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dabedee 2 minutes ago [-]
> Platform teams are engineering-led rather than product-led. There is almost never a product manager handing you a roadmap, no revenue line to follow, and no market to lose.
It's precisely because of this framing and mentality that platform teams don't actually serve people well and are usually highly dysfunctional towers of people inventing work.
The fix for having no market is to act like the teams you serve could leave. This whole article lists signals, and none of them is that.
juancn 42 minutes ago [-]
I use the "what's going to kill us next" philosophy.
Figure out what that is and do something to avoid it.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
aaroninsf 46 seconds ago [-]
I feel seen, but agree, I would have used "identifying and prioritizing work"...
...but I will admit, it does sometimes feel inventive, and when I describe what I do, it does feel... inventive... in some sense. Particularly "no one in the org asked me to..."... instead it's almost always, identifying and getting ahead of needs, or, responding to overlooked friction/problems, etc...
nmehner 14 hours ago [-]
"inventing work" = "requirements engineering"
"Inventing work" is a strange phrase to use imho.
arealaccount 1 hours ago [-]
I thought this was going to be an article about slacking off with style
Insanity 15 minutes ago [-]
Well I was thinking more align the lines of pure "promoware". I.e, find something to build that'll get you promoted but is useless beyond that.
theanonymousone 52 minutes ago [-]
In their defence, requirements engineering is somehow reactive sounding to me, while "this thing" is kind of "proactive".
qrush 1 hours ago [-]
Agreed. A better framing would be "defining work".
theanonymousone 54 minutes ago [-]
Or "proactive engineering"
groestl 53 minutes ago [-]
I think it's a fundamental difference in philosophy. Does the work exist, and you discover it? Or does it start existing as soon as you think about it? This person seems to subscribe to the latter world view.
mytydev 7 hours ago [-]
I was thinking the same thing. The word that I would be more inclined to use is used multiple times throughout the article. Discovery.
gloryjulio 36 minutes ago [-]
Requirements engineering still applies to senior engineers. You are given a problem and you need to work out the requirements and the path to completion.
But for staff engineers, they need to to discover the scope themselves. That's where "inventing" coming from. Not saying inventing is a good word here, but requirement alone is not enough for staff level's work
It's precisely because of this framing and mentality that platform teams don't actually serve people well and are usually highly dysfunctional towers of people inventing work.
The fix for having no market is to act like the teams you serve could leave. This whole article lists signals, and none of them is that.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
...but I will admit, it does sometimes feel inventive, and when I describe what I do, it does feel... inventive... in some sense. Particularly "no one in the org asked me to..."... instead it's almost always, identifying and getting ahead of needs, or, responding to overlooked friction/problems, etc...
"Inventing work" is a strange phrase to use imho.
But for staff engineers, they need to to discover the scope themselves. That's where "inventing" coming from. Not saying inventing is a good word here, but requirement alone is not enough for staff level's work