Interesting experience with manager today

[karim0028]

Re: Interesting experience with manager today

Strictly speaking, no one is irreplaceable.

In reality, though, taking out your lead R & D developers is generally not a good move. Similarly taking out popular customer-facing support types is equally not a good move. Then there are the executives: each organization has a core group which drives most activity. They certainly don't fire themselves. Lastly there are the loyalists: the old timers whom the various constituents above have relied on for years who might not quite make any of the above grades.

Thus in this light there are definitely individuals who are irreplaceable in a practical sense.

As I was none of these 4 groups, I chose to be proactive.

I've seen senior architects who actually created the product leave and work goes on business as usual..... If your an executive, perhaps, as you are right, they dont usually fire themselves.....

But, technically speaking, even an executive can be replaced by another corporate executive..... At my company i am sure we have at least 50-200 VP's... Anyone can cover or replace the other; and they usually do....

Honestly, the only position that is not really replaceable are the rain maker sales folks... They are a business unto themselves, since they control the cashflow, they usually have a direct line to the CEO and they are not afraid to use it... Those folks can usually even start their own business based on the contacts they have... But, engineers, HR, marketing, etc all are a commodity and definitely easily replaceable; they are a cash drain and the sales guys are the real money centers...

[santafe2]

Re: Interesting experience with manager today

Karim,

I feel for you - but this is exactly what I foresaw in 2006 when I quit my former industry and went independent.

Between the implacable economics of the new semi process cost structure and outsourcing - the situation is very much a shrinking pond, with all the fish in it eating each other.

The pond won't disappear in our lifetimes, but not being a big fish means getting 'food chained' sooner or later unless you are truly an irreplaceable or sufficiently tenured asset.

Same experience in software development and deployment. Left in 2003 when customers were more and more coming out of Europe, development teams were in Bangalore, support and core s/w development in the US and applications deployed all over the world. At least then the development teams still worked on US time so we could review design and functional issues during the US work day.

While I was one of the first to leave for the solar industry, many of my associates have followed over the last 6 years. As one poster alluded to, seek work that will most likely be performed locally.

[c1ue]

Re: Interesting experience with manager today

I've seen senior architects who actually created the product leave and work goes on business as usual..... If your an executive, perhaps, as you are right, they dont usually fire themselves.....

But, technically speaking, even an executive can be replaced by another corporate executive..... At my company i am sure we have at least 50-200 VP's... Anyone can cover or replace the other; and they usually do....

Honestly, the only position that is not really replaceable are the rain maker sales folks... They are a business unto themselves, since they control the cashflow, they usually have a direct line to the CEO and they are not afraid to use it... Those folks can usually even start their own business based on the contacts they have... But, engineers, HR, marketing, etc all are a commodity and definitely easily replaceable; they are a cash drain and the sales guys are the real money centers...

Karim,

I'm not saying anyone is physically irreplaceable, I'm saying there are a significant number of people in any company that just won't be replaced, and listed why.

I have a more concrete example: I worked with a guy who had a 30 year tenure in my former company - despite my former company having been around only for 20 years. His tenure was the artifact of having been passed down through several generations of acquisitions.

He won't ever get laid off until the company collapses. Because doing so would be a massive budgetary hit for whichever group he is in between his severance and accumulated vacation. In fact, his vacation usage was a VP level action item.

Another former co-worker was one of the first 50 employees of the company we were in. He isn't management, but has been a faithful worker for 15 years and one of the top 10 in terms of duration. He won't get fired unless he does something truly awe inspiringly bad.

Neither of these gentlemen are irreplaceable in any sense, but equally neither will ever get booted.

[karim0028]

Re: Interesting experience with manager today

Karim,

I'm not saying anyone is physically irreplaceable, I'm saying there are a significant number of people in any company that just won't be replaced, and listed why.

I have a more concrete example: I worked with a guy who had a 30 year tenure in my former company - despite my former company having been around only for 20 years. His tenure was the artifact of having been passed down through several generations of acquisitions.

He won't ever get laid off until the company collapses. Because doing so would be a massive budgetary hit for whichever group he is in between his severance and accumulated vacation. In fact, his vacation usage was a VP level action item.

Another former co-worker was one of the first 50 employees of the company we were in. He isn't management, but has been a faithful worker for 15 years and one of the top 10 in terms of duration. He won't get fired unless he does something truly awe inspiringly bad.

Neither of these gentlemen are irreplaceable in any sense, but equally neither will ever get booted.

Ahh, got ya That wasn't what i meant when i said replaceable or non-replaceable... I was referring to generalities, not folks who are older than the furniture in a company

[charliebrown]

Re: Interesting experience with manager today

I work for a fortune 50 company in the U.S. in the IT department. When I first arrived all of our s/w and technology was home grown. Now 2/3 of it has been outsourced, either on-shored, or off-shored. I am becoming more of a s/w tester and integrator as opposed to a s/w developer. In general the quality of outsourced s/w stinks. I believe the reason for this is three fold. 1) I have never seen a software spec written that can capture every aspect of functionality. Usually there are gaps and ambiguities. When the s/w is done in house, gaps can be closed with developers talking one on one with the area experts. This just dosen't happen as often and as well if the development is outsourced. 2) There is not a lot of custom s/w developed anymore a lot of time a generalized package is used. Certain areas of functionality are "forced" to work. Thus they don't quite work and can be brittle. 3) There is no technical knowledge retained in the company about the product, because it was developed out of house.

What am I supposed to do? I am torn between being and engineer, which I excel at, or being a mid-manager type that I am not good at, but that is where the jobs are and where the money is. I'm sticking with the engineering now, however its future looks dim.

[c1ue]

Re: Interesting experience with manager today

What am I supposed to do? I am torn between being and engineer, which I excel at, or being a mid-manager type that I am not good at, but that is where the jobs are and where the money is. I'm sticking with the engineering now, however its future looks dim.

The question I would ask is: what is the possibility of mid-management also being outsourced at some point? Sooner or later some bright boy in SE Asia is going to make the argument that having the integrator on their side of the world is cheaper and more efficient than having one on this side.

Import tariffs won't help with labor costs on the design side. Design is just information which can be ported anywhere, whereas manufacturing is essential for physical product.

If you have expertise which is necessary - i.e. you can quit this instant and find a job with equal/better pay tomorrow - then by all means continue to be an engineer.

If not, then contemplate the equation of time left before retirement vs. the outsourcing dynamic.

[touchring]

Re: Interesting experience with manager today

Does outsourcing always work? Particularly so for companies where the product is the software itself.

I always had the impression that Microsoft products are buggy (e.g. Windows Mobile 6 is not even beta) and difficult to use because they are "outsourced" to their overseas offices, whereas Apple and Google products are better because they are done in the US. How many times must Microsoft redo their code before they get it right? Is that the case?

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Interesting experience with manager today

Does outsourcing always work? Particularly so for companies where the product is the software itself.

What is usually meant by outsourcing doesn't work very well, in my experience. When there is a wide gap in salaries and when you only need quite mundane software for which the usual management approved "specification" is entirely sufficient and which can be written one-time requiring little maintenance thereafter, then it might work I suppose.

But if you're doing anything "interesting", then you must have some one single person or a small closely knit team who understands and takes deep interest in all three of (and strong control of the first two of):

• the software architecture, structure and basic algorithms,
• the coding style, testing, documentation and line-by-line details, and
• the business and technical needs being addressed by the software.

Software specs are like on-line dating descriptions. They might work for one-night stands after several beers, but I sure would not want to select my wife that way (my ex-wife would chuckle if she read this line .)

The form of "outsourcing" that I know does work usually goes by another name: open sourcing. If you have a good senior in-house software engineer who really understands your business and technical needs, who is familiar with how open source works, and who writes quality code, and if your project is amenable to open sourcing (you're willing to share it, and it is of interest to others) then you can get much better quality software for much less R&D money spent.

[touchring]

Re: Interesting experience with manager today

The form of "outsourcing" that I know does work usually goes by another name: open sourcing. If you have a good senior in-house software engineer who really understands your business and technical needs, who is familiar with how open source works, and who writes quality code, and if your project is amenable to open sourcing (you're willing to share it, and it is of interest to others) then you can get much better quality software for much less R&D money spent.

That is one possibility, but you're still very much dependent on that solid in-house software engineer to organize the open source project and be the face to the open source community.

From my experience, partial outsourcing works best, especially for companies where the software is the product, meaning modules are outsourced but assembly and maybe the core module is developed and maintained in house. For software companies, it is also good from the IP protection point of view, especially when the modules are outsourced to different companies that don't know each other.