by anonu 16 hours ago
> Most Technical Problems Are Really People Problems
The irony is that this is a classic engineer's take on the root cause of technical debt. Engineers are happy to be heads-down building. But when you get to a team size >1, you actually need to communicate - and ideally not just through a kanban board.
Im a software engineer but have been around the block enough times that I now lead large teams. It annoys me a little when people here talk about how worthless management is. I just want everyone to know that good management is very hard, way harder than anything I’ve ever faced in software development. It’s subjective, non deterministic, all the things digital logic is not. It’s very hard which is why bad management is so common.
> It annoys me a little when people here talk about how worthless management is. I just want everyone to know that good management is very hard, ...
People talk about how worthless management is, because most management is not good and most "managers" are worthless. Promotion to your level of incompetence is a real thing in tech management circles.
> It annoys me a little when people here talk about how worthless management is.
In primary function, a good manager is invisible, so it is understandable that it is seen as being worthless.
But in secondary function only a bad manager keeps themselves invisible. A good manager will stand up at stand up and tell about what they've been working on. If you are not communicating exactly what you are doing to everyone else, you've screwed up horribly.
> way harder than anything I’ve ever faced in software development.
To be fair, you can say that about every job in existence that isn't software development. There is nothing hard about software development.
Yes, you are describing a "people problem"...