
How to Discipline Overeager Engineer? - jodrellblank
https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/145709/how-to-discipline-overeager-engineer
======
mindcrime
I swear, I half wonder if some of these questions are just outright trolling.
It's hard to imagine a company actually being this stupid. Yeah, let's take
one of our brightest and hardest working people, communicate to them that
their hard work and effort are useless, and then bitch when they quit putting
in overtime. Brilliant.

If this story is real, I think the OP (of the SO question) needs to accept
that the fuck-up is on the part of his/her company, and quit looking for ways
to "discipline" their engineer.

~~~
Blakestr
I am half with you - but I can totally imagine a company being that stupid,
they just wouldn't phrase it as simple and direct as you did, so they don't
see the stupidity.

The mandatory 3 year "derisking" period sounds asinine. If you can't evaluate
an engineer's ability to solve problems in 12 months for a position, I think
that's a bigger issue.

Conspiracy theory - Article is written by the "overeager engineer" who is
looking for clever ways to respond to his company's asinine policies.

~~~
zmmmmm
> The mandatory 3 year "derisking" period sounds asinine

I don't have too much sympathy for the OP on stackoverflow, but I do think 3
years in a company of 5000+ people is not that long to wait to reach a senior
position. It's not just about tech skills, at that level it is personality
too. It's pretty important at senior levels that people are not just going to
up and leave on a whim, so to my mind a 3 year type period is quite a
reasonable test of whether they are long term suitable in the company.

------
exabrial
There is a remarkable difference between being a strong individual contributor
and a team leader. Organizations sort of need both, but being good at one
doesn't make you good at the other.

I hired a guy like this, and he was extremely useful. However, he did do some
outrageous things. For instance, he was learning Kotlin, and decided to do one
his projects in Kotlin without so much as an approval from me or even
discussing amongst his peers (which I do delegate most of the tech decisions
to those in the trenches). Shocked, I had a one-on-one in which he told me we
were falling behind. I reminded him our number one focus is to support the
salesfloor in the company, and that our stack is "boring" on purpose because
of stability and predictability. I had him work long hours to rewrite the
project in the correct stack so it could be supported by the whole department,
not just him.

Eventually he left, which I wasn't terribly upset by, and he went to work for
a startup which I think better fit his personality and skillset. I keep up
with him on linked in and it seems he's continued to surf between startups and
making a decent living doing so. I think he's much happier doing this, because
having a structure did not suit him.

~~~
ngz00
Kotlin is a very tame language choice, in what I assume is a very Java heavy
organization. Peers should be accountable for learning new languages and
following the implementers rule.

~~~
maximente
nah, this is just the brilliant hacker type mentality (individual over team,
parachute in and rewrite everything in today's cool language) type stuff that
gets really annoying once you're responsible for a set of interconnected
components of software that matter.

it's critical to root out these hero types lest they ruin your organization
with hand grenades wrapped up as "refactored" projects using the latest
language. seniors won't put up with this, and rightfully so: it basically
raises a middle finger to the organization's previous culture/work, and they
are now responsible for doing it... again. it's disrepectful and ought to be a
fireable offense, ideally rooted out in the first few weeks when the new team
member is given some slightly autonomous tasks.

~~~
ngz00
It seems to me that the real problem is hiring engineers who only know one
language and rest on that language choice for their entire career. If you
build an organization of engineers with a versatile set of skills then there
is no such thing as a wrong language choice.

Mandate the standardization of interfaces rather than languages and you
empower all types of developers in your organization.

------
TazeTSchnitzel
It concerns me that them constantly working a ton of overtime is deemed
praiseworthy.

~~~
exabrial
I'm sorry you're downvoted but this is incredibly important. Over-engagement
leads to siloing, burnout, quality problems, tech debt, among many other
things

------
ecf
> This has caused a lot of disruptions in the company, and I'm receiving
> recommendations to encourage this millennial to quit

This line is completely off-topic and should not be there at all. It leads me
to believe there is a personal bias at play that’s having an influence on your
decision making.

This young guy is busting his ass to learn and more importantly, apply what
he’s learning. And you have the audacity to disregard his effort based on a
meaningless time-frame?

Younger workers, in general, are getting tired of the “serve your time” game
that employers are playing. He knows his value to the company, is willing to
take it elsewhere if you don’t respect his efforts.

~~~
around_here
Leadership is soft skills, and the employee in question doesn’t have them. The
poster needs to get out of the weeds, and stop the demand on labour, but he’s
not wrong about getting rid of the petulant child.

~~~
ubu7737
> Leadership is soft skills

Grifting.

> the employee in question doesn’t have them

The employee in question seems capable of upending your financial priorities.

> stop the demand on labour

For compliance, right?

> petulant child

We hate about others what we hate about ourselves.

------
zarro
Its incredible that the author would think that they are in a position to
discipline the engineer, and not rethink their organizational incentive
structure.

The whole point of a company is to maximize the value that it creates and to
that end set up an incentive structure to develop and maintain people that are
able to create that value which means rewarding them to keep everyones
interests aligned.

Using the "company doesn't promote people unless they've worked in a role for
a least 3 years" is the biggest pile of shit excuse I see all the time. If
zuckerberg can prove that he can provide enough value to be a billionaire by
30, certainly there should be a path to director or CEO regardless of age,
within any organization worth its salt, for someone that can provide that same
value, without checkboxes for attendance.

Just because you attended the lecture doesn't mean you should be able to
prevent someone from getting an A who ditched every lecture but can easily ace
the exams.

------
dookahku
All right so I got a strange question.

how do I get to be like this employee? With that kind of drive vision and
focus? It's something I've been trying to cultivate in myself for a while but
I'm always looking to be better.

It seem like I never know what to do next

~~~
Blakestr
Find a problem you hate, or find people you love who need something.

~~~
dookahku
Thanks, but that's too generic.

I mean what practices, habits, who knows what else

~~~
Blakestr
You described a person who is driven andn focused. Essentially you're looking
for the traits of:

Intelligence and Determination.

The best specific habit I can give you to increasing determination is to start
a mindfulness practice and get high intensity cardio regular.

Mindfulness - 20 minutes a day, twice if you can. It helps you, among other
things, be more honest with yourself and become comfortable with being
uncomfortable.

Cardio - You don't have to run a marathon here. Get your heart rate up to your
max heart rate for about 10 seconds, usually it will take you about 90 seconds
to two minutes to do this. Keep doing this for about 30 minutes. This will up
your metabolism but it will also help you learn how to push because you are
physically pushing yourself. Use a decent heart rate monitor a $30 chest strap
is all you need.

Other habits include removing any addictions in your life that do not benefit
you I'm getting 8 hours of sleep every night.

Then find a problem you can get behind and try to solve it.

------
Traster
There's so much information in this post it's difficult where to begin. If the
engineer is good, then promote them. Time in post is not a reason not to
promote someone, and it sounds like this manager is just crap. Often the "Time
in post" requirements are just metrics that develop over time- you 'expect'
engineers to develop at a certain pace, and if you're promoting them too
quickly that's probably a sign that you aren't making the right decision. It's
not proof that you're not making the right decision, it's just an indicator.
When I managed a team I often had to manage expectations from employees that
want to be promoted. Partly that was about "Look, you haven't demonstrated
X,Y,Z skills" but it's also "You haven't built up the connections across the
company - no one comes to you when they need an expert". Very often those
requirements come with time more than anything else.

The fact that the manager is having monthly meetings with the employee to
check in on promotion is a big red flag. If you're not planning on promoting
him mid-cycle then you've not been clear with your communication by repeatedly
having meetings at which you're going to disappoint him and re-iterate the
same points.

The underlying fact though is this: Large companies stay efficient by under-
promoting employees and only paying market rate when hiring since that's the
only time there's real competition. As an employee you need to know this, and
behave appropriately.

