Re:The Staff Engineer's Path – Book Review
by grepLeigh on Wednesday May 17, 2023 @08:33PM
(#35982890)
Most of these kinds of questions have to do with feasibility, where the question asker doesn't have all the context needed to:
1) Decide: is this worth it for the business? NOW?
2) Delegate: ok, we've decided it's worth it NOW. Who is best equipped to execute?
So, that's not a "bad question."
Most of the time, saying "no" also comes with helping the requester de-scope to meet the crux of their obligations, save face on any commitments they won't be able to meet.
Saying "yes" means figuring out what the work will displace.
A significant part of my job as a staff infrastructure engineer was carrying this kind context between planning rituals with various time horizons, ranging from weekly to quarterly to annually.
Occasionally I would drop down into execution mode myself to knock out something particularly gnarly, or set up some pins for someone else to knock down (e.g. promo season).
1) Decide: is this worth it for the business? NOW?
2) Delegate: ok, we've decided it's worth it NOW. Who is best equipped to execute?
So, that's not a "bad question."
Most of the time, saying "no" also comes with helping the requester de-scope to meet the crux of their obligations, save face on any commitments they won't be able to meet.
Saying "yes" means figuring out what the work will displace.
A significant part of my job as a staff infrastructure engineer was carrying this kind context between planning rituals with various time horizons, ranging from weekly to quarterly to annually.
Occasionally I would drop down into execution mode myself to knock out something particularly gnarly, or set up some pins for someone else to knock down (e.g. promo season).