong in the roles they were originally hired for. The company likes to promote internally, which mostly works out for them. This shit team was an edge case.

[noduerme]

This is a good counterpoint that explains why, maybe as roles change or companies grow, people who weren't exceptionally good at one role end up overseeing it. The pithy / laconic observation I was immediately responding to was pretty spot on though, and still seems to pertain (in general).

Breaking it down: That the most diligent / irreplaceable people who know the guts of the machine tend to be chained to their roles with occasional raises seems fairly logical from a C-Suite perspective. The tendency to promote incompetence - particularly overconfident incompetence - is the part that bears more scrutiny. If it were isolated to a few companies, it wouldn't be so relatable. I have a theory that it has to do with certain kinds of communication skills (specifically, bullshitting), being selected for in certain roles. And being able to write good code and explain why it has to be done that way requires the opposite of bullshitting.