Comment by ryanjshaw
1 month ago
Felt like AI slop. I used to do what it recommends, and it got me nowhere other than more stress and higher expectations from senior management.
1 month ago
Felt like AI slop. I used to do what it recommends, and it got me nowhere other than more stress and higher expectations from senior management.
I was reprimanded at three different software companies for doing exactly this, and not "staying in my lane" or "trying to do the senior person's job". So it only applies if you're already ahead of schedule on all your assigned work (difficult if they keep increasing your backlog), and the manager likes you but sees you as non-threatening, and people aren't territorial about RFCs.
Part of growing up is also knowing WHEN to do the extra, thinking about whether this will undermine people who dont like to be undermined, and then more fundamentally, what the hell am I doing in such a politically toxic place?
Its not just about going above and beyond. Its going above and beyond exactly where it will get you the best outcome and nowhere else.
The number of times I've been praised for going "above and beyond" has been absolutely dwarfed by "stay in your lane". Turns out, a lot of people don't appreciate you trying to prove you could do their job.
I mean is it not clear that companies are just an abstraction for a network of people, and you obviously must be be good with those people, ie seduce them into promoting you. And is it not clear that on the other side, you must keep your options open such that you find an alternative (job) if they are weird / toxic / dont like you / you dont like them?
Reads like of those things people post on LinkedIn.
Same. If anything it only welded me in my position, because I was just very valuable doing what I was doing. Absolutely crap advice, IMHO.
Were you simply doing more of the same or were you actually doing the job of the level above you? Those are not the same.
I tested both. None worked.
It is a little bit like “it’s not what you know, is what you can prove”: I mean: “it’s not what you do, is what the boss of your boss sees”. And I emphasize “boss of your boss” because him is who you have to impress (or somebody 2 levels above, anyway).
Also in moderately big to big companies, is all about contacts and personal marketing, which could (and typically is) orthogonal to your actual work.
> Also in moderately big to big companies, is all about contacts and personal marketing, which could (and typically is) orthogonal to your actual work.
As you go up the levels that is exactly the job (for better or worse) so doing that is doing the work at the next level. You are organizational glue that connects people and ensures your team has proper visibility. If you didn't see it that way then that may explain your problems with promotions.
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It actually worked for me, got my last promotion that way (IC -> EM)
I don’t consider a line level manager a promotion. I consider that the fifth level of hell.
The pay bump was nice, but I totally get where you're coming from. I'm actually thinking about moving back to IC
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It uh.. was kind of weird that a junior dev wrote.. an.. rfc? I sense that this is a company that has somewhat adapted that concept for some kind of internal communication, or it's AI slop. All the jobs I'd ever had would probably call something like that a "design proposal" or similar.
Maybe this is a folksy anecdote about a junior developer working for John Email designing the protocol for trinary morse code over a token ring of twisted pair barbed wire. An RFC for that kind of project would be natural.
In the spirit of this, I propose we start calling things like flowcharts, SVG images of digraphs, UML diagrams etc "articles of war" just to spice things up.
It says "more junior engineer on the team" which could mean senior vs stuff, or regular vs senior. At least that's how I understood it.