
Ask HN: Are large corporations with fraudulent IT managers the norm? - classiccorp
Is it your experience, that the people who make it to the higher ranks in the IT departments of large corporations are for the most part frauds? By that I mean both ways i) Are not really good at technology but good at politics and ii) Mainly work to improve careers, even if it hurts the company.<p>Edit: can we name the bad ones, so that other developers dont have their careers damaged and hard work wasted?
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lithos
Why would you think this is more likely in the IT field, at least in the
States?

It makes good sense to hold back a good worker so that they keep doing good
work, instead of spending a quarter on learning a new job.

It makes sense to put a ok(maybe bad) worker in a differnt position to see if
they do better. Often seen as a promotion by others even if it's not.

In a normal workplace you don't just fire your bottom 5% each year without
having chilling effects on your workforce. You move them around and see if
they're capable elsewhere, and can use their knowledge/contacts in other parts
of the company to have an advantage over a new hire.

~~~
oriel
> It makes sense to put a ok(maybe bad) worker in a differnt position to see
> if they do better. Often seen as a promotion by others even if it's not.

What makes me look askance at this practice as a whole is when the ok/bad
people are _put in charge of_ the good workers. I've been a part of and heard
of other teams (in my case specifically as a trench-software worker) being run
into the ground by someone cross promoted and given serious control w/o
oversight and minimal leadin.

Obviously that's anecdotal at best, but I've seen it in my corner as extremely
common.

~~~
toomuchtodo
I've also seen people excellent at their job but terrible at managing and who
have no emotional intelligence or interpersonal skills drive teams into the
ground.

Good managers are hard to find. People don't quit their job, they quit their
boss.

~~~
oriel
> Good managers are hard to find. People don't quit their job, they quit their
> boss.

I think it is an adequate tl;dr for this whole thread...

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m-j-fox
It is my experience that this applies to small and medium corporations also.
And maybe it's natural. The CIO is hired by the CEO to help get Sarbox
compliance. Only at the lowest levels do you sometimes find people interested
in unclogging the tubes.

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kk_cz
I would argue that for IT manager being good at politics is sometimes more
important than being good at technology. Especially if by politics you mean
the ability to communicate with rest of the company (but also subordinates).
It's useless to have technical knowledge if you are unable to negotiate a
budget for the technology required.

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rajeshp1986
The better way is to identify companies where you want to avoid working are
the companies where there is a huge layers of management between you & top
management(Cxo).

I had bad experience in my last company and have decided to stay away from any
companies where there are 5 or more people between CEO & the lowest level
engineer.

If there are many layers of management then it is a sure shot indication that
there will be too much politics within the company and it would be hard to
grow unless you start playing the game. Also, it also means the people who you
work with and managers will be indulging in unnecessary office politics.

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debacle
I don't think it's fair to single out IT managers. Most managers in large,
slow moving companies will be career-focuses and good at politics. It's sort
of the nature of modern megacorps.

