One other quality of effective engineers is not fall for bullshit and have a scientific mindset of inquiry.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16037746
You decide if there is any merit to the advice given.
Don't believe me? Any invention that you have created at your workplace (patents etc.) is always held by your company, not you.
They pay me real money - I do real work for them.
It's a poor deal if you're in a competitive market where there's another schmuck willing to do your job for just as cheap as you do it. But if you have pricing power, you'd be a complete fool not to either charge substantially more, or demand some ownership.
That seems like a really raw deal to me. You might argue that you are "paid" to do this; not really, you can just coast on 9-5 and draw the same (or in the same ballpark) paycheck as someone who is busting his behind to invent something. Also when there is downsizing you might think that contributions is the only thing that matters, but it is demonstrably not (I'm speaking about regular companies not a small startup).
First of all look at this sales copy of the book. https://www.effectiveengineer.com/book
It looks like a weight loss e-book product designed to trick ambitious people into impulse buying. It tries to build credibility by name dropping "google", "facebook", "insert big company here" every other paragraph. Then there are testimonials about how great the advice is from "LeaderLeaderLeader" enterprise hierarchy pattern i.e people with big titles from popular silicon valley companies.
Everything in that page is designed and optimized to make you buy the package. For a price of 250$ you too can know the secrets of effective Engineers.
To sell this content first create and exploit an insecurity in jr.Engineers or fresh job seekers in technology by saying they are not an effective engineer unless they buy this book/package and read the content and then they too will be part of the club and work at a big name brand company. Some people in our work places are exceptionally good at social engineering and not so much in actual engineering. The sales copy co-opted the "engineering" discipline to sell some curated content. This looks much similar to team/company "politics".
I do not think people in "effective engineering" business do this. This is certainly what people in content business do.
Now compare that to some other book for a contrast. https://basecamp.com/books/getting-real
Engineering is just like any other skill for e.g., like playing chess or piano or swimming etc. You get better by doing it many times and failing often. To be good at engineering involves many factors like genetics, discipline, irrational love and passion for a particular domain, patience, exposure to better ideas and better people. Even you are good at engineering, to be effective at a company/market, you need to know the right people and have right social and financial skills to get name and recognition.
Some how, effective engineering has become synonymous with what happens at big name company teams which I think is very wrong. If you look at the real world, once companies reach a bigger size, they stop doing effective anything. They just buy other small companies which spend more time on making effective products.
This content seems to be analogous to "founders at work" but a better title would have been "engineers at the enterprise".
To be good at sales copy also involves many factors, like interviewing your prospective customers, understanding what language they use to describe their problems, listening for what dreams they actually have, addressing their concerns by establishing credibility, and having a strong desire to help them achieve their goals.
Good sales copy doesn't aim to "trick" people; it aims to show that the product being sold will achieve the prospective customer's goals.
The reason I'm sharing this perspective is that many engineers do look down on marketing and sales copy as something that's automatically "bad." And that automatic association does them a disservice.
They write awesome code or build awesome products and features that could add so much value to the world, but they then just expect anyone to automatically see that value. They don't take the time to understand what their users' problems might be, to share how what they built might solve those problems, and to "market" their solutions. That mismatch of supply and demand ends up being a missed opportunity, and sadly, this happens all the time.
I understand your perspective about engineers undervaluing marketing and sales skills, but I think it's an example of short term thinking. Credibility is a currency, internet never forgets and I would never build credibility like this because I do not know how this will limit my future possibilities.
Do you disagree that effective engineers need to come up with strategies to be continuously learning? Or that it's important to make sure you spend time on tasks/projects that matter as opposed to busy-work? Or that it's important to properly use your daily tools? etc etc
I haven't read the book, and I only went over the main headers of this gist, but this all looks like pretty sensible advice to me to be more effective and productive.
The author is just giving you advice for doing those things.
We used to call engineers who do tasks that elevate themselves at the expense of rest of the team as bad team players. Now the advice here is to do high leverage tasks.
The whole premise of the content appears to be a “get rich quick” scheme. The most vulnerable people in the industry are the young people looking for guidance and advice from older generations. The sales copy is clearly exploiting their insecurity by suggesting somehow there is a shortcut and by knowing these secrets for a small price, you too can be a 10x engineer.
When you have a choice, you should always choose high leverage. You should work to limit distractions and get more focus time. This is all great advice.
Which one did you purchase? "The master package" to become effective engineer.
It makes bold claims like it will make you 10X engineer and it some how guides you to figure out which technologies you need to work that will succeed in the future and keep reading, you will find more gems in there. The whole content is preying on the vulnerable.
We have had great advice in the tech industry so far like, "put customer first" or "think lean" or build beautiful products etc but this is the first classic that says to put yourself first and work on things that elevate you at the expense of the team and company and more narcissistic gems bundled with gossip from engineering teams with famous name companies.
I seriously doubt anyone who is looked upon for guidance by others would suggest something like this.
adios while I read the "Tactial Toolkit" to become effective engineer.
BTW i didn’t see any marketing claim on his site that he’ll magically turn you into a 10x developer, but googling found this blog. Read it and try to tell me it’s advice isn’t good or that it’s “corrosive” in any way to the team.
http://www.effectiveengineer.com/blog/how-to-become-a-10x-en...
First let me look up the author. Let me also just say that I have nothing against this author. I respect his entrepreneurial spirit and I believe he has a great future. But I deeply believe this sales page here is just plain wrong https://www.effectiveengineer.com/book and I strongly feel that experienced people like myself have to speak up when situation calls for it. It is fundamentally sleazy thing to do to other younger minds seeking proper guidance in the tech valley.
Authors resume
First things I noticed. This person has not stayed at any company for more than 3 years. No strong engineering role titles like architecture or design or scaling roles. Mostly soft engineering roles like testing and growth hacking. as a 30 year experienced person like yourself ask yourself. What kind of serious engineering product can one build in that time period at a company with that roles and how many? In many respectable companies I worked for, a person with this experience level cannot even hire/fire people, interviewing someone is not same as hiring.
Next look at the the github profile vs quora profile.
https://www.quora.com/profile/Edmond-Lau
You can notice, this person is more of a content writer compared to code writer. What sort of engineering skills and expertise do you notice about the author that makes him write a sales page like this?.
https://www.effectiveengineer.com/book
Just like how I said it before, this is an effective nonsense garbage content marketing. The author has no qualifications to be writing a book on effective engineering. It is an insult to people who do actual engineering.
This person is milking his past job experience role at brand name companies to an irresponsible extent. This is not illegal but a very sleazy thing to do.
To people who really care about this topic, please get a good mentor in and around your workplace. Just do not fall for this click baits and gossip about tech companies does not make you effective anything. Engineering skill takes a lot of practice and patience, I am afraid there are no secrets and shortcuts.
If you don’t like specific ideas of his, attack them. But as a 30 year engineer whose managed teams as large as 40 people, while i don’t agree with everything he wrote, lots of it rings true to me.
I find it difficult for a person with valid credentials in real life support this content marketing fraud.
You haven't even read the notes, if you're conflating these two ideas.
Where are you reading this?
"The most effective engineers — the ones who have risen to become distinguished engineers and leaders at their companies — can produce 10 times the impact of other engineers, but they're not working 10 times the hours."
Taken from https://www.effectiveengineer.com/book
This looks like a list of how to be teacher’s pet. A superficial need to be praised by others as effective only takes to “mediocre”.