Comments by "" (@redtela) on "Thriving Technologist" channel.

@jwenting after the mess that was Cyberpunk 2077, I turned around to my team with a statement: "I promise you will never be forced by me, to work unpaid hours. You'll always either be paid, or get the time back whenever you want it. If people above me are demanding that I ask you to work unpaid - they will be the ones to tell you that, because I will have already resigned."
4
@vanlepthien6768 - I tell my team exactly that... and make a point of saying that if they are choosing to work silly hours just to appear productive, they are choosing to lower their hourly rate. Conversely, if they tell me they're struggling, I'll a) reduce their expected outcome and b) arrange training on whatever they're struggling with. No-one writes good code when tired.
2
@vulpixelful you can, and should call it out. But your managers will only do something if they care about everyone's mental health. If you call it out, and you don't see anything happen about it - it's probably a sign that better employers exist.
2
@vulpixelful Nope, not in game dev, general software house. I've worked elsewhere (again, not game dev) where the mantra was "if there's a big problem, no-one goes home until its solved." I just don't like doing it to my devs. So I won't.
2
@iumpieces I've worked multiple high pace environments. I'm at one now, managing the team. Do you even realise how toxic your whole sentiment is?
2
@iumpieces one of my team used to be working at 9am, and still working at 2am. I saw it in the SCM commits. I continued to discourage him from it, because no-one writes good code when tired. He continued to do it. Could I stop him? No. Could I continue to nag at him to have a life outside of work? Sure. If anyone chooses to work unpaid hours, fine, it's your choice. But it's not a goal anyone should be encouraging. Isn't it awesome when people learn to be productive, and have a worklife balance, and reduce stress by delivering on time without pressure?
2
I've worked under a Sales Director that was pulling the same stunt. I called a meeting with the CEO to officially complain about it. I didn't know they were brothers. Nothing changed, so I walked. They continued to pay me for 2 months after I left (because that was part of my terms).
2
I'm a "head of / principal" - you speak a lot of truth, my friend. A good lead settles debates between the team. I liken it to a Captain of a ship... you call the big shots, but trust the crew to get on with the day to day. But if you annoy the crew too much, you'll be starring down the wrong end of a mutiny. On the point of levelling up everyone, "a rising tide lifts all ships." On the point of blame/credit - my team know my mantra. If it went wrong, it's my fault. Doesn't even matter if the problem was actually in my team, it's still my fault. If anything goes well, the person that did it gets the credit. As a direct result of that, one of my team got a bonus for passing their appraisal - the bonus was a brand new car. Tech decisions, I tend to go "hey guys, what do you want to use, lets look a the pros & cons together." I'll guide the discussion, but ultimately, the team decides. "When the going gets tough" - we had a problem months ago and it became a crunch... there was a discussion about "who's working the night shift" - the answer was obvious. I can't ask my team to do something I'm not prepared to do myself, first. I always said I didn't want the "HR headache" :( I was asked to step into this position, and so far, my team have had my back when it matters. Probably because I've had theirs BEFORE it mattered. As a result of my attitude, I regularly get threatened with being fired. My response is always "ok, if my best ain't good enough, I'll have another job tomorrow. I'm not worried." - overwhelmingly, in multiple employers, my team have defended me every time. It humbles me every time. Books? Peopleware. Again, and again and again.
1
Two solutions there James: 1) instead of estimating complexity/time, you can time-box an investigation to figure out the answers, for example "I'll know more about it in 2 days" is perfectly valid. 2) Backend before FrontEnd simply puts pressure on the team delivering the backend (assuming they're separated). Instead, the design phase should include an API spec agreement, so that the FrontEnd devs will know what to expect, and both can then happen in parallel. Of course, that risks BackEnd implementing slightly differently, but that's solved in the daily standups.
1
@iumpieces I should add, we do 100% WFH and have a completely flexible hours arrangement. You agree to work X hours/week, we agree to pay you Y. If you're a night owl and want to work say 8 hours overnight and sleep all day... cool, not a problem. If you want to emmigrate and live in a different timezone, cool, not a problem. If you want to work normal office hours, but go to the gym for 2 hours at lunch time, cool, no problem. But if you commit to working X hours/week, and then put in even more hours than that, just to meet the same delivery goal, you're by definition lowering your own hourly rate, and you likely need to learn how to manage time better. Conversely, if you commit to working X hours, but work more AND that extra work gives us a higher throughput of work than we asked for... then I should (and would) look at increasing pay.
1
@iumpieces motivation can be easily demonstrated without working excessive hours though. That's the part that you seem to be missing.
1
In my opinion, this is a false dichotomy. Uncle Bob got it right: comments are evil, and require maintenance of their own. Comments are valid, but only when you fail (for whatever reason - and there are many valid reasons) to write clean code. I recently went back to a project that was written months ago, and I needed to add a feature. There were no comments. I was rather pleasantly surprised that it didn't take long to do, because the code was readable. I recently told a friend that I had a productive day - and all I changed was one word, on one line. Again, in my opinion, the real benefit of comments, is in the commit message - rather than in the code itself.
1
I think the point here, is that estimates are just that, estimates. They're almost always wrong, in wonderful and different ways. Unless you're a contractor, you're not getting asked to quote a number of hours. In my team, we ballpark story points - any unknowns or worries and we round up. Over N sprints, so long as the team doesn't change, you can see how many story points are completed on average. That allows the business to plan. I also always round down the sprint commitment too. I manage the team, so it's easy for me to say to PMO "Nope, we're not agreeing to that, and here's why..." We also don't blame anyone - for anything. If things go wrong, that's what the Sprint Retrospective is for (so long as you're also taking steps to learn from it). Ultimately, problems within my team are my fault, and no-one else's. Though if they do awesome things, they individually get the credit loudly & proudly (which simply helps me when it comes to the next seasons budget anyway). I think the big missing point here, is that working as a developer for a company paying your wages, means that there needs to be compromise (on both sides of the fence).
1