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0 pointsoverfeed3mo ago0 comments

> [...] they wanted to contribute to the project or to have strong architectural opinions

Also the worst kind of tech line-manager - typically promoted from individual contributors , but still want to argue about architecture, having arrived at their strong opinion within the 7 minutes they perused the design document between meetings.

If you're such a manager, you need to stop, if you're working with one, change teams or change jobs - you cannot win.

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whattheheckheck3mo ago

What are your thoughts on the idea from the book High Output Management where everyone's outputs under the manager is considered the managers output. Aka if they're choosing incorrectly it's trivial to explain the facts for them to choose right. If they don't you get them to agree to the wrong choice in writing and move on

overfeedOP3mo ago

> if they're choosing incorrectly it's trivial to explain the facts for them to choose right

It's far from trivial when there are multiple, clearly-communicated trade-offs (documented in the design doc!) that, but you happen to land on opposite ends of value-judgements (e.g. pattern A is easier to maintain based on my experience with the codebase & bugs that have popped up, but manager thinks pattern B is simpler to implement, but brittle). The debate wastes time, and signals mistrust when you're the staff engineer, or the design was OK'd by staff/rest of team

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