Not who you are replying to but sure - I am actually in such a position where I get the summary of what I need to do second-hand; it is great - mainly because the person I get it from is another senior developer so he knows the pitfalls; that also means he is able to lay the roadmap of what I need to do which makes things so much more easier.
Another time, it was a manager who was originally a developer and was quite hands-on - same experience.
> And honestly, roping in everyone to attend every single impromptu meeting just so you're up to speed on everything would be a huge time sink in terms of interruptions and I assure you you would complain about that too.
100% agree.
> Seems like you can never please developers: If you don't invite them to attend all the meetings, then they're offended because they feel left out from important decisions. If you invite them to all the meetings then they're angry because you're interrupting their productivity with useless meetings. You can never win.
> Developers should cut out the Mary Sue, and come down to earth for a bit, we're just cogs in a machine doing work for a paycheck, that's it, and even without you, your company and projects will still go on. You're most likely not the be-all end-all of your company as you imagine.
When you have decision makers that neither have the technical chops nor consult those that have them, things usually get complicated. Because then they miss the technical perspective, don't know what is feasible and what is not, commit things that are technically not prudent, forget to take into account the potential pitfalls etc etc - all of those things have a significant impact on the hands-on person down the line i.e. the developer. All decision makers are obviously not like that - those with the awareness and humility about not having the technical insights, include developers in the meetings to cover such aspects and that solves many issues upfront for both the project and the developers.
Speaking for myself, I don't love being in those meetings but sure appreciate that being present provides the opportunity of handling things at design stage so that they don't come back and bite me closer to delivery. Are there power-hungry limelight-seeking developers who do it for visibility/building image? Sure, but I haven't seen as many of them as I have seen managers with such tendencies. And if we say that there is nothing wrong with vying for visibility and image building etc and all those things are just signs of healthy competition/ambition - well, then that applies as much to developers as it does to managers.
> > Seems like you can never please developers: If you don't invite them to attend all the meetings, then they're offended because they feel left out from important decisions. If you invite them to all the meetings then they're angry because you're interrupting their productivity with useless meetings. You can never win.
Why aren't your developers empowered to say "I don't need to be there" to a meeting?
Why aren't your developers in the loop enough to know about upcoming conversations so they can ask if their presence would be useful?
Every job where I've grown responsibility, I find that not only did those interactions become possible, they've became expected of me.
But then again, my experience was built at mission-focused companies. I know a lot of "tech" these days is stay-in-your-lane companies.
That's incredibly condescending and reductionist, and it says a lot more about you than it does about "developers", either any individuals or in the aggregate.
Maybe try thinking of people as individuals, rather than lumping all "developers" together as one unreasonable bundle of pointless complainers...?
I think you might be a bit overly sensitive and overreactive (the Mary Sue I was talking about).
I also think you might need to look up what a Mary Sue actually is[0]. Hint: It's not "someone who reacts poorly to criticism," nor even "someone who wants unrealistic things for themselves." (It also has an extremely loaded and sexist history.)
That happened a lot even during the in-office days as well. People with more seniority and influence would whiteboard new ideas and then bring you up to speed on the next daily standup on what they decided.
If you were indeed that vital to the engineering effort they would definitely rope you in for the whiteboard session. It's not the end of the world if you find out the decisions the next day.
And honestly, roping in everyone to attend every single impromptu meeting just so you're up to speed on everything would be a huge time sink in terms of interruptions and I assure you you would complain about that too.
Seems like you can never please developers: If you don't invite them to attend all the meetings then they're offended because they feel left out from important decisions. If you invite them to all the meetings then they're angry because you're interrupting their productivity with useless meetings. You just can't win.