Appetise’s Post

"That's not my job" The more senior you are, the more you realize how wrong this mindset is. As your career grows, you take on more responsibility. Instead of just owning your feature, you start to own the success of your team/organization. If there are major gaps critical for overall team success, you'll need to make sure you fill them in (delegation is fine). It doesn't matter who does the work, just that it gets done. There's no such thing as "that's not my job" for Senior engineers. On the flip side, if you're a Junior engineer looking to grow, you can accelerate your growth by adopting this mindset early. Taking on more ownership is a great way to find larger scope projects which will grow your career. Akum Blaise Acha #devopsengineer #engineeringmanager #backenddeveloper

Hiring top-tier engineering talent can be hard. It’s even harder when you don't know what you're looking for. But, If you’re trying to build a world-class team, you need to be looking for world-class players. Here's what to look for: 1. Problem-solving skills 2. Curiosity 3. Ability to learn 4. Communication skills 5. Passion And if you are a startup, you need to be looking for something extra: 6. Flexibility 7. Willingness to work outside their comfort zone 8. Self-directed learning Remember, you might need to make compromises. But, don't compromise too much. Hire the best, or else someone else will.

"That's not my job" The more senior you get, the more you realize how wrong this mindset is. As your career grows, you take on more responsibility. Instead of just owning small features, you start to own the success of your team/organization. If there are major gaps critical for overall team success, you'll need to make sure you fill them in (delegation is fine). It doesn't matter who does the work, just that it gets done. There's no such thing as "that's not my job" for Senior+ engineers. If you're a Junior engineer looking to grow, you can accelerate your growth by adopting this mindset early. Taking on more ownership is a great way to find larger-scope projects that will grow your career.

The scenario presented is often a dichotomy of those that have their ear close to the ground and hands in the mud, and those that are watching from a tower high up. What is fun about working in these types of scenarios is the strategy to buttress these activities. First, some context. We have to recognize some fundamental truths about all of us operating in the technology industry - executives/leaders churn quite often, this movement is regularly to business models and users we have had little interaction with before, and lastly often those painted in the post below may be removed from the work on the ground temporally and contextually depending on when they stopped doing that work, leading to lots of confusion. This is a tough industry as compared to a lot of other industries where you can work and retire with fundamentally the same business context and customer. We should have some grace for all of us trying to build products for real humans. Furthermore, an optional step here I take given this is to repeat "I don't know shit" and bring along priors but be quick to toss them aside. So the strategy and action... - If nobody is asking questions or paying attention to your timeline or aware of the risks associated with it, anticipate this mismatch. Build in buffer time subtly, under-promise while over-preparing, and communicate risks clearly & diplomatically.  - Land grabs and territorial impingement are inevitable but ensure you document the decision making process. Keep the ship sailing the way you had it and make sure they have a deed to the property. - Try to transform project mgrs into genuinely supporting the engineering team. Shift their focus to unblocking obstacles and streamlining communication. Help them understand a JIRA plan isn't a serial list of tasks to be completed but a interconnected web that we will bounce between.

Corporate Management: A $50M Theater Production 🎭 Let me translate management "best practices" into actual numbers: The Real Cost of "Leadership": 1. Direct Money Burn: • $500K × 100 managers = $50M annual waste • 50% efficiency loss × 1000 engineers = Half your tech talent dead • 30% project delays × $10M projects = $3M evaporating per project • Top talent exodus = Priceless 2. The Hidden Tax: • Meeting hours × Attendees × Salaries = Millions in talk time • Decisions per layer × Approval chain = Weeks of delay • Politics per promotion × Career paths = Innovation death • Accountability diffusion = Zero progress But here's the billion-dollar secret: This isn't a bug. It's a feature. Why Big Tech Needs This: • Political layers = Blame diffusion • Decision committees = Risk distribution • Responsibility matrices = Accountability avoidance • Management chains = Career protection The Brutal Math: At scale: • Clear ownership = Clear firing • Direct communication = Direct responsibility • Efficient processes = Manager extinction • Quick decisions = Career suicide Want to know why nothing changes? Because: • Systems create behaviors • Scale rewards politics • Size demands inefficiency • Bureaucracy = Job security The Real Solution: Stop: • Searching for "good managers" • Building political layers • Creating matrices • Diffusing decisions Start: • Building small teams • Owning decisions • Measuring results • Shipping products (From someone who's calculated the exact cost of corporate theater) #CorporateReality #TechTruth #NoBS

"Completely agree—inefficient middle management can be a huge drain on engineering teams. It's frustrating to see project timelines ignored, arbitrary last-minute changes made, and unnecessary layers of 'management' added, all of which only slow things down and burn out engineers. That said, there are exceptional managers out there who truly empower their teams and add real value. Big Tech has a higher proportion of such leaders compared to the industry, but finding the right manager can make or break your experience. The key is to evaluate your prospective manager carefully before joining. A good manager will advocate for you, shield you from unnecessary chaos, and foster growth for both the individual and the team. It's worth the effort to identify one—it can transform your career trajectory."

You'll be surprised at how many FAANG middle managers make $500,000+ per year and add 0 value to their engineering teams. From my 4 years at Big Tech, I saw execs do all of these: 1. Listen to their engineers' detailed project timeline, ignore it to give an insane deadline instead, and then be surprised when the final product is half-broken 2. Torpedo a well-scoped project at the last minute with a sudden feature change, so they could claim credit on the product's final direction 3. Hire armies of annoying project managers who simply asked "Is it done yet?" every week to make burnt out engineers move faster (it didn't work) At Google's scale, it's simply impossible to prevent people from realizing they can just play politics all day instead of doing any real work. That being said, there are many genuinely amazing managers out there. Big Tech in particular has tons, with a proportion much higher than industry average. If you're joining a larger tech company, most of your success depends on finding one of the good ones to be your manager. Learn how to do that with our 21-part engineering manager valuation guide, now 100% free: https://lnkd.in/gE8aZzn9 #techcareergrowth #softwareengineering #layoffs #google #management

Success is a collective effort, requiring contributions from various areas of responsibility. While it's crucial to understand who is responsible for what (the process), we must also protect our backs. Success is never the achievement of one person alone but of the entire team—and the same goes for failure. Nothing drives success more than human interactions and distributing tasks based on who can add the most value. So yes, you should work your eight hours, you should take your PTO, and you need to maintain a sustainable pace. But be strategic in what you choose to tackle. Base your decisions on the bigger picture, not just your job description or KPIs. This kind of ownership is what truly reflects seniority.

This trend extends beyond large tech/FAANG companies to startups as well. As a freelancer, I’ve seen my fair share of managers (or sometimes even founders) who keep unrealistic deadlines and chase engineers to build products especially when nothing is broken. Worse is when there are some middle management individuals who boss around like they have a useful skillset when it’s limited to just moving cards around on a Kanban board. Being a freelancer, the good thing is that I can always drop such clients.