There was Chainer, which originated the define-by-run model that characterized PyTorch’s effectiveness. It was developed by a much smaller, much less influential company in Japan. Early PyTorch is transparent about the debt owed to Chainer.
Thanks. Yes, I remember Chainer, but only vaguely. I kinda remember looking at it, but not actually using it.
My recollection is that when I looked at Chainer back then, it didn't offer a comprehensive library of preexisting components for deep learning. When I tried PyTorch, on the other hand, I vividly remember it as already having lots of prebuilt components (common layers, activation functions, etc.) in `torch.nn`, so it was easier and faster to get going.
Yes, exactly—not many people know about Chainer nowadays. Back in 2016, PyTorch's interface was actually inferior to Chainer's, and I think Chainer's design was really ahead of its time.
There's a bunch of milestones, for me the standout one was managers starting to abuse marking tickets for large events as "secret" to stop people from reading their screwups. Someone leaked that the cause for some large AWS outage was someone oopsing some CLI command, and it seemed to trigger a pretty large shift.
We are remote. He’s been told at least a few times.
I can do this over 1:1 over remote, but it definitely doesn’t feel the same.
We have a team onsite in a few weeks. I could do it then. I still think it’s more likely than not that things will go sour, especially since the rest of the team will actually be there, and I’ll be letting him know a lot of the team has had issues with him.
The rest of the team is extremely passive and conflict-averse. It’ll be awkward then.
I can try a remote 1:1 since I think there are more ways to keep a cap on this.
The very fact that I have to tiptoe around this makes me realize this guy is super volatile and angry. Even reducing our 1:1 cadence, which I did for all team members simply due to too much meeting load on me, led him to cancel them altogether.
Keep calm. You have time and the team on your side, if not management. Don’t let hin drag you down, he will only continue to sabotage himself. All you need to do is mitigate risk and update management on his misdoings.
Frankly, I think if you asked the difficult engineer, he'd say we're also stuck in a culture of live and let live vs. excellence, and that he's on the side of excellence, and his teammates just aren't good enough.
I’m planning on making it clear we should do this. I’m expecting push-back. I’m just not going to entertain it and rely on my manager to handle scheduling while I take part in technical review. I’m exhausted of having to fight this guy to do what’s right.
It probably won’t be him who writes it but he’ll have to be involved at least as a code reviewer for the AIs. I’m sure he’s going to complain and try to make it look unnecessary. I’m mostly done trying to make things work with this guy. I’ll move up to my skip if I keep getting hassled like this.
Yes, I am disappointed with my manager, especially given the number of times and the insistence with which I've raised this. It's clear to me both that he's afraid how this will reflect on him to his manager, and he's afraid of how the other engineer will react. He wants to keep the peace, which means me just sucking this up.
I don't want to leave this job unless I've exhausted all other possibilities. With this exception, it's great.
But the thing for your manager is, if you leave because he didn't handle this, that will also reflect badly on him. And it sounds like leaving because of this is a real option for you. You wouldn't just be saying it to blackmail your manager - you're really thinking that you may have to leave because of this.
> You're the lead, so just assume that you have cart blanche to just book the meeting
You're right. I should just push this. I'm attempting to be collaborative but I'm ending up just being conflict-averse to the detriment of everyone. I'll do this this upcoming week.
> This is probably good feedback.
I'd like for it not to bother me so much. It just accumulates and has festered. I should've been more forceful and insistent sooner. It's been on the verge of being worthwhile to force the issue for a long time; it's an ambiguous case since it's mostly passive-aggressiveness, not plain meanness.
> Call him out on it. In public. Out loud.
I really can't see this turning out well for me. It's easy for me to smirk and laugh, and for me to end up looking like the asshole. I'd be playing his game and losing.
> And if he follows up "we can have a chat about this after the meeting" or "lets take this offline"
> I really can't see this turning out well for me. It's easy for me to smirk and laugh, and for me to end up looking like the asshole. I'd be playing his game and losing.
Your style doesn't jive with this sort of aggressive posturing. Thats fair.
I would advise that you find a strategy and voice that does work for you. You need to have the things you're going to say "loaded up". Spend the first week taking time after the meeting taking an hour to write down all the things you should have said to "disarm" this person. It's less about the delivery and more that you have a message to send ready.
In feedback and promo docs my leadership and soft skills were called out as exemplary and distinctively strong.
If anything it's the opposite. I don't think my technical skills are as strong as some peers at my level. A big part of the difficulty is that the other engineer is more experience in certain technologies than I am. I'm self-aware enough to recognize those cases, and don't try to override him.
If you already don't believe me, and want to think the worst, I won't be able to change your mind.
In another comment I've explained why I think this "OP is the real problem" narrative probably isn't the case, just based on other data points I've had.
> You have a engineer in your team who thinks you are a looser and incompetent. This is why he second guesses you at every point, because he does not believe that you can make adequate decisions
I do think this is broadly correct, though.
> they have very little respect for you as a leader, they love working with you because it allows them to do what they want
This is incorrect. They actively seek guidance from me regularly. As I mention in another post, three engineers joined the team specifically to work with me. I don't have doubts about this.
> The opinion of your boss towards the "problem engineer" seems quite positive
This is wrong too. He's called him an asshole.
> Nobody respect your leadership. Your staff doesn't and your manager doesn't.
This is also wrong. I was promoted recently. My reviews are strong in a tough, calibrated org. My team is widely trusted, a complete 180 from the state before I joined when it was falling apart.
Again, if you're already dead-set on reading the worst, you'll be able to do so. But I came here for actionable advice. You gave judgment, but not advice. What's the point?
I am sure that you will be able to change my mind.
If you read the discussion below there is one aspect I didn't bring up in this post. What does the rest of the team do when you get challenged? Do they stand up for you and defend your decision and your right to make the decision?
You brought up the post mortem. That was your decision to make, not only did you get challenged, but you also had to bring in your manager. What did the rest of the Team do? I have a hard time imagining a scenario, where you make a decision, where everyone but one guy goes against you and you still need a manager involved.
>This is incorrect. They actively seek guidance from me regularly. As I mention in another post, three engineers joined the team specifically to work with me. I don't have doubts about this.
I don't doubt any of that. And they may very well respect you, but that does not automatically translate into them respecting you as a leader.
>What's the point?
I gave you an outsiders perspective. Even if I am wrong about everything, the one thing I am absolutely certain about is that this one engineer sees you as a failure in leadership. And if he sees you as a failure in leadership (and has at least some positive opinions about his teammates, if he doesn't you are in far deeper trouble with him) then he must believe that the rest of your team does not believe in your leadership either. If I am wrong and the rest of the team stands firmly behind you, then you only need to show him that.
| Have you (or higher ups) pointed out his immaturity and behavior are likely the exact reasons he wasn’t selected to lead the team, and if he continues on this path he is ensuring he will never advance at the company? That could do one of two things… get him to shift his attitude or find a new job where he can advance.
This is currently my top option I'm considering. I'd like to deliver (or have my manager deliver) the feedback based on the leveling guidelines that include team leadership skills, and make it very unclear that this is the biggest blocker for his promotion, and unless he changes, he will not be promoted on the team.
I'm eager to move that forward to end up solving this problem and moving it out of the current state, which is intolerable to me, but it's not review time. Next time I meet with my manager I want to float this idea to him.
I personally can't get rid of him, and I know of at least one good engineer on the team who would be upset if he left, since he has a lot of historical knowledge about the stack no one else has -- no one on the team enjoyed working with him except for one junior engineer, so no one else has learned certain parts of the stack.
About whether he's toxic: things really switch back and forth. More recently, he's mostly stopped working with everyone but a junior engineer who he does have a good relationship with. He is responsible and a strong owner for the thing he owns. He does a lot of generous, unglamorous work for the team, like clearing up tech debt -- though he doesn't commit to things on the roadmap that'll help move the stack forward, I think out of a fear of failure, since I think a lot of his behavior is partially explained by insecurity -- but that's another conversation.
I think from his perspective, he would say that I'm not good enough to be the lead of this team, and he would be better at it than I am. In a couple dimensions (his historical knowledge/background, and his experience with the stack) he'd have a point, but still wrong overall, I think.
But either way, whether he respects me or not, I am owed to be treated as if he respects me. That's part of being a professional and a good teammate, and he should owe that equally to anyone on the team -- he doesn't do a good job at hiding his disdain for other people on the team, or many people outside the team either; when we were a bit closer, near to when I joined the team, he badmouthed almost everyone he currently works with, or has worked with.
There is another thing in here to add to the feedback about why won’t be moving up. If he is the only one he knows the stack, and he isn’t personable enough to work with for a hand off (for most of the team), he had stuck himself in that role. Some people think if only they can do a certain job it means security, but what it really means is they can never be promoted.
If he wants to move up he needs to show that is can successfully work with people and have everything off, so he isn’t a single point of failure.
Being a lead is also more than hard skills, it’s soft skills and being able to work with people, which sounds like a weakness.
If he is serious about wanting to move up, there are lots of things he needs to address here, not just his attitude towards you.
