[HN Gopher] Why Engineers Hate Their Managers (and What to Do Ab...
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       Why Engineers Hate Their Managers (and What to Do About It)
        
       Author : signa11
       Score  : 17 points
       Date   : 2025-06-24 16:35 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (terriblesoftware.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (terriblesoftware.org)
        
       | gbacon wrote:
       | > _Breaking the cycle_
       | 
       | > _The best engineering managers I've known -- the ones engineers
       | actually like -- have figured out a few things:_
       | 
       | > _1. They protect focus time like it's sacred._ [...]
       | 
       | > _2. They stay technical enough to make informed decisions._
       | [...]
       | 
       | > _3. They give credit lavishly and take blame personally._ [...]
       | 
       | > _4. They make feedback actually meaningful._ [...]
        
       | EduardLev wrote:
       | This focuses on what managers should do differently, but not what
       | engineers could do differently to make the relationship better.
       | Improve their communication skills, document and evangelize their
       | work, etc.
        
         | Velorivox wrote:
         | When I have a poor manager who doesn't improve quickly, what I
         | do differently is get a different job. I understand that's a
         | privileged position to be in, and also that one needs to have a
         | fair bit of experience to identify whether the manager really
         | is the issue. Nevertheless, trying to fix a relationship one-
         | sidedly when someone holds authority over you is not a
         | worthwhile cause.
        
       | karmakaze wrote:
       | It's very rare for me to not find a way to work well with most
       | managers I've had. What I find the larger problem is what's lost
       | in communication/translation going up and down the org chart.
       | This isn't usually a problem for small or shallow orgs, or in
       | rare cases larger orgs that have strong technical leadership.
       | What does happen is that there's layer(s) of middle-management
       | that's typically where technical details are lost. The best way
       | to combat this is to have flatter structures, or isolate
       | divisions/units. Microservices is one way of solving this
       | communication/autonomy human problem, by forcing system
       | interfaces to sweat the communication details.
        
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       (page generated 2025-06-24 23:01 UTC)