0:07

It takes more than hearing the phrase mob

0:09

programming and showing up at the next meeting with pitchforks

0:12

and torches to be a great software engineer. This

0:14

is episode 382 of the Soft Skills Engineering

0:17

podcast. I'm your host, Jamison Dance. I'm

0:19

your host, Dave Smith. Soft Skills Engineering

0:21

is a weekly advice show about all the non-technical

0:23

things that go into the technical field of software development.

0:49

This

0:57

episode is sponsored by Compiler, an

0:59

original podcast from Red Hat discussing tech

1:01

topics, big, small, and strange.

1:04

You'll hear more about them in the middle of our show. Please

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check out Compiler. You want to

1:09

thank our patrons, Jamison?

1:11

I absolutely do. Thank you to

1:13

Nick Cantor, Braden Caines, John Grant, Travis,

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Awesome Antenna Testing, Will Angel, Ira Chan, Monkeyface

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looking for a job, Corp2Corp, and TypeHero.dev.

1:40

Thank you. Thank you so much to these entities

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or concepts or string

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We'll get you a shout out either one time

2:02

or weekly to demonstrate our

2:04

undying gratitude and deep

2:07

admiration for you. So here's a spoiler

2:09

for next month. I noticed in advance that

2:12

the full-time contractor looking for Job

2:14

Corp. to Corp. has found

2:16

a job. So congratulations. No.

2:19

Next month it will change.

2:21

They owe it all to anonymously advertising

2:23

on our show.

2:27

I'm looking for a job to Corp. to Corp. and

2:29

there's no way you will ever fail

2:31

to know who I am. But

2:34

you'll know I have taste because I'm

2:37

a patron of the show. Dave,

2:39

do you want to read our first question? No,

2:42

I want to read a follow-up from a previous question. Oh,

2:45

okay. Do you want to read the first thing that's after

2:47

Thank Our Patrons? That's

2:50

what I wanted, Blowboard. That's exactly how did you know?

2:53

That is exactly what I was thinking about doing. You've

2:55

built up over seven years of doing

2:58

this. This

3:00

comes from a listener who took

3:02

our advice or didn't. I don't know. We'll

3:05

find out. In episode 313, that's like a

3:07

year and a half ago, where it says,

3:09

Hello. Writing in to follow up on

3:11

my question back in episode 313, parents are fighting.

3:15

Thank you for your advice and I'm pretty sure Dave's guess

3:17

on which company was correct. This was at

3:19

Amazon. Yes, I

3:21

guess correctly. Wait, what was

3:24

the question? The question was, I am

3:27

trying to get a promotion, but the principal engineer

3:29

in my organization is blocking it

3:31

and my manager can do nothing about it.

3:35

My manager supports me, this principal engineer

3:37

doesn't, and

3:39

they win. The PE wins. Okay,

3:42

let's keep reading. I took your advice and sat down

3:44

with both my manager and the PE and found

3:46

out that the PE didn't think I had, quote, respect

3:49

for engineering work that came before me, specifically

3:51

because I had suggested we standardize on a single

3:54

testing framework instead of three in one code

3:56

base. Afterward,

3:58

my manager fairly bluntly told me that. that the PE would

4:00

not let it go and I would not be getting a promotion

4:02

as long as the PE still worked in the org. Apparently,

4:05

word to the grapevine was that he had been blocking promotions

4:07

for years for anyone who had been at technical

4:09

odds with him. It was up to me if I wanted to wait it

4:11

out or not. So I quit again. Later

4:16

I heard from my ex-manager that there was a reorg and

4:18

the problematic PE was booted out the door shortly

4:20

after. And what do you know, the promotions have

4:22

started flowing again. So unfortunately this seems to

4:24

have been a case of a bad cog in the machine. Oh

4:27

man. Well, there you go. But the

4:29

machine eventually identified the bad cog and

4:32

replaced it with a good cog. Yeah.

4:35

That's a good call out because the machine worked.

4:38

The cogs, the individual cogs

4:41

kind of, I don't know, who cares if the individual

4:44

cogs work. The machine kept working. That's

4:46

the important thing. Above all individual human

4:48

value, the machine must keep working.

4:51

Well, yeah, I guess that's my point. Like the

4:53

machine is optimized to make the machine work

4:56

and sometimes you just got to, you

4:59

can't make a machine without smashing

5:01

a few cogs. I think it's the great.

5:04

Sometimes, yeah. Right. Sometimes

5:06

it's cogs. Make a machine omelet. Other cogs.

5:08

I don't know. Yeah.

5:12

Are you about to say you have to break some cogs

5:14

to make a machine omelet? Yeah, that's what I was

5:16

trying. Yeah. I was going for a, can't make

5:18

an omelet without breaking a few eggs. Yeah.

5:22

Just confusing metaphors as is

5:24

my want to do. Respect

5:27

for engineering. I didn't have respect for engineering work that came before

5:29

me. I mean, that has to mean stuff

5:32

that the PE did, right? There's no other

5:34

way I can respect

5:37

for the work that I did, the person who is blocking

5:39

your promotion. I chose to put in three

5:41

different testing frameworks. Yes. And

5:44

you showed a lack of respect for

5:46

my decision. For my mistakes. I

5:48

mean decisions. Well,

5:55

I'd be interested to know how long,

5:57

do you feel

5:59

like it was the, the choice to quit. I mean obviously

6:01

you can't make this person leave and if

6:03

you, if you, I

6:05

wonder how long you would have had to wait for it to come

6:07

around. Thank you for the

6:10

feedback though. It's really good to hear how it went. Yeah.

6:12

And always good to hear that Dave was right. It's

6:14

one of my favorite things. Mine

6:18

too. Nice.

6:20

Okay Dave, should I read

6:22

our first question now? Go for it. This is

6:24

from an anonymous listener who says, there

6:27

aren't a lot of engineering management growth resources in my

6:29

company. It's a relatively small company with about 50

6:32

engineers. My manager doesn't have

6:34

time to properly mentor me and I'm

6:36

not sure I would want him to because I feel like his advice isn't

6:38

always the best. Where can I go for management,

6:41

mentorship or other learning resources? Is

6:43

it worth exploring non-engineering managers on

6:46

other teams or learning or leaning more

6:48

on my peers or should I be looking for

6:50

outside advice?

6:51

Yes, management, mentorship.

6:54

This is, there is

6:56

not a lot of this out there that I, well

6:59

not a lot relative to other kinds of mentorship

7:02

for individual contributor developers. Yeah.

7:05

There's some weird things here. A relatively small

7:07

company with about 15 engineers, I guess relatively

7:09

is the keyword here because it's all relative, but that doesn't

7:11

sound too small. And at 50

7:14

engineers, I would expect there to be probably

7:16

like two layers of engineering management.

7:19

Yeah. You have some line managers and then maybe

7:22

one or two director

7:24

type managers and then they report

7:27

to a CTO or VP or something. And

7:30

that is a fair amount of people

7:34

whose job it is to manage engineers.

7:38

So it's surprising to me that there's

7:41

not deliberate thought

7:44

put into making those people effective. I

7:46

feel like that's part of, that's

7:48

what I would expect part of the job of your

7:51

boss. Yeah, exactly. It doesn't

7:53

have time to mentor me as like,

7:55

well, what is this person's job? They're

7:58

coding all the time.

7:59

I can't spare that time away

8:02

from fixing all the bugs they've got going on every day.

8:05

Maybe.

8:05

My manager doesn't have the time to properly

8:08

mentor me. There could be an expectations mismatch

8:10

here where you're like, look, mentorship requires

8:13

10 hours a week. If you don't have that time,

8:15

I'm going to go get it somewhere else.

8:17

I doubt that's what the expectation, but

8:19

I guess it's possible. I'm

8:22

trying to think through all the jobs I've had. I

8:24

think I've really had one, I'm

8:29

probably forgetting people right now, but I

8:31

think I've really only had one manager

8:34

who I felt like did

8:36

a really good job mentoring me

8:39

as an engineering leader. What

8:43

is my point in saying this?

8:44

It's rare.

8:46

I think it's rare. That's my point, I guess.

8:48

It shouldn't be because that's

8:51

a big part of the work. It's how you amplify

8:54

your impact as a leader of

8:56

managers, as you help them get better. But

8:59

for some reason, it doesn't happen that often.

9:02

Yeah.

9:03

I don't know. I feel

9:05

like it's a table stakes baseline

9:07

expectation that if you're going to manage

9:10

someone, you need to be willing to give

9:12

them regular attention

9:16

where the time is theirs

9:18

to get input from you and get advice

9:20

and guidance. I

9:22

would typically

9:24

call that a weekly one-on-one. With everybody

9:27

who reports to me, I dedicate a weekly time to

9:29

each of them

9:30

that is just theirs. We sit down together

9:32

and we talk about, well,

9:35

probably whatever I want to talk about. Honestly,

9:38

if I'm being honest, I do tend to dominate these

9:40

conversations, which is not what I want

9:42

to do.

9:44

But in reality, and I do pay

9:46

lip service to this, but I probably don't do a good enough job

9:49

actually giving time to people to say, look, this time is yours.

9:51

What do you want to talk about?

9:54

It sounds like if this person had a manager

9:56

who sat down with them every week and said, what do you want

9:58

to talk about? I want to receive

10:00

mentorship from you. And

10:02

then I would say, I don't have time for that. All I want is

10:04

status reports. I don't

10:07

have time for that. I'm too busy talking to you in one

10:09

moment. Hang on, there's a bunch

10:11

of stuff I have to say to you. Hang on, I've

10:13

got things to say. These

10:16

things aren't going to say themselves. Maybe

10:21

all 50 of those people report to the same

10:23

manager. And then he doesn't

10:25

have time because he has 50 direct reports. Probably

10:28

not, though. That would be too many. Yeah,

10:32

actually, to pivot away from the question

10:34

to talk about ourselves more, I

10:37

say that same thing in one on one. So this is your

10:39

time. It should be to talk about what you want to talk about. But

10:42

I have seen varying levels of willingness

10:46

on the people who meet

10:48

with me to actually take the time. Yeah.

10:51

So I can fill it. I've

10:54

got stuff to say. You want to hear about my

10:57

thoughts on how there are too many dang Pokemon

10:59

these days.

11:02

Back in my day, we had the right number.

11:04

Listen, if you need Jameson to fill some time,

11:06

just remember, he has recorded 382 ones on

11:08

the episode, which

11:11

is mostly just him talking. And there's

11:13

no one even there.

11:18

Yeah. Actually, sometimes

11:21

when my people show up for a one on one, I just

11:24

turn my camera off on Zoom and just play back

11:26

an episode. So that's all they hear. I

11:29

think about in Ferris Bueller's

11:31

Day Off, when he records the answering machine

11:33

to make it seem like he's actually there. Yeah.

11:37

Kind of like that. So some hijinks.

11:40

Look, I promise I'm really not that bad

11:42

of a manager. I'm not as bad as I'm painting myself to

11:44

be. Anyway,

11:46

you were saying that people don't seize the

11:49

opportunity to talk

11:51

about what you want to talk about.

11:53

I think I need to do a better

11:55

job of both clarifying

11:58

what that looks like. and also really

12:01

actually making space. Cause it's, I

12:03

think it's a pretty natural human desire

12:07

to want to fill blank

12:09

space in a conversation. So

12:12

if I say, what do you want to talk about? And

12:14

they say, I don't know. Then

12:17

I just say, okay, time to talk about Pokemon. But

12:20

maybe I need to just sit there for longer. You

12:23

could. That is a technique, just sit

12:25

and listen and wait.

12:27

But you know what's happening

12:29

here is a power dynamic and oh man,

12:31

we are so far off from the question, but let's just keep going.

12:33

You know, the power dynamic here, I think about

12:36

when I have one-on-ones with my boss. If

12:38

my boss wants to talk about something,

12:40

it does not matter to me what I wanted to

12:42

talk about. I will set it aside and I will go

12:44

with what my boss wants to do. And so

12:47

you really have to remember that, that it

12:49

probably takes not only just saying this

12:52

time is yours, but also reinforcing

12:55

it with actions. And I like the idea of just being some.

12:58

Yeah, and

13:00

there are certainly people who are better at it than

13:02

others where they're willing to fill the

13:04

time or they take time ahead

13:06

of time to write down topics,

13:09

but

13:10

not everybody. Now I'm wondering how

13:12

can I help people get

13:14

better at that? Because frankly, I'm sick

13:16

of talking about Pokemon.

13:19

So is everyone else.

13:24

Yeah, I mean, so I guess what we're

13:26

saying to this question asker is that it is actually

13:28

your manager's job to mentor you. And

13:33

however, you might have a different

13:35

expectation of what mentorship looks like in actual

13:37

actions than your boss

13:39

does. And so maybe you need to sit down and say, okay,

13:42

I said the word mentorship, but here's what I'm actually looking for,

13:44

and spell it out and be deliberate. I

13:46

think it would be very hard for a boss or a

13:49

manager to come back to a request like that and say,

13:51

I don't have time for that. Especially if it's very

13:53

basic things like, give me feedback

13:55

on how I'm doing as a manager. You know,

13:57

so this is your job.

14:00

Yeah, I wonder if you've explicitly said,

14:03

please mentor

14:06

me, which is, I think the easiest

14:08

thing to say, but also maybe less useful

14:11

because it's sort of like so

14:13

generic that it might be hard to know where to start, especially

14:15

if your boss hasn't created it. But

14:18

like all feedback related things, it's

14:20

easier if you ask more specific questions.

14:22

So if you ask, do

14:24

you have any feedback on that presentation

14:27

that I gave that you attended

14:30

or the more specific you can make it, the

14:32

better it'll be. And even

14:34

if their advice isn't the best, you

14:37

will get insight into what they

14:39

think, or at least what they're willing to say to

14:41

you. Yes, maybe not directly mentorship,

14:44

but something. Yeah.

14:47

Okay. I think there's an obvious answer that you're missing though,

14:49

Dave, that I'm about to reveal to you.

14:53

If you've heard the past few minutes of the show, you'll

14:56

know that the best place to come for

14:58

advice is right here. You've

15:01

already done it. This podcast. As

15:05

we've so ably demonstrated. LinkedIn

15:09

is littered with the bodies of people

15:11

who followed our advice and whose

15:13

careers are now in shambles. Low

15:17

interest rates cannot cover our sins

15:19

anymore. Like

15:21

all those startups that have failed. Yes.

15:24

You thought we were in... If we just lose

15:26

money faster, surely it will work out eventually. If

15:29

we just give more bad advice.

15:33

So yeah.

15:36

Thank you, Jameson. So

15:40

when I first became a manager about seven

15:43

years ago or so, I actually found

15:45

someone who was also a new manager at the same time,

15:48

and that person had the great idea to start

15:50

a engineering management meetup in

15:52

my area. And

15:55

that was actually pretty useful, not

15:57

in the sense that you could just go and get

15:59

mentorship and go in and come out a

16:02

better manager.

16:03

But because I could show up

16:05

and talk to people who are doing my job because it turns out

16:07

being an engineering manager can actually be kind of lonely. Some

16:10

of the most important topics that you are,

16:13

or some of the most important actions

16:15

and decisions and subject matter that you need to worry

16:17

about as a manager are things you can't talk

16:19

about with most people at your company.

16:23

And so having other managers to go and talk to

16:25

about situations, I just remember

16:27

being so happy to hear just

16:30

like how much are you paying your people? Are

16:32

my people underpaid? Are my people overpaid? Just

16:34

being able to have a sounding board for that was

16:37

so good because I wanted to keep that

16:39

stuff private at my company.

16:42

But I also wanted to know, am I going to lose my people

16:44

because I'm underpaying them? So

16:47

engineering management meetups,

16:49

that meetup actually fizzled out after like six months.

16:53

And I think,

16:54

I don't know what that says about the state of management

16:56

mentorship, but I think it's, I

16:58

think it- Nobody had time to do it. Yeah,

17:02

exactly.

17:05

So I love what you said. I think

17:07

about, if you ever

17:09

meet another Vim user in the wild,

17:11

you kind of gaze into their eyes

17:14

and notice that they are one of you and then you swap

17:16

tips and everyone's experience of

17:18

using Vim is different. And so you learn something

17:20

from everybody because

17:22

they all have slightly different takes on how

17:25

to work it. And I feel like it's similar

17:27

with engineering management where it's cool

17:29

to just talk to other practitioners because they

17:31

might be

17:34

doing a thing you've never even heard of. You didn't

17:36

read the help docs

17:38

for that part of it yet. And

17:44

I think it's better than it was a few years ago, but

17:46

the state of engineering management is still pretty

17:48

early days Wild West where there's a lot of people

17:52

who are picking up quite

17:54

a lot of it on the go and haven't seen

17:57

it done well before. So I

18:00

still don't feel like there's a good baseline for just

18:02

what a solid engineering

18:05

manager is that

18:07

you can expect to come into the job and know.

18:10

If I do this stuff, basically,

18:12

I'll be kind of the

18:15

median or above engineering manager.

18:18

So I think that's not quite mentorship, but

18:20

it's something approaching it where you can talk

18:23

to other practitioners and get

18:26

their perspective on things. A

18:28

thing that I have done, I have actually

18:30

paid a

18:31

coach

18:33

for a while. And

18:35

that was very helpful. They actually

18:37

got out of the game because

18:39

I looked them up a while ago and couldn't I think

18:41

they had moved on to other things.

18:44

So coaching you was the pinnacle of their career.

18:48

I have nothing left to achieve. It's like your Mount

18:50

Everest. Or I was

18:52

like the kid that drove the teacher to quit.

18:56

You can't take if they jam

18:59

another pencil all the way up

19:01

their nose again. You

19:03

can't take if they do their annual reviews

19:07

in crayon one more time. That

19:10

was really helpful. It was someone, let's

19:13

see, they

19:15

were in a tech field. I don't think they

19:17

were actually an engineering manager, but

19:21

they had coached a lot of EMs and had managed

19:23

in a tech field before. It's

19:26

sort of like sports coaches where

19:29

none of Michael Jordan's coaches were better than him

19:31

at basketball. But

19:33

they didn't have to be because part of it is the

19:36

different skill set and perspective to do

19:39

the job than to help someone else be better

19:41

at the job. I thought you were going to say none of the coaches are

19:43

better than Michael Jordan at basketball in the same way that

19:45

no one is better than me at engineering management.

19:48

So I don't need coaching. I

19:53

guess to strain the metaphor even more, a lot

19:55

of them are former coaches. I guess

19:57

former players. Former players. We're amazing

19:59

players.

20:01

They do know the domain,

20:04

but what is my

20:06

point? My point is there

20:10

are management coaches out there. I

20:13

think finding the right one has got to be kind

20:15

of like finding a psychologist where

20:18

you kind of have to try it. You can get some

20:21

word of mouth, but it depends on how they fit

20:23

with you and you can't really know

20:26

ahead of time if you look really gel. But

20:29

I would look at that a little bit. There are also

20:31

some engineering manager, like I'm

20:33

in a Slack team

20:36

community thing for engineering managers. I

20:38

think I'm actually in a couple of them. There are some groups out

20:41

there that have

20:44

been helpful for bouncing ideas off of peers

20:46

and things like that. Yeah. I've

20:49

had a similar experience to you that it's

20:51

just not a ton of

20:53

opportunities that come down or that come at

20:55

you. I also had a management

20:57

coach for a few months, six or seven

20:59

years ago. I had the opposite experience

21:01

of you. It was unhelpful for me. I

21:04

met with my coach once every two weeks for like 30 minutes.

21:08

I was so new to management. I'm like, I don't even know where to start.

21:10

I don't know what to do. I don't know what to think about. I'm

21:14

like, help me with that. The coach basically

21:16

was like, well, you tell me what you want. I'm like, well,

21:19

what are some of the options? The coach is like, well, it depends

21:21

on what you want. I'm like, this is

21:23

like a restaurant with no menu. It

21:26

was frustrating. I think in

21:28

the end I got some ideas, but ultimately

21:31

it just came down to spending more time doing

21:33

the job and

21:34

then being surprised about the things you weren't doing. Then

21:37

you are your own best mentor by failing. Your

21:39

past self teaches you what you're doing wrong. Yeah. I

21:43

think I'll add

21:45

in the show notes the link to this group.

21:47

I think it's public, so I think I'm not

21:50

outing anything. Yeah, that would be good.

21:53

Well, have we answered the question? I think so.

21:55

Good luck finding mentorship. If you don't, don't worry.

21:57

Most people don't have it anyway.

22:02

Dave, can we have an honest natural

22:04

conversation about a podcast from Red

22:06

Hat called Compiler? Yes. Red

22:09

Hat Compiler is a really cool podcast.

22:11

It's from the people at Red Hat, which is a company

22:13

I've admired for literally 20 years. Red

22:16

Hat employs a bunch of really interesting people,

22:18

everything from actual compiler developers to

22:20

engineering managers. Listening to them share their

22:22

perspectives over the years has been eye-opening for

22:24

me. I really liked the recent episode in Defensive

22:26

Legacy, where they talked to some experts about how

22:28

you dig through old legacy systems. It

22:31

feels a little bit like code archaeology, where

22:33

you're trying to piece together truths about the

22:35

past from these artifacts that you have. It's fascinating

22:37

to listen to. Yeah, they also have a series on software

22:40

technology stacks describing databases, programming

22:42

languages, front-end frameworks, backend technologies, and even

22:44

test frameworks. Their production value is so good, too.

22:47

Like, put us to shame good. Yes, it's

22:50

like what we aspire to be. Listen to

22:52

Compiler from Red Hat. Anywhere you listen

22:54

to podcasts.

22:56

Shall I read our next question?

22:58

Please. An anonymous listener

23:00

writes,

23:01

A recent episode mentioned awkward Zoom

23:03

silences. My experience is the

23:05

exact opposite. I've recently switched teams

23:07

at the same company. This new team has a

23:09

Zoom room open for the entire workday.

23:12

The first person to start their day begins the Zoom, and

23:14

the last to leave ends the meeting. They do,

23:17

quote, mob programming, using a command

23:19

line tool that switches users every few minutes along

23:22

with all the strict rules of extreme programming,

23:24

a driver, navigator, etc. But

23:26

they also do everything in groups. Story refinement,

23:28

diagrams, documentation, everything. Live

23:30

collab, all day, every day. I'm

23:33

one month into this transfer but worried that it isn't a good

23:35

fit and that I have made a horrible mistake.

23:38

All the other engineers here rave about how

23:40

this is the greatest thing ever. Am I

23:42

the weirdo for not liking it? I feel like

23:44

I am of split mind to only speak

23:47

either, sorry, to only either speak or type,

23:50

but not both, and have not yet rediscovered

23:52

my coding flow. Mostly I just

23:54

wanted to roll a perception check with you. Am I the

23:56

weirdo for not liking all this collaboration and 100% zooming? Or

23:59

would this work? workflow drive most other engineers mad

24:01

as well. Any pep talk about sticking it out would

24:03

be appreciated.

24:07

This is unusual. Yeah.

24:09

I mean, I think I've talked about this on

24:11

the show before. I have done that Zoom room

24:13

open for the workday thing, but it hasn't been like,

24:16

everyone come work together. It's more

24:18

like, if you want to hang out while you

24:20

work and optionally you can like work together

24:23

with people in here, then hop in. Yeah.

24:25

So it's been a little bit, it was more like a tool

24:27

to combat loneliness than

24:30

a way to get the whole team working together

24:32

on the same thing. So pretty different

24:35

from this. Yeah.

24:37

I have never worked in this

24:39

kind of extreme collaboration.

24:42

The closest I've come is in person in a

24:44

shared office with like four or five people in the same room.

24:47

Is extreme programming the Kent Beck thing?

24:49

Yeah. Extreme programming explained Kent

24:52

Beck. I've never worked in an extreme programming

24:54

shop. Yeah. I think I would

24:56

hate it.

24:57

I

24:59

think I would hate the default mode

25:01

of working to be pair programming.

25:04

Yeah. Or mob programming.

25:06

I really do like coming

25:08

together and then splitting apart to kind

25:10

of work on stuff and then coming together to

25:12

show it off and give feedback and get feedback

25:14

and then splitting apart. I feel

25:17

like I can get into a flow state like

25:19

that much more easily than I can if I'm

25:22

working with someone all day, every day.

25:25

But I know people, I mean, I know I'm thinking of one

25:27

specific person who worked in a place that was

25:29

all paired programming all the time and they loved

25:31

it. And I'm thinking of other people

25:33

I have known who are more

25:36

inclined to pair program where they like

25:38

to do it more. So I think it

25:41

varies the,

25:43

what's the word I'm looking for? The level

25:46

of comfort and satisfaction that

25:48

you have with it probably varies

25:50

among people. You're saying there's

25:52

a spectrum of people

25:54

and you're saying weirdos are on

25:56

one side. Is that what I'm hearing you say? Yeah.

25:59

The weirdos are. The other people

26:01

right aren't like me. Yeah, whoever's like me.

26:04

I'm right in the middle Yes,

26:08

there's weirdos to my left and weirdos to my right I'm

26:11

in the enlightened center Indeed

26:14

Am I the weirdo for not liking? No, I don't know I

26:16

have heard from people that you can kind

26:19

of develop more stamina with it if you do

26:21

it regularly And I don't know if a month is enough time

26:23

to do that, but I I would hate this

26:25

job I would hate it so much. I

26:28

could probably get into it

26:29

But I gotta I have to ask

26:31

this seems really unproductive if

26:33

we're talking more than two or maybe

26:36

three people I think how do you

26:38

actually do this? Like how do you this

26:40

mob programming concept? Well, let's say there's

26:42

six people in the zoom room and one

26:45

person is a command-line tool that that

26:47

Goes around the room round robin and points,

26:50

you know says now you're the typer

26:52

How does that work?

26:54

I'm very interested. I worked with a

26:56

team that had a It's

26:59

like an hour and a half each week where they

27:01

would mob program basically and

27:04

that was cool because the team really liked it and they

27:06

looked forward to it and they

27:08

Participation was high. Okay,

27:11

but it wasn't no one was doing

27:13

the school group project thing where they just yeah

27:16

don't do anything and Now

27:18

they're actually four people programming in the fifth

27:20

person just chilling on Twitter all day.

27:23

Yeah Yeah, I could see a concentrated

27:25

bout of this for like an hour and a half or two hours

27:28

once a week Yeah, it would be fun and exciting. That's something

27:30

I would look forward to probably lots of good

27:32

learning opportunities

27:33

But 40 hours a week Sounds

27:36

not only exhausting but also counterproductive.

27:39

Yeah, what I would do is quit

27:43

First of all, but if I didn't want to do that I

27:45

would stick it out for another month or two and see

27:48

if my stamina got built up because

27:51

This would be such a drastic change from how

27:53

I am used to working that I

27:55

know I would not just jump into it and immediately

27:58

succeed. Yeah, and

27:59

And then if you still don't love it,

28:02

I think you have two options, one of which is to

28:04

quit. And the other one I already mentioned, which is if

28:07

there are seven people programming together, it's

28:10

kind of hard to tell if there are only six

28:12

actually participating or not. If

28:15

the other six are all actively engaged, you

28:17

just get to throw on the podcast.

28:21

But if it's rotating around in like every few minutes,

28:23

it's your turn to type, it'll become very obvious.

28:26

Ah, crap. Yeah, they've defeated my strategy. Shoot.

28:29

Okay, yeah, I think quitting is true. It

28:36

seems like this works well for the team. And

28:38

I cut this part out of the question, but they mentioned that it's likely

28:40

this team is self-selected. So people that like to work

28:42

this way have gravitated towards

28:44

the team, which I think is very true. And

28:48

unless you want to become a person that likes to

28:50

work this way, then this might not be the

28:52

team for you. Yeah, very, very likely the

28:54

case for you, I'm guessing. I would

28:57

bet, I would wager that less

28:59

than 10% of the engineers I've worked with would thrive

29:01

in this environment. Yeah, yeah, I think the people

29:04

I know that have or would stick out

29:06

in my head because they're kind of unique

29:09

in that aspect. Yeah. Well, quit

29:11

your job. We're giving the advice. Or sabotage

29:14

it. Convince the whole team this is a bad way

29:16

to work. You must drive wedges

29:18

in between them so they retreat to their

29:21

private zooms back to their

29:23

lonely editor by themselves. Yep. That's

29:26

where they belong. Pull a worm tongue

29:28

and start whispering into your boss's ear. Yeah.

29:31

My lord, see how few programmers are

29:33

typing at the same time. We

29:38

should put a giant asterisk on this to say,

29:40

look, we don't have first-hand experience with this approach

29:42

of programming. Maybe it's incredible.

29:45

Maybe it's the undiscovered country that

29:47

we're all just ignorant of. And this truly is

29:49

a much better way of getting

29:51

quality product and more of it. So

29:54

I'm open to that idea. I'm

29:56

not intending to rearrange my teams to make this

29:58

possible. Yeah,

30:00

I would love to be convinced that I'm wrong. I think it's very

30:03

interesting idea. I still think you should quit Maybe

30:05

the theory goes you don't have to do code review

30:08

Because it's all reviewed in real time Yeah,

30:11

and you'd never get anything wrong because it's all reviewed

30:13

in real time, right by many people

30:15

a mob I would say

30:17

of people yes famous for their

30:20

accuracy Right, true judgment Everybody

30:26

knows all the best works are produced

30:28

by mobs Where

30:31

the best work comes from yeah the

30:33

famous Sistine Chapel mob

30:38

The

30:38

greatest works of art

30:40

they all just mobbed on that statue

30:42

of David yep A

30:45

thousand people smashing at it with hammers

30:47

until it reveal itself from the marble exactly

30:50

I'm trying not to I guess i'm i'm

30:52

saying snarky things about it I'm I'm not meaning

30:54

to cast judgment on this as a as a

30:57

strategy. I think i'm purely saying boy

30:59

would I hate this? So even

31:01

if it is a better way of working that's like saying if

31:03

I hold my breath all day Then I will

31:05

live longer like if I could I guess

31:09

cool Yeah, then I would be sad that's

31:11

sad jameson is not really any of our goals good.

31:14

Well, i'm happy because i'm talking to you Dave The

31:17

goal is achieved goals achieved speaking

31:19

of goals. Should we uh,

31:21

has this question been answered? I think so Yeah,

31:24

all right. I think it has what can people do if

31:26

they want their own questions answered, Dave Go to soft skills

31:29

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31:31

where you can fill out our form And we want to say thank

31:33

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31:35

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31:37

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31:40

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31:42

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31:45

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31:47

those in from the bottom of our heart. We really appreciate it. Yeah.

31:49

Thank you and thank

31:50

you for listening We'll catch you next week