
Ask HN: Should you accept that as a developer you have small impact in company? - lackoftactics
Currently I work in small size software house and I feel that I don&#x27;t have any impact on the products and I try to accept this fact, fortunately, I have my side projects. It&#x27;s quite annoying that if you ask harder questions about company and vision, you get answers like &quot;It&#x27;s none of your business&quot;. Sad thing is that it&#x27;s cool company and have really open culture and this still happens so it would be even worse somewhere else.<p>Previously I worked in product house where I was the only developer for a while and still all my ideas were not even considered. I wasn&#x27;t supposed to have anything to say, just code and keep servers alive.<p>Lately, I started thinking about it more intensively as I have written the GitHub library with almost 500 stars on GitHub and my blog post went viral on medium. I forgot that I have more talents than Ruby on Rails development like knowledge about product development, marketing, SEO, creativity, writing skills, psychology.<p>It doesn&#x27;t seem like it bothers my other co-workers and they are not so interested in doing side projects, startups, product development, writing. We had chat while ago about starting something on our own and they were happy with what they are doing here.<p>All the software companies are now the same and if you don&#x27;t get to the higher position you will be a cog in the machine even if it&#x27;s a small company.<p>So back to the question. Should we accept this as a fact that we are only developers and hope for the better future if we raise in the ranks?
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danielvf
I've been able to have plenty of project, engineering, and technical influence
in companies while not technically being in charge of anything. In fact, I
prefer it this way. I don't like day to day managing, and I like the freedom
to pick which problems I'm thinking about. And since I have zero care for
getting any credit, I'm not threatening anyone and I stay outside the power
fights.

\----

There's a several thousand year old story about this.

Some junior executives joined a large multi-national corporation. While still
in their training, they saw some process improvements wanted to make in their
own areas.

They asked their friendly local VP if they could make the changes. He said "If
this goes wrong, the CEO will blame me, not you. Heck no."

So then they asked their immediate boss they could do a small, ten day trial
run with the new process, and metrics that lined up with what their immediate
boss was managing for. He, seeing little risk, and potential upside, gave the
go ahead for the trial.

The new method worked out great, was rolled out to the whole rest of the
training department, and everybody was happy.

\- Some people's primary management objective is to not get in trouble with
their boss. They do this by reducing uncertainty to the point they actively
work against positive change, because it adds uncertainty. These aren't the
people you want to be asking permission from.

\- A lot of times, people low in the org chart have the actual authority. As
long as you are friends with them, and don't make them look bad with the stuff
you do, you can get away with a lot of improvement.

\- Good ideas need good packaging. You really need to express them in frame of
reference of the person or people who are making the decisions. If you are
dealing with someone with profit and loss responsibility, frame your solution
in terms of making more money or spending less, if you are dealing with a
person with schedule responsibility, frame it in terms of reducing
variability. Don't frame your problems in developer terms unless you are
dealing with a developer who is actively programming.

\- You can do a whole lot more experimentation if you can keep the cost of
failure lower.

\- Most people in a large company never really think about the big picture of
the company. If you do, and can clearly express how your ideas fit into them,
you can have a big impact. Often when you've really done your thinking and
found the solution to a problem, you'll hear your ideas repeated by people all
over the company. You don't even have to fight the fight.

------
davelnewton
There is a disconnect between the claim that it's a company with "open
culture" and answers like "it's none of your business".

I dispute your premise from the outset.

~~~
lackoftactics
they are saying that in polite tone, it's something on the management level
and you don't have to worry. If you really want to know the details we can
talk about it on the next 1-on-1.

