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How to Manage Geeks?
Ratatosk writes "The paper Fast Company, which focus on work related things, has a "geek week" with articles like the tutorial "How to Manage Geeks".
Advices are: Get to know your geek community, the best
judges of geeks are other geeks and create new ways to promote your
geeks. " This isn't as good as the age old Managers Guide
To Geeks (does anyone have a URL handy?) which I tried to force
several of my previous boss's to read. But this is for the PHBs I
guess. I guess we're who they're talking about, does this sound
right to you?
Forget "managing". Just pay us more. Works for me.
As a geek rising through the ranks of college students, I totally agree with his assesment. Just keep nodding.
...is the work that pays the most. I've come to this conclusion
after years of experience. And watch out for potential
employers who promise you "interesting work". It's often a lie
to get you to work for less than you're worth, or to cover up
the fact that the company's business is not economically
viable.
Still, it would take a LOT of money to make Windows GUI
work look interesting!
My main requirement:
I get to choose the development platform, and it's NOT
going to be Windows.
I've found it's perfectly possible to create Windows
binaries under Linux (you can even run Borland C++
command-line tools under WINE!). Plus, my current
employer appreciates the MUCH lower costs of setting
up a software development environment under Linux.
My salary is £20,000 before tax and deductions (that's about US$32,000 for the benefit of the Americans in the audience).
I started at $32,000/year in 1994 at my first job. I now make $60/hour in California. That works out to be about 120,000 a year US - roughly 4 times what you make.
Talk openly about what you make and what you should make with others in your field. You are being taken advantage of, seriously so.
If you work for a for-profit organization, do not forget that the organization will NOT support you through rough times. Your company has no respect for you. Your boss may know less than you do, but he probably makes more money than you do. You will find that companies will extract as much as possible from you and give you nothing in return. This is a harsh reality, treat the company as they treat you not as you should be treated.
For the record, $40,000 US is more than I could possibly spend.
I make about 4 times that. You're telling me that playing around with computers is more fun than tooling around in sports cars, enjoying a great home stereo system, traveling, etc.? Uh, no. Money lets you have fun.
you must contract too. If you don't, get into it.
I don't know about Europe, but it is about 45K here in the US.
Of course, in France, you have a mandatory 6 weeks off per year, where as I get 0 but I can always quit my job to get time off despite the fact that I have a very hard time loosing those paychecks.
If making a 6 figure salary makes me a geek, then I'm a geek.
The whole point (for me) of working is not money. When I come home at night, I always ask myself "Am I happy?" After playing around with a medium sized network all day, learning different aspects of this new (to me, anyway) OS called Linux, I can safely say I'm happy. I'm very pleased with what I do, and I do it for $6.00 an hour.
I'm a student, or I will be when fall semester begins. I can safely say that in my current situation, I would not rather be doing anything else.
Money is good, don't get me wrong. It buys you Ramen noodles, graphing calculators, and memory. Something that can do all that simply isn't bad. Money is not my primary goal in life, though. Being able to wake up excited to go to work is.
If you're in it for the money, you're probably in it for the wrong reason.
Anonymous Again...
Not by law. 2 weeks is traditional, but if you contract like I do, it is 0 - depending on your contract house, also known as your 'pimp'.
never;
this system can't access more ~; too often ( >0 )
I usually use "unsocial" instead of "antisocial" in this context. "Antisocial" means (to me) the opposite of "social". Whereas "unsocial" seems somewhere in between. (Which still is not the _exact_ shade of meaning I'm looking for, but closer.)
After you work for more than a year or so, you quickly get tired of hardware. I have an $80K quad server at my feet that I use for playing MP3's. Hardware is lame.
You really work for The Man himself???
It's not business, it's philosophy. I'm happy where I'm at, so why should I go around asking, "Can I be happier? Will someone give me even more money?" Because if I do that, and then I find out that somebody will, then I won't be as happy as I was. I'll spend my life in that loop. No thanks.
Just for kicks and so on, why don't you take another job (just for a short time) making more money and then re-evaluate your happiness?
Money may not buy you happiness, but I don't think poverty does either. Call me crazy.
Speaking of moderation, it's pretty sad on this particular subject. Anybody that states the naive point of view of "just give me a fun job and I'll work for dirt" gets bumped up, anybody that serves a reality check gets bumped down. It doesn't seem any of the moderators actually have a job.
I have almost 5 years of experience. I make $130,000 a year contracting in the Silicon Valley area. I've worked in Boston where I made a little less. Although I'm sure I make over the median, I'm absolutely positive that 45K is not the median for my job and experience level.
45K *is* entry level in the MIDWEST for electrical engineers that code. My friend that works in Indiana started at $35 and hour which is about 70K with an MSCS. If you don't have a degree, it is much more difficult (on that note, there have been several articles discussing whether it pays off to go to college - there are a lot of morons on this site saying it isn't worth it when it definately without doubt is).
Contracting is definately it. The typical rate for a contracter in Silicon Valley is 75 to 100 an hour, no exaggeration. You need to be an expert at what you do and be willing to work overtime (without claiming the hours) when you hit an area that is new to you.
Put your resume up at www.monster.com and let the work come to you. Be specific about what you want to do, take pay cuts as necessary and pay hikes when you can, keep up with the technology and diversify across fields. Not everybody is willing to do this or can do it.
The downside to contracting is that you will never make it into management and that you will have to keep up with technology and constantly learn new things. The upside to contracting is that you will never have to go into management you get to keep up with technology and you are constantly learning new things. It's not for everyone.
I have a job in a manufacturing plant and they give us a few perks when its slack:
We can fire up the BBQ grill on the plant floor (or outside if we didn't bring enough to share.) Yummy!
An office with locking doors, nice chairs, and even though they are NT boxen, they have internet access. Perfect relief from stress.
A contractor handles the NT computer problems, but sometimes we are helpful and point out the reset button. No source code and you expect me to fix it?
Electric cars to cruise around. Makes locomotion easier.
We are allowed to specialize in our work.
Good salary, 3 or 4 days work per week, overtime if we wish, many benefits including 100% vesting in profit sharing, and no unions or layoffs to deal with.
Hmm. If money isn't one's prime motivation, then one is stupid, eh? Charming viewpoint you have there.
If you willingly give up a hunk of cash for the great privlege of making your employer more wealthy then you are stupid. Money isn't my prime motivator, and making my boss wealthy isn't my prime motivator. I get just compensation, you are not, and that makes you stupid.
No, what's absolutely critical is not that the original design is good, but that the TEAM DESIGN PROCESS is good. The original design of something rarely resembles the final design.
What is crucial is setting up a design methodology early that makes design changes easy, because *there will be design changes, even rewrites*
For instance, good communication is essential. Documentation of design, code, and even process.
Use of configuration management like CVS, all essential.
Have an effective analysis process where everyone is speaking the same language. Whether it's a common whiteboard, or CASE design tools like UML editors.
If you and your team have standardized procedures and practices, design and redesign go alot smoother.
The worse case is the "emergency/urgent" mode of company operation. This is where everyone does their own thing, and then tries to integrate it together.
Geeks making unilateral changes to APIs without consulting others on the design = bad. Or making modifications and not even documenting them or telling others.
Effective management should be aimed at getting the geeks to stick to common practices, and communicating with the rest of the team.
you've hit it on the head. there's nothing worse than being managed by someone who doesn't have a clue about technology but, thinks that because they're a manager they should make technological decisions.
I think you need to relax a tiny bit and read some more of the posts. There are posts out there that admire their bosses for letting the geeks work.
;)
As well, some geeks like management, and work more productively when they know they have someone overseeing the work, making things go smoothly, etc.
Case in point: id Software yet again. They hired a project manager (Graeme Devine is his name I believe) to oversee the development of Quake3, make sure the game stays on track, etc. I don't think id was "fucking off" this time, they just need someone to make sure everyone knows what they're doing (It's very easy to lose sight on a big project like that).
Oh, and id is more of an exception to the rule. Their "fucking off" and playing with the game was crucial to improving it. If they didn't enjoy "fucking off" with their game, who would want to play it?
BTW, the swearing is unnecessary if you haven't noticed already. Save it for the right time, like when MS releases MS Linux or something
If you offered me 35k/year out of college, I'd laugh in your face. I was getting 40 bucks an hour contract right out of school... (Boston area.)
I know some kids in the north east who started out at 40k (right out of college)... less than a year and half later, one guy is up around 55k.
One kid is getting screwed at the sub 40k level.
One guy demands a raise every 6 months and always gets it. They apparently just pay him more out of fear of him leaving.
They gave him a pathetic 4% salary increase for the year. He told them he demanded more money. Two months later he had another 7%. 11% increase for the year isn't bad!
It depends on the company and the person. Most companies try to pay the minimum - it's only good business sense... but they can afford a lot more.
I consider my brain an investment - if it's not providing at least an additional 8% return each year, then I'm getting screwed.
My company just got some new middle management...
The cool boss was moved to another position and a hard core project management guy was brought in.
This new guy does NOTHING but talk about Microsoft Project and ordering CASE tools all day.
Oh yeah.. he also talks about how we need to hire 20 new people, but can't tell us what they're all going to be doing - cause he doesn't KNOW.
Every other word out of this guys mouth is "MS Project".
It's ridiculous - I just almost 6 hours of meetings today, where effectively nothing got accomplished. And 5 more meetings are set up for next week! We've gone from 1 meeting a week MAX to 3 or 4 MINIMUM!!!
I'm thinking of going into contracting permanently.. Forget this corporate nonsense.
Ha! Another Stream refugee. Stream has to be one of the worst companies to work for in the US. For those of you that don't know, Stream is a tech-support outsource sweatshop. They handle a lot of Microsoft support- products like Office, some of the NT support, some of the 95 support, in addition to doing work for Gateway, HP, US West, 3com, etc.
If you call tech support and get a half-trained idiot on the other end, chances are you have reached Stream.
DC/Silicon Valley & $70Gs? Take a look at your housing costs!
"Cost of Living" is a myth. I've worked both in rural areas (Indiana) and metropolitan (Boston and Silicon Valley). I make twice as much in the metropolitan area and also save twice as much. The bottom line is your net worth.
god forbid there is another recession and they start laying off techies bigtime. then "geeks" will see the other side fo the coin. go ask any engineer/sw developer who has lived through one. basically they (operations folks, beancounters, marketing, and manager will have the luxury of treating geeks any way they like, and paying whatever they think is appropriate. and if you dont like it and make a stink about it there are lines of folks just like you who will be clamoring for your job.
Forgive the anonymous post, but thanks for the positive spin on us ms folks. We are dedicated techno-geeks. We do read /. and keep up with the outside community. We beg our developers for features that we've seen in other products including ones from the *nix world. We are very fortunate to work in a environment that is geek friendly even though it is a large corporation. As the post said, don't sell yourself short. If you've got the talents, put them to work and let your work speak for itself. Whining won't go very far.
Making $38. 7 yr experience, no degree, 3 years of it working for the company I work for now. Not to irritate you or anything, but if you had had a degree, and had that 7 years of experience, chences are you would be making 2-3 times that $38k. Trust me, and all you kiddies out there who think you may not need a degree, this could be you. I know more people without degrees who are very skilled who face the same battle. Get a DeVry weekend degree if thats all you have time for, BUT GET THE DEGREE!!!!!!!!!!!!
Just remember, there's a scarcity of geeks now.
But there are thousands of geeks in India, China, etc - that'll wear the suits and ties, AND be reasonably talented. The more unreasonable demands you make, the more desirable moving your job to one of these people is. Don't belive me? Look at the bills the tech companies are pushing through congress. Look at the makeup of large companies (Microsoft, etc.). Then think twice about demands about only working in Unix and wandering about the office barefoot.
All you young 'uns need to cut the above screed, paste it into a graphics program, and make it your desktop image. It may not be The Truth, but anything that happens between you and any company you ever work for can be explained in terms of what the nice man just patiently explained.
By the way: I read slashdot, I load advertisements, I HIRE your whining prima-donna six-figure asses, and I really like the way moderation has ruined the site.
Are there that many managers out there to keep a magazine like Fast Company profitable? Or is it just that its readers are a bunch of wannabee managers who think that buying that stuff enhances their probability of being promoted?
Excellent points. The ability to stretch one's mental legs is critical to geek enjoyment of a job, I think. I worked in one technical position which I ended up quitting because management decided that it would be a good idea to treat us like assembly-line workers - show up at 8 and leave at 5, no overtime, no training. Don't touch that system, it's not your responsibility (even though you're the only one who really knows how to handle it, it's not part of your official job description). You want to improve something? Send it through Change Control (a bunch of managers who know very little about the systems). You will work on only the problems we tell you to work on; don't think about anything else.
But geeks work best when they have the opportunity to explore and learn. The problem with this, from a business standpoint, is that it makes it hard to see what a geek is doing that's useful to the company. Too many companies are stuck in an Industrial Revolution model - Employee X works for 8 hours per day and produces 5 widgets per hour, each widget being valued at Y dollars...but geek work, despite being technical, is still more art than science. And how many other industries are built around giant groups of artists being expected to produce "deliverables" on time?
The author of this article uses the word "antisocial" in the wrong way. Psychologists say that antisocial behavior is when people are not showing appropriate regard for society. For example, murder is a form of antisocial behavior. We might spend all day pushing buttons behind a computer instead of dealing with people, but I don't think its appropriate to call geeks "antisocial". Besides, nearly everyone I know that has a "people" always complains about how much people are assholes and they wish they didn't have to work with them. Does that make them antisocial ?
There are no PHBs
?!
I had a boss that:
* faked a demonstration at Comdex with a competitor's product
* couldn't beleive I wouldn't work weekends anymore after I worked 70 hour work weeks for 3 months with no overtime
* thought that 30K a year with no benefits in 1996 was just compensation
* didn't have a degree past high school
* micromanaged
* had the stupidity to say that I was lucky to have a job with him
* is now bankrupt because I left the company without notice.
Does HE qualify? The company is Rapid Technology and the asshole I worked for was Steve Levine and I'll always treasure the experience because it taught me that even when you work on fun and interesting stuff, it's stupid not to get paid for it. It was a real time motion JPEG encoder for video editing and the company is 6 feet under because I put it there.
Power corrupts, watcha going to do?
The difference between a geek that makes 30K and the a geek that makes 100K is that one geek is a very stupid geek. That's it. Well, that and 70 thousand dollars.
Do like Malda does: just moderate 'em. Score 'em -1 if they disagree with you, score 'em +1 if you agree. That way you can keep the moderators happy. (laugh, it's ironic)
I'll say this straight out: money counts for something. It is not the overriding factor in what I use when picking jobs. On the flipside, it is not irrelevant when picking jobs. What I'm working on, where, and the company's 'style' also affect my decision-- I have ranges of tolerance for all of them.
Maybe you're lucky enough (or tolerant enough) to not care about income. But, please don't pretend that everyone's the same as you-- we all have our priorities, our beliefs, our perferences. And thus, the importance of pay is rated differently by people. Nobody's "right" or "wrong" about it, but you need to open your eyes and be tolerant about differing beliefs.
I'm a geek turned manager-geek, and my rule of thumb is "lead by example". The only way to manage geeks is to have their respect - the worst work experiences I have had were when I was working for MBA-trained idiots who never touched a keyboard in their lives.
Even if you don't code every day, you ought to keep your skills sharp. Geeks know when they're dealing with someone who is out of touch with reality. And they don't like it.
I have to agree with a lot of what's been said here. I used to program for my university, and it was a nightmare. Nothing could be done or decided without 23 levels of sign-off from the vast bureaucracy. Now, I work in a company with just a few programmers and graphics people. Our boss spends most of his time on the road, selling product, while we are completely undisturbed, free to do the work, improve on the work, and start new initiatives. Our boss rightly defers to us on all technical issues, and we let him deal with the business end of stuff. It works out great. Almost all of the stuff I create in my spare work time is sold, or used in future products, and my boss show his appreciation for every project. He even got us out of a hellish contract when the client was being impossible. It all just clicks. We're like the Beatles, or something... the right handful of people brought together at the right time doing what we do best, and I love it. Everyone should be in such an arrangement at some point in time.
I used to code. Now I'm a manager and my number 1 priority and responsitibility to my employees is to REMOVE anything that gets in the way of their work. If it's me, another manager, or ANYTHING that will distract an employee, it's my job to handle it. I tell each of my employees this, often and they know they can approach me with any problems and it will be handled.
I remove the road-blocks, stay out of the way and they make me look good.
There are no PHBs. There is no subculture of "geeks" who fit into any one mold, no matter how vague and general you make it. This kind of generalization seems to be getting really rampant on Slashdot and similar forums. The world (and the people who populate it) might look that way if you're still in college or just graduated, but trust me, those sorts of generalizations end up hurting you a lot more than they help, when people you thought you had figured out turn out to be a lot different from what you expected. The terms "PHB" and "geek" have become like the term "FUD" around here- overused to the point of meaninglessness. :(
Gosh, Slashdot readers are so naive and one sided. It's "workers" (geeks) vs "bosses" (management)
I don't know what company you people are working for, maybe it's just the Europeans? But in Silicon Valley, and the DC area, there are two primary types of geeks:
1) consultant geeks
2) company oriented geeks
#1 are freelancers, run their own small firm of other geeks, do web projects for hire.
#2 are geeks in startups.
Geeks in startups get:
1) a large starting salary ($60k minimum)
2) signing bonus
3) paid relocation
4) stock options or stock
5) and the ability to become a manager.
Most of the time, the startup hires about 5-10 people, and has about 15 total. Then, during the next hiring wave after more funding is secured, the geeks with experience and who own their software modules (just like maintainers in open-source), get to manage the new people who come in and show them the ways.
Have any of you Microsoft bashes ever personally met anyone who works at MS? I have, and they are just as dedicated geeks as you are. Most MS project managers are highly technical coders. Alot of them sit on IETF and W3C committees.
If you are not working for a company like this, YOU ARE A MORON WHO IS SELLING HIMSELF SHORT.
My own company just closed a round of hiring and we couldn't pay anyone less than $70k.
One of my good friends who never went to college and started scripting two years ago got $80k plus $6k signing bonus. My girlfriend makes $75k doing Visual Basic programming.
The job market is so thin nowadays. I am sick of reading about geeks whining. If you really think your worth hot shit, quit your job and get another one.
My other experience is, *geeks need management*
Geeks have large egos, and when you put a few of them together, invariably there is friction. Secondly, geeks spend a lot of time fucking off. Browsing Slashdot everyday from work, working on side projects that no one asked them too. Geeks usually don't have great organization and time management skills I have found, including my self personally.
Yes, there are PHBs, but you narrow minded people think anyone who is not a coder is somehow a skillless dumb-ass, and that a company with nothing but geeks would be a paradise. In my experience, without business development people (and I'm not one), most geek businesses would stall. (and I am a geek)
Case in point: ID Software and Quake. During Quake1 development, they spent too much time fucking off, playing the game, researching side projects they through were cool, and not completing the game. They finally had to hire management to come in and organize the office culture.
Ion Storm appears to be in the same position, with very bad management. Netscape also fucked itself with poor management, flip flopping on projects, development plans, etc.
Geeks think only technology matters, when in fact, the most valuable asset in a company is its people and how they are organized. Effective organization and focus makes all the difference between being market leader, or market loser.
How many of you so-called geeks have ever picked up and read a book on economics, marketing, or management?
I hope I never hire someone who is so super-specialized in one thing (technology), that they don't have the hunger for learning or open-mind to consider other things.
If I did hire someone, and they espoused views like "management isn't needed, marketing is bullshit, spreadsheets is bullshit, MBA's aren't any use. Only code and technology matters, oh, and my paycheck" I can guarantee you they would stay a n assembly line coder.
It's time to consider this essential fact: There are lots of people in the world who don't build things, but yet whose job is totally critical to your lifestyle, and without whom, you would starve.
PHBs included.
Posted by coyotesf:
Actually, I "got into computers" because they're so trivial in comparison to general relativity and particle mechanics. Dropped out of school with 12 credits to go on my physics bs, grad school lurking around the corner, and I'd just burned out.
Since I needed to make money, I just gravitated toward something simple and easily profitable. I suppose I'm not a "true" geek...after all, I had an active sex life (until marriage, of course!), play sports, tan in the summer...however, I'm a jammin' engineer and architect.
I'm not a "peopler", or a "worker", or a "silverback" (whatever that is.) Trying to categorize geeks, engineers, and other techies into such narrow categories is doomed to failure. Not all the great ones are pasty-faced and socially awkward.
Posted by Unit_52:
I have to agree here, I thing the man has a very adult veiwpoint of the whole situation. In this day and in our particular society we no longer have the same needs for survival and success. Especially when your young, who cares about having more money than you can happily spend, why shaould we be putting things away for our kids? look at the kids of rick parents, dont they just get up your fucking nose? And why is that? because they never HAD to do anything, poverty builds charicter and pecarious situations are the make of a man. (or woman, or free thinking concious enity, or whatever)
What Im trying to say is that we no longer have to spend all our engiesin survival, we dont have to hunt for food and we certaily dont kneed to have lots of kids and support them. Go with decedence and do what you want to do because the only thing holding you back is a lack of imagination.
Unit_52
>That's exactly how I wish my manager would see my contribution to the company here.
I work on (no hissing now) proprietary software for the commercial market. At a previous employer, we had to sneak our names into the released project Easter Egg-style, as management didn't believe in putting our names on it. At my current company, my name is among those in the About box. Which company do you think I enjoy working for more?
My biggest mistake with the first company was not leaving it earlier...
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
This sums up, for me at any rate, the fundamental motivation for what I do and how I want to do it:
"But, as important as money is to tech people, it's not the most important thing. Fundamentally, geeks are interested in having an impact. They believe in their ideas, and they like to win. They care about getting credit for their accomplishments. In that sense, they're no different from a scientist who wants credit for work that leads to a Nobel Prize. They may not be operating at that exalted level, but the same principle applies."
That's exactly how I wish my manager would see my contribution to the company here. But no, arbitrary technical decisions reign. When that happens, all trust is lost. Fini
"shop smart:shop s-mart" ash
If your parents are divorced you get a grant? Do you have any resources to back this up. My parents are divorced and we have some income, but it all goes bye bye. I wish places wouldnt judge how much you can afford just by looking at your income before cost. My mother has to pay out 6-7 thousand a year for my brothers medical bills, and we have 3 other kids in the family, but all they see is that she makes a descent sum of money. If only places took a look at other things such as medical cost before they decided how much grant/finanicial aid you are worthy of. Same thing in high schools, and every where else.The IRS is the only company/group/agency/etc.. that gives you good breaks.
Jeff Knox
Just give us our task and get out of our way. Geek work isn't like grunt work. You can't count the number of lines of code we write or amount of CPU time we log and make any meaningful judgement from that. Most geek work is creative in nature and can't just be turned on and off with output rigidly measured like a water faucet. We may get a lot done on some days. Or we may zone for a week out staring at a block of code and produce nothing. When I code for a project, I tend to create all the functions (tools) I think I will need. There's nothing to show the boss at this time. The GUI comes last. At the very end, all the tools are all linked together to complete the project and it appears (to the boss) that a lot of work is suddenly completed in rapid manner (whilst he had chastized you earlier for 'dragging your feet' and not 'producing anything meaningful'). And looking over our shoulders all the time, or being interrupted by phone calls only slows us down. What is very important and what management doesn't seem to 'get' is that geek work requires uninterrupted concentration; but not only that, geeks need the knowledge, in advance, that they will be allowed to work undisturbed for a known period of time. After all, if the boss asks you to handle the support phone, you're not going to get much work done. Though it may not ring often or even ring at all, just knowing that it might ring and saddle you with 1-60 minutes of unrelated work at any time, or 5-minutes troubleshoots every 45 minutes, randomly throughout the day causes you enough anxiety to hinder your work ability. Just give us the requirements and leave us be. We'll do fine. Really.
Enough to retire comfortably after 5 years, so we can start writing open source code for free.
If you're rich enough to not have to worry about money for the rest of your life (how many frickin' ferrari's does one man need? You've got ONE ass, and can put in only one driver's seat at a time).
So why not donate the rest of your life to a worthy cause?
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
-jafac's law
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Maybe the reason is that you've not "settled down" into needing more money. I've discovered that I need more money than I needed 5 years ago. I now have a wife, a child, a car, and am trying to buy a house. Yet, I buy less "fun" stuff than I ever have. My computer nearly died, and that would have meant that I would literally have to go completely without a computer. That would have been hell. Because of that, I work my butt off doing two jobs.
Oh, by the way, I'm making a "nice" $38,000 now here in the US. (programming, 7 years experience, no degree. it sucks.)
Why does everybody think that because I said I'm not in it for the money, I must be poverty stricken?
See, there's the rub: You're not poverty stricken. Since you've not been bitten by the "don't have enough money" bug, you're not wanting more. Trust me. I've got an old computer which crashes often. I'd REALLY love to get a new one. In all honesty, what I've got now is better than what I had. I had a '286, which I've built up to a Pentium 133 by buying parts that cost no more than $50 a time (and each time, I did not buy anything else "fun" that month). My entertainment budget is $30/mo.
Trick is: Kids + House + Car + Student Loans + Past Debt from Unemployement = Need More Money.
For the curious: Making $38. 7 yr experience, no degree, 3 years of it working for the company I work for now. As I understand it, I make industry minimum. Guess what: I was happy about my job before, but now knowing that even with 7 years experience, I'm "less valuable" (aka paid less) than new recruits, kinda ticks me off.
Just like air filling a vacuum, your spending
and expenses tend to expand to match your income.
No wife (or Husband or Partner) required.
What is the median salary for an entry level software engineers in England and other countries worldwide anyway ?
I think that number is significantly higher here in the US than elsewhere....
Does anyone know ?
It'll probably be blocked sometime soon, anyone who can please mirror this site
Use it wisely. You don't want to have the domain peg in your company logs and be noticed.
If I had the bandwith, I would gladly be a host for the ACP program. It needs to be mirrored as much as possible for people to be able to access in times of need.
Many thanks to the creator and maintainers.
This might be what you need to get around filtering software:
http://ians.978.org
"Although I have nothing against making more money I'd rather be doing interesting things. Personally I'd be willing to take pay cuts if it meant working on things I really liked. I'd rather"
I am not sure I fully buy this argument. Many of the people making it are in their early 20's, which means that came into the workforce since 1990. Since the early 1990's (1993 or therabouts), the market for technical professionals in the USA has been incredible, with plenty of job opportunities and ever-growing salaries. In that environment, it is easy to say you would would for less money - you don't have to .
But if we ever return to a situation like the 1970's, when there was a surplus of technical professionals, employers held the whip hand, and (real) salaries were falling, I think you might hear a different tune. And believe me, large employers are doing whatever it takes right now to try to get back to what they see as a "normal" labor market.
Also, there is also the issue of age/perspective. It is again easier to say you would work for less when you aren't facing mortgage payments now and college tuitions in the next few years. It _will_ happen to you some day, even if you don't believe it at 22!
sPh
"5) When a technical person gives a solution don't allow management types to circumvent it with a political solution. It will not fix technical problems.
6) Keep the politics out of our hair, it is a distraction we don't need."
You bring up good points, but let me offer a slightly perspective from a manager's point of view:
Any organization of significant size has resource contstraints, multiple agendas, and conflicting goals. And typically there is no clear cut technical resolution to these situations. Deciding what to do in this environment generates conflict. At least since Cro-Magnan man learned to talk, politics is the method used to resolve these conflicts.
When technical professionals refuse to learn the basics of their organization's political culture, and don't participate in that culture at even a minimal level, they cut themselves off from a (not _the_, but _a_) critical forum for organizational decision making. And the manager thinks, "If the geeks refuse to learn the basics of this arena, what is their complaint when they don't get the decisons they want?"
Note that I don't necessarily agree with this POV, but complaints about "politics" should at least take it into account. And if you reject it, how do you recommend that resource constraints be resolved?
sPh
[it's probably a bad sign when you start out thinking that your comment will be poorly organized, but I'll give it a try anyway. sPh]
I am not sure I buy the oft-heard statement that geeks/nerds/engineers "lack social skills". First, we have all heard the stories about how geeks can't meet members of the opposite (or desired sex), can't get dates, spend their Friday nights wiping the zit cream off their 19" monitors, and so on. (And to avoid being too elliptical, we are primarily speaking of males when we say these things). But by age 25 or so most geeks who desire to find long-term relationships with the opposite sex, have done so or are in a position to do so. The qualities which are less appealing at age 17 start to look better around 25 (intelligence, persistance, loyalty, oddball humour, and not least a job that pays big $$$). So things start to even out there, and continue evening out through the 30's.
Next, let's take a detour though (syndicated columnist) Bob Greene's Student Council theory of government. Briefly (and there is no way I can do the deep power of Mr. Greene's insightful writing justice here), Greene states that the people running our government (and large institutions) are basically the people who ran for student council president in 8th grade. Much as I normally dislike Bob, I think he is on the money here. And those people have a certain _set_ of social skills, which are commonly thought of in modern western society as "correct" or "good" social skills. These include schmoozing, being at ease in groups of strangers, effortless dissembling (or outright lying) to gain desired goals, disdain for those who can't or won't dissemble, and others I am sure you can add.
Now it's true that the average geek doesn't have these "correct" social skills. And therefore, those in power view (or would prefer that the world view) geeks as "being without social skills". But I would argue that this isn't necessarily the case. It is just possible that geeks have, and are developing, a _different_ set of social skills that include honesty, trustworthiness, loyalty, and plain speaking.
Further, I would argue that the currently dominant group (the "student council") feel threatened by people (geeks or others) who act this way consistently. Thus the need to attack and marginalize "geeks with no social skills". But it ain't necessarily so.
Finally, and along the same lines, I would think a little deeper about Schmidt's statements concerning geeks always trying to tell the truth. I think what makes politicians, standard model senior managers, and the like nervous about geeks is the style of discussion when alternatives/choices involving hard technical choices are present. A typical engineer, when asked to give an opinion on a topic, will respond in the fashion taught by the military: (1) facts (2) observations (3) opinion (4) recommendation. In that order.
So when asked by PHB, "What Internet technology should we use?", the geek replies: "foobar is fast but expensive. jarjar is cheap but unreliable [facts]. Most companies our size who use jarjar are happy with the sevice, although their super geeks complain [observation]. Based on my experience I don't like jarjar's business practices [opinion]. I recommend we purchase a 12-month, terminable contract from jarjar [recommendation]."
However, manager-types think that this is an evasive answer, while geeks types think it is a complete, honest answer which gives the decision maker everything he needs. Everyone walks away unhappy: the manager thinks he can't get good advice, the geek either thinks his advice is ignored or that decisions "never get made". Both sides think the other is unable to communicate.
Well, I ment to say more but that is probably enough for now. I will write more if there is any demand.
sPh
You had poor parents, eh? Lucky. The other trick is to get them to get a divorce, apparently then you get a full grant. Not that I had any luck with that. By the way, did you get your kippered herring with the university crest on it yet?
-- fsck -f -b 8193
Hmm, 6 jobs in 5 years, nope, I don't take stupid/evil management lightly..
Geekus Recipiet Terram
And the Geek Shall Inherit the Earth...
Buy the ticket, take the ride.
Let's have a little reality check here. Most of the "guidelines" that I've seen suggested here could apply to most workers -- not just the "geeks." Treat people well, and they will perform for you. It's that simple, and it applies to everyone -- not just the geek elite.
Good to hear from you. One of the roles I've played as coder geek in several organizations is highly unofficial liason to the writers. Kept getting managers who either didn't want to bother with it or who actually believed that "it's just writing -- they can whip something up at the last minute"... Couldn't always get the writers into planning soon enough, but at least they knew what was coming down.
On the payoff side, several of the best unofficial UI reviewers I've had have been writers. IMHO, they're much more likely to have a feel for how a customer thinks than us coders.
dan
I'd just like to point out that not all coders are true geeks, and not all geeks are coders. I'm a techwriter and this article applies as much to me as to any geek out there. Give me a project that I find interesting, and I'll put in 80 hour weeks working on it...not just on the docs, but on learning the technology, coming up with new approaches and ideas and possible refinements. I'll voluntarily do QA testing, alpha/beta testing, and I'll learn the tech well enough that I can be very effective at both of these. In the end, you get more work out of me, a better product, better docs, and a very happy techwriter.
I'm also a total sucker for positive feedback -- you tell me I'm doing a good job & make me feel appreciated, I'll reward you by working even harder.
On the other hand, if you make me feel under- or un-appreciated, and/or make me work on boring stuff all the time (everyone has to do boring stuff part of the time), and if I end up doing work that doesn't teach me new stuff, etc...I'll be looking for a new job.
Just don't forget that you have non-coder geeks as well, and they are also important to your projects and company.
- d
I work for The Man. My line manager was fired 4 months ago and so far hasn't been replaced. Result : a large increase in morale, I'm getting more done -- work AND /. -- and it's better stuff, too.
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
You can find the herding cats article at
http://www.fastcompany.com/online/22/cdu.html.
reward based on accomplishment and effectiveness, not seniority. publish the reward algorithm, avoid political influences. publish the reward algorithm for non-tech folks. explore non-traditional rewards.
don't lie. if you must lie, explain why. if you can't explain everything, explain as much as possible and invite suggestions. give serious thought to these suggestions; you asked, after all.
get to the point. being convivial takes time from playing. time well-spent for a geek is a like a daze of intensity. learn to recognize when someone is in deep mode. schedule interruptions at boundaries or better yet, not at all. state your agenda up front. #define your assumptions.
establish or at least allow side projects. encourage lateral thinking and profilable solution strategies. but don't focus too much; grant some (significant) leeway for personal interest and growth. do not harsh on minor subversions.
Did you work for an ISP? :-)
I was webmaster for one for several years (I wasn't even out of high school at the time) and they expected me to answer web-related calls from stupid users and code a really huge dynamic system for a client and maintain the web server that was also all dynamic and allowed clients to use a web browser to configure e-mail, files, cgis, etc, etc. (We did that all in-house) Plus I had to go to school most of the day.
Needless to say, I'm not there anymore. It was impossible to get anything done with that kind of load and that many interruptions.
l8r
Sean
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
Geeks _do_ need management.
...but certainly not in the fashion management seems to think of itself. Management has a number of roles.
Management's primary role in a technological field is to remove obstacles from the paths of geeks. Get the details out of the way so that the geek can solve the problem at hand.
Management is also a clearinghouse for decisions. A good project has to have a focus, and you can't get focus by committee. This doesn't actually mean, though, that a manager needs to be technically oriented-- a good manager can handle this sort of decision. Technical background gives one an edge in the decision-making process, but even a manager with a non-technical background can (though it seems he rarely does) get all the information required to make an intelligent decision. This aspect of management is the big time consumer-- and is, in fact, often farmed out to technical types; team leads or project managers. One place I've worked had six or eight projects going on. This made for six or eight project managers, and then one manager above all of them. The one manager covered the first part (getting the obstacles out of the way) for all six or eight groups.
Why is "management" considered "higher" than geeks? Because they need the authority to enforce the decisions. One has to have a chain of command. But if you want to keep your geeks happy, this isn't the important thing. If the manager is respected by the geek, you don't need a "chain of command" to give you "authority" (and it is possible for geeks to respect managers-- maybe even common. If you're not getting respect from your geeks, there's a reason!) Management, like anything else, is a job. If you do it well, geeks will respect you. And the best managers for geeks are ones that don't look like they're managing-- they do the first two things well. But they don't go getting in the way.
Trouble is, this goes against everything else managers read. Managers want to be good at what they do, just like everyone else. Gets 'em promoted. So they read, usually books on management or magazines. What do the books and magazines say? Things like "If it isn't broke, fix it!" and "be proactive!" What they never do seem to say is, "After you've fixed all the things that _are_ broke!" and "about appropriate things."
And that's why geek management needs to be different. Geeks don't respect people who change things just because "change is good". Geeks, being problem solvers, tend to like problem solvers.
-F
I think Fast Company also ran an article talking about how herding cats was actually pretty easy.
Odd - I'm making 21-23k after bonuses and its all going into student debt repayments and rent... ok I've got at least 4 times the disposable income I had as a student but thats still not exactly loads.
Tom
I think it all depends on your image of a geek, but most peoples standards I qualify (Comp Sci degree, ex roleplayer, work as a programmer) but thats not how I think of myself.
There was a lot of truth in that artical - I want to solve problems, I want to be listened to, I do give answers to exactly the question I'm asked (although I do often expand around that). Basically that artical was very much talking about people who are like me.
It might be arrogance but I think I fall into the catagory of one of the group leaders, certainly I've been taking on that role with most of the companies new joiners (even tho' one of them has 20 years more experiance than I do).
Our company is about to reorganise and I'm going to be moving into the consultancy group - simply because my productivity is either outstanding or terrible based upon how interesting I feel a project is... and consultancy will give me lots of short interesting projects.
I admit it shouldn't be quite that binary but I find it almost impossible to concentrate on something boring.
Given this the incentives mentioned in the artical make a lot of sense - awards made by peer review would mean a hell of a lot to me. Thats an award made by someone who understood what I was trying to say.
I also liked the attitude of very light management - one of the things I fight hardest here is being told "don't worry about X your manager is dealing with that" - I want to worry about it - I want my projects in context. Basically I don't want to be managed - I want to have support made available when I request it.
I also want (and intend) to be paid very well for what I do - but that is actually secondary. Once I have enough to be comfortable my job decisions will be made purely on interest level - and working enviroment.
just my usual collection of semi ordered brain dumps.
Tom
Hmm. I have an old thing I wrote a few years
back sitting around on my web page...
http://www.plethora.net/~seebs/faqs/hacker.html
Not sure if that's the same kind of thing.
99% of managing hackers is mostly-like managing
anyone else well. The difference is just that
hacker productivity will vary a lot more with
quality of environment.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
First a little history: I've been in computers (hardware and software) since '78 but that doesn't make me an expert.
1) Give us an evironment where we are allow to think. Don't distract us with time sheets (on a daily basis) and micro-management. Many of us wouldn't be able to put in less than 40 if we tried. And those that do will have their end customer notifying management shortly. And if we work more hours reimburse us for our time (so I guess time sheets are need).
2) Don't decide which tools we have to use. Power Point may be good for marketing but is next to useless for engineering diagrams. If you need to limit the tools because of support issues then ask us for our preferences.
3) Acknowledge our good deeds, let us know about our bad ones. We can't fix something if we don't know it's broken and Marketing didn't fix the technical problems by esculating (and annoying us) so stop giving them our credit!
4) When we are working on a problem keep out of our hair. Hourly conference calls only slow us down and keep us from fixing the problems. Also it annoys us to no end to sit for 55 minutes so we can be rushed in giving our presentation in 5 minutes!
5) When a technical person gives a solution don't allow management types to circumvent it with a political solution. It will not fix technical problems.
6) Keep the politics out of our hair, it is a distraction we don't need.
7) Pay us fairly and give us incentive plans. It's nice that Marketing and Sales have incentive plans but they were not able to make the sale without our help. Also if we see a job were we have the same conditions but we're payed more we will leave (we are not stupid!).
8) Keep our work interesting, we recognize dead ends and we'll leave even if you pay us more.
9) Support us with managers who understand us and do not resent us.
10) Group us together with other techies (of like work). We often need to bounce ideas off other techies to verify that we are on the right track. Breaking up the hardware engineers to work directly with the software engineers (or vice versa) may sound like a good idea but makes it difficult to perform sound board discussions. Or worse don't put the engineers with marketing. 'Suits' (Marketing/Sales) make us nervous!
11) Give us the tools and training we need to keep current. Then allow us to use both. I've seen enough companies train their people only to have them leave when they box them into the same job. We need avenues of advancement just like management but don't expect us to become management.
Neil Cherry - Linux Smart Homes For Dummies
1.Give me cool stuff to work on.
2.Recognize and appreciate the work I do
for you.
3.Stay the hell out of my way.
This is my list too. I voluntarily left a startup (of which I was a cofounder) shortly before the IPO because the new regime wouldn't come up with even one of these.
What I found astounding was the degree to which other geeks would put up with boring work, and lack of recognition, (not to mention outright hostility and a pay cut).
I think too many geeks & nerds take whatever their stupid/evil management dish out. I find this incomprehensible given the opporunitites available today, but some people just hate change.
Loyalty to a company is dumb. Be loyal to your ideas and your values, and look for a company whose interests coincide with yours.
I dont know about anyone else, I could care less what I am payed as long as it covers my need's and at least some of my wants and the work is intresting constantly changing and I am learning something, face it to be a geek is not just to enjoy technology, math or other, but to be constantly learning new aspects of that subject, If I ran out of stuff to learn I would go work on cars till I knew them to the best of my ability, then something else.
"A learning experience is one of those things that says, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.'" - DNA
Hey, I'm a writer, so clearly the writer is the most qualified.
Seriously, the lead on a multi-disciplinary team should know what he's an expert on, and what he isn't, and should refrain from laying down the law outside his expertise. He may occasionally say "We're making this decision so that we can move on, and it may not be the perfect decision", but he won't say "I'm right, because I'm the lead."
It all has to do with respect. If the lead respects the team members, they may well return the favor. If the lead is insistent on her authority, rather than using her influence and experience to persuade, she will find that she has less and less real clout.
Ugly things happen when the nominal lead of the
project is less qualified than the nominal team
members. If (when!) the lead overrides sound technical decisions on the grounds that "I'm lead, and you're not!", resentment builds.
A happy team trusts the lead, when there is one, to make decisions based on what's best for the project, not on what's best for the lead's ego.
Usually, not always, good people are also confident people. The worst case is the incompetent insecure person, who regards every challenge to his ideas as a challenge to his authority.
I read somewhere that "If it can't be described on one 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper, it cannot be understood." This seems to apply to documentation as well.
Generally speaking, the only person who reads pages 2-50 of a 50-page "document" is the person who wrote it.
Just a thought.
The trick for is to have parents as poor as church mice, so you get a student grant (even though it's a pittance), and to take out as small a student loan as you can get away with. Since I spent much of my free time in the Fyshbowl (look it up on Everything for an explanation), I incurred few costs apart from living expenses :-)
Zero annual leave? Ouch! That is outrageous! I get five weeks per year; I don't know if that's mandated by law though. I would go crazy working non-stop without a break.
Right on. I started full-time work as a software engineer last September. My salary is £20,000 before tax and deductions (that's about US$32,000 for the benefit of the Americans in the audience). This is more money than I know what to do with. I move some into a high-interest savings account every month, and put some into a pension scheme. I still have a surplus. I don't need any pay rises. I would like more interesting work though.
"You need to give them a problem or a set of objectives, provide them with a large amount of hardware, and then ask them to solve the problem."
If only everyone thought like this! Fortunately the people I work for don't micromanage, and they just pumped in 35K+ for some really nice hardware.
The real important freedom is the ability to use whichever software you like. In general the free stuff is the best, but not always.
Ever say "No thanks, I have enough RAM"?
I did. I did the contracting thing for 6 months, which basically doubled my money. Hated it, gave it up.
Money may not buy you happiness, but I don't think poverty does either. Call me crazy.
Why does everybody think that because I said I'm not in it for the money, I must be poverty stricken?
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
It's not business, it's philosophy. I'm happy where I'm at, so why should I go around asking, "Can I be happier? Will someone give me even more money?" Because if I do that, and then I find out that somebody will, then I won't be as happy as I was. I'll spend my life in that loop. No thanks.
I know people who change jobs every 6 months just for the salary bump. They don't seem to count the stress of a different work commute, change of social life, paperwork to be filled out, blah blah blah...they're only chasing the almighty buck. They never have a chance to decide if they even like their work, because they're just there to pick up a paycheck. Want to retire early, they say. Want to drop dead early, more like it.
My former boss called me just today and asked what it would take to get me to come to his new place. I'm sure many people here would have quoted a number. I said no thank you. Maybe my bliss is just ignorance, but all my debts are paid, and I'm not going hungry.
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
(1) Doesn't mean that I want to write videogames for a living. It just means I want something that I find challenging. Job#1 I was doing digital certificates, Job#2 was XML/Swing, Job#3 is natural language. Fun fun!
(2) Could mean money, but not at the expense of #1. More often it means ego strokes. I recently got a magazine article published, and my boss sent copies to all the higher-ups in the company, something I didn't expect. Back at company#1 I was surprised when the president mentioned me by name in his yearly state-of-the-company address. Stuff like that, combined with cool stuff to work on, will keep me alot happier than paying me double and telling me to work on boring shit.
(3) means I'm one of those arrogant assholes who thinks that the rules don't apply to him. I admit it. I'm a geek, I'm a hacker, I'm a different breed than every employee you've had for the past 20 years, so don't push your dress codes and your administrative rules down my throat, because they'll stifle what I can do for you. White shirt and tie everyday? No thank you. No food in my cube? Forget it. I will do my 80+ hour workweeks for you, you don't even have to pay me hourly or overtime, but as a result of that I will take off my shoes and walk around in my socks, I will have my radio in my cube, and a box of Poptarts in my desk. If some manager somewhere thinks that the tradeoff isn't adequate, that's his choice, but he's an idiot.
For the record, I left job#1 because of item#1 (they killed my project and told me no more Java). I left job#2 because of #2 (a brief consulting stint where I was a hired whore), and I'm currently at job#3 where they just put me on their "emerging technologies team" (covering #1) boosted my salary and let me publish some articles (covering #2), and I'm sitting here in my socks listening to MP3's munching on a poptart (covering #3). :)!
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
Extended gratitude
Dave
~ Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity ~
Hmm. If money isn't one's prime motivation, then one is stupid, eh? Charming viewpoint you have there.
Ha! This is our most redeeming feature.
It's nice that this guy recognizes that without geeks there would be no technological industries, but he's still stuck in the Dilbert-esque mindset that developers/engineers/artists/etc can do nothing without the "enlightened" leadership of management. Managers without technical backgrounds are not our leaders. They exist to manage resources, schmooze customers, and keep us grounded in fiscal reality, but they have no business making technical decisions. They do not merit higher salaries, nor should they have greater clout than senior developers.
The CEO of Novell isn't successful because he knows how to manage geeks, he is successful because he is one. He knows the technology, therefore he knows how to make clueful decisions reagarding it. The developers respect him for it, so he has legitimate authority. A manager without respect has no real authority, only the authority to sign paychecks.
I'm afraid this article do the opposite of the intentions of its author. Mediocre managers will read it and think "ah, so that's how I control my geeks. Now they will do my bidding!" which is exactly the way to piss us off. Managers should learn humility, learn that respect must be earned, and not try to manipulate us.
All geeks got into computers because of two seperate drives: a need to solve problems and a social need to value logic above personal factors. Thus social skills are not a top priority. Managing geeks requires recognizing the three seperate types of geeks. 'Workers', 'Peoplers' and "Silverbacks'. Every programming community has their own of each. Populations differ by system characteristics.
'Silverbacks' are the rarest. They have worked in computers forever. Geek managers trust them to solve the hardest problems. They absolutely need to feel indispensible and adored, but only geeks should interact with them. Don't even think of moving them into management. Treat their cubicles as the holiest of holies. They are however, the perfect compliment to 'Peoplers' geeks, who should bounce their ideas off of a silverback before commiting resources to them. Don't bother getting silverbacks any training.
'Workers' form the majority of all geek populations. Given a standard toolbox they can solve standard problems. They respond somewhat to cross-training. Occasional training is apreciated. They really should only meet with, be promoted over, or be responsible to fellow geeks. Programming teams are their forte.
'Peoplers' are the only safe geeks to interact with non-geek employees. They need to be in the loop. They actually thrive on being liasons. Often they are not the best programmers. They should be plugged into programming teams on different projects. Their own projects should be small, low-priority and permitted to fail. This keeps them in the geek world. 'Peoplers' can definately become overloaded so they need their programming time and a safe haven. Training has the greatest benefit to these geeks. These people are absolutely essential to the smooth functioning of your company. Don't promote these people into geek manager functions, but treasure them in other ways. But keep them geeks.
So long and thanks for all the fish . . . !!!
It wasn't called the "Managers' Guide to Geeks", but rather, "The Hacker FAQ", and Peter Seebach wrote it. It's for managers, about understanding your hacker :). It's on www.plethora.net/~seebs/faqs/hacker .html and is worth a read if you haven't seen it before.
The geeks control the limits of your business.
... They care about getting credit for their accomplishments.
Haven't heard this phrased quite in this way before - very direct.
Fundamentally, geeks are interested in having an impact.
This is what is hard to explain to some people. There are so many people that are only worried about how much they make. If you're going to be doing something for a significant amount of time, make it something worthwhile to your beliefs.
The rest of the article has more specific ideas, but it seems to me it all comes down to knowing your people and their abilities, and motivating them to do their best work. I do like the idea of small, fast teams, because communication on projects needs to be clear and with fewer people there is less chance of misunderstandings.
But when you look at large projects coordinated with people at geographically diverse locations, you can see large teams can work.
Open communication. Know what you can do and what your team can do, and talk with them. Too many managers talk at people and that is, IMHO, the biggest problem.
This is so true... about 6 months ago I had an idea for a new product... we were without a manager at the time, so a few other programmers and I worked on it in our spare time. About 6 weeks ago it came to the attention of management, and after some political infighting about who got to be in charge, it was approved to become a 'real project.' I took our development task list to my first meeting with the product manager who won the fight last week... it went out the window. When he had his schedule done, with all of the specifications meetings and reviews, it looked like we wouldn't release anything for another 6 months. I came away just shaking my head, and tossed out the 'official' schedule. The product will be going to QA in two weeks. I worked from home one day and killed a small forest with specifications drivel that will never be read. The real schedule and design specs are on a whiteboard in the lab, and on a legal pad on top of my monitor.
I firmly believe that really good software can't be developed with the formal process management tries to put us in so that a project and it's progress can be measured. Giving some geeks an interesting idea and leaving them alone gets better results, faster.
That's funny - I work one of the Big Three Automakers, in the Engineering Support department. I've found that our Change controls are attended by people who truly understand most of the systems involved. Of course, we don't run any of the development changes through the change control system - it's only when we need to affect large numbers of other people, or the entire support department. (We make ourselves guinea pigs on a lot of the PC changes..)
I think it's time that we geeks recognize that managers and other outsiders expect answers to the question "How are things going?" I think it's also time to recognize that putting the GUI last means that it has to be changed over and over again. Maybe now that our family members are getting computers, we might feel just a little bit of compassion for people who don't understand how programs are constructed and realize that the kinds of GUIs that get bolted on at the end don't make any sense to them.
Two suggestions:
(1) Build the program around the problems the user has and is trying to accomplish, instead of what we think would be a cool problem to solve or the easiest way to throw something together. This usually means drawing up what the program is going to look like from the outside first. Managers can understand this. Then you say, "this is what we're building." Then you get to make the big fuss in the meeting whining about sign-off and procedures when the recent marketing graduate wants to move the OK button. It's a lot harder for people to argue for changes when they've seen an actual picture of something that would have to be changed.
(2) Use the user's view picture to explain progress to management. Draw other pictures if necessary. We know that managers think anything presented in PowerPoint on an LCD projector is true and authoritative. Humor them. "See this little box that says 'database'? That's what we finished this week. See this web page with the colorful 'Buy Now' button? That's next." Then next week you tell them how that's finished. That's all they want.
And while it's true that lines of code and CPU time aren't good ways to measure progress, too many programmers are afraid of marking milestones and living up to valid measures of progress. I'm tired of working with deluded people who have no idea how far along they are and who think that just one more 70 hour week will solve everything. I'm also sick of debugging and trying to figure out code people wrote when they were too tired or wired to even drive.
A large problem is that management has an interest in controlling/monitoring the development process, yet they don't truly understand this process. For example, developing good software requires a lot of time spent initially, coming up with the right abstractions, building a solid nucleus for for further development, etc. A manager who doesn't understand the art/craft of software won't be able to tell the difference between a person who is actively engaged in this up-front effort, and a person who spends all day web-surfing.
This brings up the issue of staffing software projects. Ideally, I think you want a *very* small group of highly skilled people to work on the project initially, to nail down the requirements, create a sane design, and code the essential/basic/difficult parts of the system. Then, near the end of the project, you build up the team with possibly less-skilled people to build the rest of the system on this solid foundation. Thus, the software almost magically comes to life in the last ~25% of the schedule, when there *appeared* to be hardly any progress before-hand.
The cost and quality of software is *hugely* affected by decisions that happen early on. These decisions must be made correctly, and the initial design must be coherent and sane. Once this solid foundation is layed, it's OK to make the team larger, and add less-skilled people.
I should also mention that herding budgies is quite easy. I trained both of mine to respond to a hand signal - they fly back to the cage when I wave my hand twice
I fully comply, but there's more than that:
:-)), I don't care about company-standards (somebody sometime thought, 64 MB are enough or DELL are the best).
to 1.
Emphazise on quality! Some guys comcentrate on "customer-loyality" (brand marketing etc.), but I think: make a perfect produkt for a good price, the rest is secondary matter.
to 2./3.:
Saying that they recognize me is not enough.
If I need a better maschine, because I think, I'll be more productive with that (because I can work faster or are more motivated
Most managers see themselves as decisionmakers. I hate to be overwritten by someone who doesn't understand the problem.
To draw a line, I want to be my own company in a company. I do cost a lot (both direct and indirect) but bring a lot.
3. It would go one step further: most of the time, I'm working alone and most of the rest can be done via email or chat. Let me work at home!
Write, what is in your mind.
Also: What, do you think, is the way managers think?
I would say, there is no need for a manager.
Managers, as defined by their role, must be superhumas. They make the final decisions, so they must know the technical things *best*. They have to manage the resources, make strategic plans, motivate the employees and represent the company.
Very unrealistic.
I think, every of the above domains should have their own experts, which make independent decisions. Most of the time, these very different teams will come to completely different results. So, every group must understand the other ones *a very little bit*. Even then, a team of "evaluaters" must hear every party and then decide based on arguments.
But they are not the guys, who are managers at the moments. They must ahndle abstract arguments, so they could be mathematicians.
My unproffessional,though experienced advice is most managers(ana supervisors)do not have much talent for even managing themselves,let alone someone of an intelligent mode.A geek being usually brilliant or at least talented teckies,the average supervisor is put there because of a personality or pull,not talent.More financial gain in non aggravating pure work,mental or physical than the strain and mantel of someone to lay down rules,follow through and enforce.
icey
Here's a link to Peter Seebach's Hacker FAQ which may be what Taco was looking for
careful. what do you mean by less qualified? if a team's requirements include a few programmers, a few engineers, a few doctors, and a few decent writers, who is the most qualified? I'm sure not going to trust the programmer to tell me that some particular configuration of the medical equipment is most likely to cure/kill the patient.
The leader needs to be sufficiently grounded in all of the necessary specialities so that he understands how they all go together. He needs to be able to negotiate with the specialists (who often think that their part of the problem is the most important), and he needs to recognize when he is being given good advice from team members who know more than he does in a specific field.
The team members also have a responsibility, though. They must respect the leader even if he cant't whip up a killer app in 10 hours, because he does know things that they don't. (hopefully)
Problem is, a lot of this is lost on the rest of the company. They want something, anything to show the customer. Never mind the fact that yesterday some of this stuff didn't exist. We need to get past this idea of getting product out the door no matter what. But that is how the rest of the world seems to think. Most administrative types still learn Industrial Revoulation-era business controls, ie, theory X and Y managers, Gantt charts, stats, more bodies means a better result. They really don't stop and consider the fact that most Geek product exists only as a drawing on a whiteboard, some lines of code somewhere, and some Dorito smeared memos. The Geek process of creating cannot exist on a timeline, and without socializing with other Geeks and semi-Geeks.
Geeks get attached to their tools. They love them in the way a senior manager adores his favorite brand of golf club. Just as in golf, the right tool for one person may not be for another. While corporate standards have their place, micromanaging those standards is often a WOMBAT - a Waste Of Money, Brains, And Time.
A war story, and a lesson:
A few months ago, I worked at a shop which (among other things) tried to mandate the users' choice of mail tool. It foisted a ported Windows application onto a bunch of UNIX users who were comfortable with Emacs, vi, elm, pine, procmail, and all those other goodies we've come to know and love. The theory was that using the ported Windows application would allow us to "interoperate" more effectively.
The funny part, of course, is that none of the NT users in the company seemed to have trouble reading mail from us UNIX-heads, even though us UNIX-heads often tore our hair out at people who sent six separate binary attachments containing little icons for an e-mail consisting of three lines of text. (Or worse, a three-line-long Word document!)
Actually, that's not the funny part. The really funny part is that the UNIX development team was working on the product on which the company's future had been staked. With the stroke of a pen, the management team had managed to alienate the most valuable segment of the company's intellectual capital pool.
I don't work there any more. I work somewhere else. The pay's better here, as is the coffee. And I can read my mail without swapping to disk. Life is good.
Well, at least there are recruiters reading it; Maybe we can "conveniently" leave little notes on the boss' desk! *laugh*
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PG
"Hi, I'm an IT Recruiter... where are you going??"
PG -------- "Hi, I'm an IT Recruiter... Hey, wait. Come back!"
It's important to me to have a job that I enjoy, and a company that I enjoy working for. But let's be serious here: If the job (and the issues relating to it) is the same, but the pay is more, I'd be an idiot to stay with the low-paying one. 3 Months ago I was a full-time employee doing the same job I do now, making $32K. I worked for an appalling harpy, and put up with a TON of garbage a day, on a routine basis, all the while being urged to work longer and harder, to get down that mystical "Road to Six Figures" (that's actually in the employee handbook). So one day about a month ago, I quit. Walked out. No new job in sight, nothing. 2 weeks later I got offered a contract -- doing the same basic type of work -- for $50/hour. I guess the Road to Six Figures started just outside the door of the other company.
So what does this mean? IMHO, where salary is concerned, size DEFINATELY matters!
PG -------- "Hi, I'm an IT Recruiter... Hey, wait. Come back!"