7 ms·

Keep work fresh by teaching your successors and investing a bit in long-shots

225 points by KentBeck 3y ago

dclowd9901 3y ago
> If you’re doing what you’re told to do, they are paying you too much. Not keen on this mindset. I’m glad to keep myself marketable, but that’s my business. My company’s business is: am I making what you want? Good. Pay me.
- stockboss 3y ago
  then your career path would be severely limited. because frequently in many roles especially software development and engineering, the business needs are not well articulated. sometimes the business end does not know how to articulate them, sometimes they aren't aware of better technical solutions, etc. a valuable technical resource does not simply do what they're told - this can be done by any outsourced developer in india or vietnam, etc. a valuable technical resource also needs to try and understand what is the business objective and think and be able to research and propose potentially better solutions, and make recommendations for the betterment of the business. those are the kinds of people who get promoted into higher level roles that pay better. those are people who are not easily replaced.
  - amdgg 3y ago
    I agree. When I hire a professional I expect them to tell me when what I want is wrong or tell me how it can be done in a better way. IME some organizations are just not open to alternative suggestions. Some genuinely just want people to do exactly as they’re told and work within the limitations of their system without question. This is IMO the worst type of organization to work for. Even in these environments, I would hope that people speak up.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
theK 3y ago
Very good and simple pattern. Not only for yourself but also for organizational design.
frakt0x90 3y ago
I agree in principle and practiced this for many years. But I moved into a role where there is simply no time. I work too much just to keep up with the normal workstream and while I maintain the list, there is no chance I get to it which is even more depressing. Gotta have a job that allows you that extra time to explore.
angarg12 3y ago
> If you’re doing what you’re told to do, they are paying you too much. I'm glad Kent Beck got that one out. I work for a Big Tech that pays (comparatively) well, and sometimes there is lot of ambiguity. Some new hires have a hard time adapting, and complain that they lack direction or have nothing to do. When these kind of companies pay you big bucks, part of the job is to be proactive at finding and solving the problems in your organization.
- jstarfish 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - titanomachy 3y ago
    I'm not sure I agree. If I'm paying you nearly half a million a year as a US FAANGish senior engineer, I'm not going to have much patience for the excuse that "my manager didn't find enough high-value work for me to do". Compensation like that, to me, implies a higher degree of ownership and responsibility. If you're a junior engineer, or sitting somewhere on the left-hand peak of the bimodal software engineer compensation curve [0], then sure, I'd expect your manager/PM/TL to slice up some reasonably high-impact work for you to take care of. Otherwise, bug PMs for ideas. Learn the basic shape of the organization you work in. Draft some one-page proposals and pitch them. Don't expect to get paid like a heart surgeon just for crushing well-scoped React feature requests. [0] https://danluu.com/bimodal-compensation/ https://danluu.com/bimodal-compensation/
    - ghaff 3y ago
      Yeah. I've never had that sort of comp but for long stretches of my career I've largely charted my own path. While my first manager in my current job and I always got along very well, he traveled a lot, I traveled a lot, and I never expected much in the way of specific direction. If I had a question I asked him.But we largely did our own things under a general umbrella. Probably atypical but I was hired pretty atypically as well. (Basically a position was created for me.)
  - 3y ago
skrebbel 3y ago
I like this a lot but I think the number can be different depending on the company. In my company we have “let yourself be nerd sniped” as an core cultural value, I think we’d be closer to 60/30/10 or something like that. But it’s hard to tell for sure because sometimes the 10 blows up into a mad 5 week rabbit hole quest with, often but not always, spectacular results. Would suck if we’d not have those because some boss said 10% fun stuff is the max. I guess it balances out over the year but attaching a number makes it a rule. So on second thought, maybe less explicit can be better?
Yebo_en_mesh 3y ago
This is interesting!
NoboruWataya 3y ago
Only somewhat related, but in my line of work (corporate law), where we work on a lot of different kinds of transactions, I find that my experience of working on a particular type of transaction can be roughly divided into five stages: - Stage 1: The first few times you work on a particular type of transaction, you are completely lost. You've never seen these documents before, it all feels alien and scary (bearing in mind you are probably at an early stage in your career at this point). You need someone more senior to hold your hand through it all, and you feel like you're asking a million questions. - Stage 2: You've gotten your head around the basic structure and don't feel so useless. You're learning a lot with every deal, which is exciting. You're still asking a lot of questions but they are more intelligent questions, and you are able to contribute meaningfully. - Stage 3: You are by now quite experienced at this type of transaction. You can pretty much run things yourself. You love doing this work because you are good at it, you can speak confidently about it and people trust you with it. Hopefully by this stage, you have someone more junior who is just feeling their way through Stage 1, and you can support them. - Stage 4: You've done so many of these deals that they all start to feel the same and it gets a bit boring. Hopefully by this stage the junior has moved on to Stage 2. They can at least handle the most tedious stuff, and with your support they are also getting familiar with the more complicated stuff. - Stage 5: Your junior (not really a "junior" anymore) has moved on to Stage 3 and can take the day-to-day running of the deals out of your hands. You remain involved mainly in a supervisory role, making sure quality of service remains high and dealing with the occasional novel issue that crops up. But in general you have a lot more time now, to work on other types of transaction, and of course to go out and build out new client relationships so that the work keeps flowing. And hopefully you have a second junior moving into Stage 1 to repeat the cycle.
- singleshot_ 3y ago
  Outsider perspective: you have nailed the training pathway, at least conceptually. Many level five practitioners are so far out of touch with level one that they have a tough time getting anyone else to level three. Keep up your good work!
  - Arrath 3y ago
realitythreek 3y ago
I wholeheartedly agree with this but want to add that the 80/15/5 split aren’t set in stone. It’s more like risk tolerance. The more you spend on the riskier activities (not exactly what you’re asked to do), the higher the chance of failure but the greater the reward. You can drive your team or organization in a completely different direction.
heisenbit 3y ago
A few observations - I find 5% for any investments very low. It is hard to get deeper into a new topic with that level. Our work has very high context switching costs. - at the moment I work one day on another project requiring a fair amount of learning. While I learn a lot this way I found the two project setup exhausts my ability to push yet another set of things forward. There are limits to my ability to manage initiatives. - the whole agile treadmill can be leveraged by management against self management. I found slowing down things and pushing myself to explore alternatives in my 80% block helps a bit to stem the tide.
ilrwbwrkhv 3y ago
Aside: has anyone ever subscribed to a substack blog from this banner or do we all just press continue reading?
- photon_lines 3y ago
  I rarely do. I recently started using sub-stack for blogging myself, and I added in a paid version as well just to annoy people haha :) Just kidding though - the paid version is for everyone who appreciates my work and who wants to help me continue writing. It takes quite a while to come up with content and posts and time isn't 'free'. The free version is for anyone who wants to continually get new posts in their inbox which attempt to explain concept topics in an intuitive and visual manner. Yes - the pop ups I agree are relatively annoying, but I appreciate what sub-stack is attempting to do regardless. If it were up to me, I'd simply include a subscribe button at the end of each post which asks the user whether they'd like a free or paid subscription should they click on it. That's me though. I'm not sure what type of UI testing they've done nor what effect that would have.
  - ilrwbwrkhv 3y ago
    I also subscribe to substacks but I have never once done in the middle of reading a new article.
- diego_sandoval 3y ago
  I just close the browser tab when that happens.
jpe90 3y ago
I only read the headline, so I'm going all-in on Clojure/Datomic off the bat at a new job. Half kidding.
starky 3y ago
Fully agreed, though the exact proportion may or may not be applicable for the particular position. I've progressed in my career by doing exactly this and see how it has benefited me relative to those who don't do it (or just aren't interested in it). I've been lucky to have managers that have supported this by checking me when I've taken on too much and urged me to assign tasks to more junior team members (which in itself turned from the "other" work into my main work). It results in a healthy team where all those who are willing have the opportunity to grow and expand their skillsets.

225 points by KentBeck 3y ago

> If you’re doing what you’re told to do, they are paying you too much. Not keen on this mindset. I’m glad to keep myself marketable, but that’s my business. My company’s business is: am I making what you want? Good. Pay me.

stockboss 3y ago
then your career path would be severely limited. because frequently in many roles especially software development and engineering, the business needs are not well articulated. sometimes the business end does not know how to articulate them, sometimes they aren't aware of better technical solutions, etc. a valuable technical resource does not simply do what they're told - this can be done by any outsourced developer in india or vietnam, etc. a valuable technical resource also needs to try and understand what is the business objective and think and be able to research and propose potentially better solutions, and make recommendations for the betterment of the business. those are the kinds of people who get promoted into higher level roles that pay better. those are people who are not easily replaced.
- amdgg 3y ago
  I agree. When I hire a professional I expect them to tell me when what I want is wrong or tell me how it can be done in a better way. IME some organizations are just not open to alternative suggestions. Some genuinely just want people to do exactly as they’re told and work within the limitations of their system without question. This is IMO the worst type of organization to work for. Even in these environments, I would hope that people speak up.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

theK 3y ago

Very good and simple pattern. Not only for yourself but also for organizational design.

frakt0x90 3y ago

I agree in principle and practiced this for many years. But I moved into a role where there is simply no time. I work too much just to keep up with the normal workstream and while I maintain the list, there is no chance I get to it which is even more depressing. Gotta have a job that allows you that extra time to explore.

angarg12 3y ago

> If you’re doing what you’re told to do, they are paying you too much. I'm glad Kent Beck got that one out. I work for a Big Tech that pays (comparatively) well, and sometimes there is lot of ambiguity. Some new hires have a hard time adapting, and complain that they lack direction or have nothing to do. When these kind of companies pay you big bucks, part of the job is to be proactive at finding and solving the problems in your organization.

jstarfish 3y ago
[flagged]
- titanomachy 3y ago
  I'm not sure I agree. If I'm paying you nearly half a million a year as a US FAANGish senior engineer, I'm not going to have much patience for the excuse that "my manager didn't find enough high-value work for me to do". Compensation like that, to me, implies a higher degree of ownership and responsibility. If you're a junior engineer, or sitting somewhere on the left-hand peak of the bimodal software engineer compensation curve [0], then sure, I'd expect your manager/PM/TL to slice up some reasonably high-impact work for you to take care of. Otherwise, bug PMs for ideas. Learn the basic shape of the organization you work in. Draft some one-page proposals and pitch them. Don't expect to get paid like a heart surgeon just for crushing well-scoped React feature requests. [0] https://danluu.com/bimodal-compensation/ https://danluu.com/bimodal-compensation/
  - ghaff 3y ago
    Yeah. I've never had that sort of comp but for long stretches of my career I've largely charted my own path. While my first manager in my current job and I always got along very well, he traveled a lot, I traveled a lot, and I never expected much in the way of specific direction. If I had a question I asked him.But we largely did our own things under a general umbrella. Probably atypical but I was hired pretty atypically as well. (Basically a position was created for me.)
- 3y ago

skrebbel 3y ago

I like this a lot but I think the number can be different depending on the company. In my company we have “let yourself be nerd sniped” as an core cultural value, I think we’d be closer to 60/30/10 or something like that. But it’s hard to tell for sure because sometimes the 10 blows up into a mad 5 week rabbit hole quest with, often but not always, spectacular results. Would suck if we’d not have those because some boss said 10% fun stuff is the max. I guess it balances out over the year but attaching a number makes it a rule. So on second thought, maybe less explicit can be better?

Yebo_en_mesh 3y ago

This is interesting!

NoboruWataya 3y ago

Only somewhat related, but in my line of work (corporate law), where we work on a lot of different kinds of transactions, I find that my experience of working on a particular type of transaction can be roughly divided into five stages: - Stage 1: The first few times you work on a particular type of transaction, you are completely lost. You've never seen these documents before, it all feels alien and scary (bearing in mind you are probably at an early stage in your career at this point). You need someone more senior to hold your hand through it all, and you feel like you're asking a million questions. - Stage 2: You've gotten your head around the basic structure and don't feel so useless. You're learning a lot with every deal, which is exciting. You're still asking a lot of questions but they are more intelligent questions, and you are able to contribute meaningfully. - Stage 3: You are by now quite experienced at this type of transaction. You can pretty much run things yourself. You love doing this work because you are good at it, you can speak confidently about it and people trust you with it. Hopefully by this stage, you have someone more junior who is just feeling their way through Stage 1, and you can support them. - Stage 4: You've done so many of these deals that they all start to feel the same and it gets a bit boring. Hopefully by this stage the junior has moved on to Stage 2. They can at least handle the most tedious stuff, and with your support they are also getting familiar with the more complicated stuff. - Stage 5: Your junior (not really a "junior" anymore) has moved on to Stage 3 and can take the day-to-day running of the deals out of your hands. You remain involved mainly in a supervisory role, making sure quality of service remains high and dealing with the occasional novel issue that crops up. But in general you have a lot more time now, to work on other types of transaction, and of course to go out and build out new client relationships so that the work keeps flowing. And hopefully you have a second junior moving into Stage 1 to repeat the cycle.

singleshot_ 3y ago
Outsider perspective: you have nailed the training pathway, at least conceptually. Many level five practitioners are so far out of touch with level one that they have a tough time getting anyone else to level three. Keep up your good work!
- Arrath 3y ago

realitythreek 3y ago

I wholeheartedly agree with this but want to add that the 80/15/5 split aren’t set in stone. It’s more like risk tolerance. The more you spend on the riskier activities (not exactly what you’re asked to do), the higher the chance of failure but the greater the reward. You can drive your team or organization in a completely different direction.

heisenbit 3y ago

A few observations - I find 5% for any investments very low. It is hard to get deeper into a new topic with that level. Our work has very high context switching costs. - at the moment I work one day on another project requiring a fair amount of learning. While I learn a lot this way I found the two project setup exhausts my ability to push yet another set of things forward. There are limits to my ability to manage initiatives. - the whole agile treadmill can be leveraged by management against self management. I found slowing down things and pushing myself to explore alternatives in my 80% block helps a bit to stem the tide.

ilrwbwrkhv 3y ago

Aside: has anyone ever subscribed to a substack blog from this banner or do we all just press continue reading?

photon_lines 3y ago
I rarely do. I recently started using sub-stack for blogging myself, and I added in a paid version as well just to annoy people haha :) Just kidding though - the paid version is for everyone who appreciates my work and who wants to help me continue writing. It takes quite a while to come up with content and posts and time isn't 'free'. The free version is for anyone who wants to continually get new posts in their inbox which attempt to explain concept topics in an intuitive and visual manner. Yes - the pop ups I agree are relatively annoying, but I appreciate what sub-stack is attempting to do regardless. If it were up to me, I'd simply include a subscribe button at the end of each post which asks the user whether they'd like a free or paid subscription should they click on it. That's me though. I'm not sure what type of UI testing they've done nor what effect that would have.
- ilrwbwrkhv 3y ago
  I also subscribe to substacks but I have never once done in the middle of reading a new article.
diego_sandoval 3y ago
I just close the browser tab when that happens.

jpe90 3y ago

I only read the headline, so I'm going all-in on Clojure/Datomic off the bat at a new job. Half kidding.

starky 3y ago

Fully agreed, though the exact proportion may or may not be applicable for the particular position. I've progressed in my career by doing exactly this and see how it has benefited me relative to those who don't do it (or just aren't interested in it). I've been lucky to have managers that have supported this by checking me when I've taken on too much and urged me to assign tasks to more junior team members (which in itself turned from the "other" work into my main work). It results in a healthy team where all those who are willing have the opportunity to grow and expand their skillsets.