What Silicon Valley gets about engineers that traditional companies do not

Re:What Silicon Valley gets about engineers that traditional... by LimaBearz on Sunday January 10, 2021 @10:49PM (#25724223)

That’s just the tip of the ice berg... I call it the tyranny of project managers.

When I worked for a large multinational in SF, 100M+ users we operated very much in the “SV” style the article describes.

I got to see how our satellite offices in other parts of the world operate; EVERYTHING was in calendar, work was tracked in 15 minute intervals, meeting about meetings, and follow up meetings after the meeting, and a post mortum after. One project manager for every 3 engineers. Dealing with them I felt like I was looking some sort of Project Managers Gone Wild porn set

Then I moved away from the BA and found out most places are like this, it’s real bad

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Re:What Silicon Valley gets about engineers that traditional... by 29athrowaway on Monday January 11, 2021 @12:14AM (#25724849)

Just print this FAQ and hang it by your desk.

  FAQ

  Q: What are you working on?
  A: Look at the issue tracker 

  Q: Are you working on X?
  A: Look at the issue tracker

  Q: Are you still working on X?
  A: Look at the issue tracker

  Q: Is X finished?
  A: Look at the issue tracker

  Q: Did QA look at X?
  A: Look at the issue tracker

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Re:What Silicon Valley gets about engineers that traditional... by pietrovismara on Monday January 11, 2021 @07:45AM (#25728164)

Basically every single standup, "update", meeting I've ever had with a manager could have been avoided by them looking at the issue tracker beforehand. Which I'm sure they did anyway, since they spend most of their days organizing the board. They just ask you questions to which they already know the answer.

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Re:What Silicon Valley gets about engineers that traditional... by 29athrowaway on Monday January 11, 2021 @07:35PM (#25740565)

Let A and B ∈ Team. After standup, ask A what B did yesterday, what is B working on today whether or not B is blocked. And viceversa.

Then wait for 30 min, do the same. Then wait 3 hours, do the same.

What will happen? they will forget about it because it is irrelevant to them.

Therefore the scrum ceremonies are just bullshit and a waste of time.

Quod erat demonstrandum. Fuck scrum.

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Re:What Silicon Valley gets about engineers that traditional... by TedDoesntTalk on Sunday January 10, 2021 @11:39PM (#25724597)

How about “people over process”? Yet we are slaves to Agile Scrum process and procedure.

Double talk.

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Re:What Silicon Valley gets about engineers that traditional... by 29athrowaway on Monday January 11, 2021 @12:18AM (#25724887)

The reasons behind the creation of Scrum and the reasons behind the adoption of Scrum are different.

Plus, most implementations of Scrum are bullshit. Scrum does not recognize the role of a "project manager". There's the product owner, the scrum master and the development team. That's all.

The scrum master only exists to guarantee the process is followed. The scrum master is just a scrum evangelist, not a real leader.

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Re:What Silicon Valley gets about engineers that traditional... by spaetzleesser on Monday January 11, 2021 @12:59AM (#25725167)

And product owner and scrum master need to be highly skilled people with a lot of responsibility instead of whoever has nothing better to do at the moment as is so often the case.

I still can’t figure out how line managers and architects fit into a well run scrum environment. Seems they would be losing a lot of power.

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Re:What Silicon Valley gets about engineers that traditional... by 29athrowaway on Monday January 11, 2021 @01:23AM (#25725352)

Scrum does not formally recognize levels of seniority. All members of the development team have the same role.

You can read the official Scrum guide here, it's a few pages long:

https://www.scrumguides.org/docs/scrumguide/v2017/2017-Scrum...

I think Scrum exists only to expand the adoption of Scrum. That is at least the reason behind the role of "Scrum master".

By maximizing adoption, the authors can personally benefit and become rich and famous.

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Re:What Silicon Valley gets about engineers that traditional... by ta988 on Monday January 11, 2021 @12:06AM (#25724784)

There is a reason why they pay that much, they have trouble finding people comfortable with their insanity. That's also what I think is the real reason behind why the interview processes are so contrived and kafkaesques, they reflect the place.

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Re:What Silicon Valley gets about engineers that traditional... by coredog64 on Sunday January 10, 2021 @11:28PM (#25724518)

I think you just described my current employer.

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Re:What Silicon Valley gets about engineers that traditional... by ta988 on Monday January 11, 2021 @12:08AM (#25724798)

Run! There are a lot of places that yes will pay you less and not have free Lacroix but you will not feel bad working for.

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