aminotaa

And yet instead of celebrating the platform that gave us the most advanced frameworks in decades you choose to peddle your sad negativity.

The manager's role is to deliver. Managers are given head count to deliver. Managers are assessed on how demanding they are of their direct reports. The general expectation is to ruthlessly cut and replace underperformers.

Only attorneys in labor disputes will be asking to show minutes from meetings.

I've seen, head and read quite a bit about engineering 1-1s.

After doing engineering management for a decade and trying many ideas, I ended up with the following.

Have weekly 1 hour 1-1s if you have 5 direct reports or less.

Have weekly 30 minute 1-1s if you have between 5 and 10 direct reports.

If you have more than 10 direct reports, hopefully there is some plan. With 10 direct reports, many best practices do not apply.

My primary rule for 1-1s is not to waste time. I do not walk for 1-1s, because it is a waste of time. I do not cut 1-1s short when my direct reports have nothing to talk about, because it is a waste of time. I thoroughly prepare for 1-1s.

I have a shared document with every direct report where I write a summary of the 1-1s. My direct reports can add anything they want at any time (e.g. include topics they want to cover in the next 1-1 so that I can prepare ahead of time).

I start with a quick review of the previous 1-1 and close the loop on all outstanding topics from the previous 1-1.

Next, I give my direct reports an opportunity to raise any topics they want to discuss. I listen to what they have to say. I give answers when I have them. When I do not have answers I write down the question and try to find answers before the next 1-1.

Small-talk topics are fine and sometimes necessary. As my relationships with direct reports evolve, so do 1-1s. The more mature the relationship, the more efficient the 1-1. I don't expect to start at peak efficiency, but I'd like to see forward progress with every 1-1. The purpose of my 1-1 is to develop professional relationships with my direct reports (aka alignment), mentor my direct reports, learn and improve myself.

I try to leave enough time for myself to talk about my topics. I expect my direct reports to give me straight answers when they have them. When my direct reports do not have answers, I ask them to follow up with me in writing (my personal preference - I am more effective reading). Usually, for my topics I focus on communication, career development, culture and alignment.

Lastly, I recite the list of topics we covered.

In my first 1-1 with a new direct report I explain my take on 1-1 meeting structure and my expectations.

Not really surprising that sales people can sell themselves better than engineers.

Senior Directors on the other hand...

Startup 1: $50k for 1 year (in the 90s, do the math what it would be right now)

Big company for some time

Startup 2: $0 for 2 years

Startup 3: $0 for 2 years

Startup 4: $0 for 2 years

Startup 5: $500k for 4 years

Startup 6: $1m for 1 year (still somewhat in play because 3/4 of my options got converted into the options of a public company as a result of acquisition, and I got RSU handcuffs on top of that)

All numbers before tax. I hope I'm done with my startup adventures. Lost taste for it.

Financially, based on my experience, startups do not make any sense as an employee.

Mentally, Startup 5 made me question my faith in humanity.

You are making a 2500 year-old argument against democracy. Democracy serves the interests of the needy. That's the whole catch with the democracy.

If you don't want democracy, your options are monarchy, aristocracy, oligarchy or tyranny. There are two sides to every coin.

For individual contributors, equity and bonus range from 50% to 100% of base.

For leadership, equity and bonus are from 100% to 300%.

For senior leadership you might as well have your base at $1 if you are into those kinds of stunts.

$250k+ total comp.

Companies that offer high base tend to be lackluster on bonus and equity.

RSUs, if offered, are tradable in almost all cases. Options are vapor 90% of the time.

COL in Bay Area is not that much higher compared to TX, WA or CO.

I have no idea about the east coast labor market, but in Bay Area $250k is what an I4-I5 gets payed at medium/large RSU granting companies.

As a software developer at I4+ you have to

- Be able to independently complete start-to-finish large features in reasonable time

- Drive resolution of complex problems (fix any bugs with your code and medium bugs elsewhere)

- Deliver high-quality work (low bug rate, low failure rate, high flexibility, great coding style, automation, documentation)

- Introduce improvement ideas and get them implemented (gets harder the more people get involved)

- Own a functional area end-to-end

- Have product-wide technical and functional knowledge (know everything that your department is working on from both developer and customer perspectives)

- Mentor junior engineers

- Excel at communication

- Participate in recruiting

If you can demonstrate the above, you should have no problems getting hired at $250k+ in Bay Area.

Getting to above $500k is another story. Took me 20 years.

Little's Law - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little%27s_law. Queues are everywhere.

Distributed Systems theory. Especially the complexity of failure detection in distributed systems. Slow vs failed.

Networking. 99 out of 100 developers do not have sufficient understand of networking.

Many operating systems concepts. Virtual Memory Management. Scheduling. Intel x86 architecture and how CPUs actually work.

Relational Algebra.

Multiversion concurrency control.

Defense in depth. Information Assurance in general.

AST. Parsing in general.