From 81c70e41e5647d3fef158bd99e041eb1a607822e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Gary White Jr Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2022 12:19:08 -0500 Subject: [PATCH 1/5] careers --- src/docs/goals/careers.md | 44 ++++++++++++--------------------------- 1 file changed, 13 insertions(+), 31 deletions(-) diff --git a/src/docs/goals/careers.md b/src/docs/goals/careers.md index b65eeb98..0aa4c606 100644 --- a/src/docs/goals/careers.md +++ b/src/docs/goals/careers.md @@ -7,34 +7,16 @@ featured: ../images/featured/goals.png Building meaningful career ladders for individual contributors can be a real challenge. One of the ways to support someone's career is to give them multiple role archetypes to choose from, and letting them play on their strengths. One of the goals of Auxiliary Engineering is to give senior engineers a new archetype which feels challenging, rewarding, and well aligned with their long term career success and ambitions. -## Influencing without Authority or Dependency - -## WORK IN PROGRESS NOTES - -- On Dependency - - When someone has unique strength in an area, it's too easy to lean on that person - - In the short term, dependency can satisfy one's ego, and it's generally the path of least resistance - - In the long run, dependency feels bad, and it also bakes a lot of risk into a team - - In a 3 month engagement, the end of the project is always looming on the horizon - - This makes it easy to challenge knowledge dependency early on, and prevent single points of knowledge failure from forming - - Expectations - -- Breadth of influence across the organization -- Regularly shaking up their problem domain -- Being in a position to identify the meta opportunities and having autonomy to drive innovation - -- Senior talent enjoys working on a variety of projects -- Similar to high-end consultant - - Feel more connected to results than a consultant - - But it's not a 0 sum game like consulting - - There's no incentive to build dependency. -- Building strength without dependency - - There's an explicit goal to NOT build dependency - - Healthy knowledge sharing - - Feels impactful. One sees the results first hand -- Large business impact - - Moves some of an organizations most talented engineers around the company - - Able to influence a large number of projects in healthy ways - - Influencing as part of a team, not an outsider disconnected from implementation / results - - Avoids "powerpoint" architects. Keeps principal engineers writing code - - This helps keep them marketable. It's good for their career. +## Diversity by Design + +Providing a fresh problem space with some familiarity in how to solve it can be refreshing for individual contributors. By providing value in many areas through their direct involvement, a shared goal in Aux Eng lies in providing technologists a meaningful breadth of influence. That influence comes from understanding a many of the diverse problems in a software ecosystem. Especially in senior technical tracks and leadership roles, that kind of exposure and influence in an organization goes a long way in building a career. + +A shared goal that benefits both the platform an engineer supports and the engineer itself is the ability to recognize patterns in a software ecosystem. Finding opportunities to shake up the meta understanding or expectations technologists hold about a platform or implementation allows for stronger practical innovation. Put another way, the diversity in problem and people exposure will let pattern recognition build better tools -- a benefit to both the platform and the career of the recognizer. + +## Practical Practice + +As platforms mature and careers mature, it's easy for individual contributors to get bogged down or caught up (depending on how the contributor sees it) in doing stuff that isn't code or practical work. A lot of strategy and planning can take over their schedule, and it's easy in those places to get disconnected from the problems being solved. Mentally and socially, it is exhausting to switch between high-level thinking and low-level implementations. + +It's our goal in AuxEng to provide a structure that leaves deliberate time for planning and implemenation separately. Given that the practice requires a subject matter expert to be effective in running an engagement at all: this feed into the happiness of the contributor, and a secondary goal for the program. We want our people to feel like they're involved in the organization, solving real problems. We also want them to avoid being a "powerpoint architect" that barely has the chance to actually play with the software and systems they build. + +Through direct involvement, as well as the planning of that involvement, we grow engineers into seniority. We retain senior engineers more effectively with these programs by allowing them to "just code again". The knowledge sharing from our senior technical staff and the satisfaction they get from being able to practice their craft is a win-win-win for the platform, the contriubutor, and the team engaging with us. From 2b9ff82b75b20f08c6803572c892a4d6786f618f Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Gary White Jr Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2022 12:21:34 -0500 Subject: [PATCH 2/5] spell good --- src/docs/goals/careers.md | 4 ++-- 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/src/docs/goals/careers.md b/src/docs/goals/careers.md index 0aa4c606..a292d928 100644 --- a/src/docs/goals/careers.md +++ b/src/docs/goals/careers.md @@ -17,6 +17,6 @@ A shared goal that benefits both the platform an engineer supports and the engin As platforms mature and careers mature, it's easy for individual contributors to get bogged down or caught up (depending on how the contributor sees it) in doing stuff that isn't code or practical work. A lot of strategy and planning can take over their schedule, and it's easy in those places to get disconnected from the problems being solved. Mentally and socially, it is exhausting to switch between high-level thinking and low-level implementations. -It's our goal in AuxEng to provide a structure that leaves deliberate time for planning and implemenation separately. Given that the practice requires a subject matter expert to be effective in running an engagement at all: this feed into the happiness of the contributor, and a secondary goal for the program. We want our people to feel like they're involved in the organization, solving real problems. We also want them to avoid being a "powerpoint architect" that barely has the chance to actually play with the software and systems they build. +It's our goal in AuxEng to provide a structure that leaves deliberate time for planning and implementation separately. Given that the practice requires a subject matter expert to be effective in running an engagement at all: this feed into the happiness of the contributor, and a secondary goal for the program. We want our people to feel like they're involved in the organization, solving real problems. We also want them to avoid being a "powerpoint architect" that barely has the chance to actually play with the software and systems they build. -Through direct involvement, as well as the planning of that involvement, we grow engineers into seniority. We retain senior engineers more effectively with these programs by allowing them to "just code again". The knowledge sharing from our senior technical staff and the satisfaction they get from being able to practice their craft is a win-win-win for the platform, the contriubutor, and the team engaging with us. +Through direct involvement, as well as the planning of that involvement, we grow engineers into seniority. We retain senior engineers more effectively with these programs by allowing them to "just code again". The knowledge sharing from our senior technical staff and the satisfaction they get from being able to practice their craft is a win-win-win for the platform, the contributor, and the team engaging with us. From 580822da336800a275918c72e942f635c4a85772 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Gary White Jr Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2022 13:38:16 -0500 Subject: [PATCH 3/5] removing mobility --- src/docs/goals/mobility.md | 11 ----------- 1 file changed, 11 deletions(-) delete mode 100644 src/docs/goals/mobility.md diff --git a/src/docs/goals/mobility.md b/src/docs/goals/mobility.md deleted file mode 100644 index ddeba450..00000000 --- a/src/docs/goals/mobility.md +++ /dev/null @@ -1,11 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: "Mobility" -featured: ../images/featured/goals.png ---- - -## WORK IN PROGRESS NOTES - -- Senior talent can be strategically moved around the organization with little cost -- AuxEng is design to not build dependency on the guest engineers -- Team receiving a new engineer feels the gains, but team losing the engineer doesn't feel pain -- Engagements can be staggered to be starting every month or so, meaning disruption free re-alignment is an option. From f03b1bbe84a3d0a99203bb708a11411402581c73 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Gary White Jr <7660110+GaryPWhite@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2023 07:55:33 -0500 Subject: [PATCH 4/5] Apply suggestions from code review Co-authored-by: lelia --- src/docs/goals/careers.md | 10 +++++----- 1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-) diff --git a/src/docs/goals/careers.md b/src/docs/goals/careers.md index a292d928..f0a68257 100644 --- a/src/docs/goals/careers.md +++ b/src/docs/goals/careers.md @@ -9,14 +9,14 @@ Building meaningful career ladders for individual contributors can be a real cha ## Diversity by Design -Providing a fresh problem space with some familiarity in how to solve it can be refreshing for individual contributors. By providing value in many areas through their direct involvement, a shared goal in Aux Eng lies in providing technologists a meaningful breadth of influence. That influence comes from understanding a many of the diverse problems in a software ecosystem. Especially in senior technical tracks and leadership roles, that kind of exposure and influence in an organization goes a long way in building a career. +Providing a fresh problem space with some familiarity on how to solve it can be refreshing for individual contributors. By delivering value in many areas through their direct involvement, a shared goal in Aux Eng lies in providing technologists with a meaningful degree of influence. That influence comes from understanding many of the diverse problems in a software ecosystem. Especially in senior technical tracks and leadership roles, this kind of exposure and influence in an organization goes a long way in building a career. -A shared goal that benefits both the platform an engineer supports and the engineer itself is the ability to recognize patterns in a software ecosystem. Finding opportunities to shake up the meta understanding or expectations technologists hold about a platform or implementation allows for stronger practical innovation. Put another way, the diversity in problem and people exposure will let pattern recognition build better tools -- a benefit to both the platform and the career of the recognizer. +A shared goal that benefits both the platform an engineer supports, and the engineer itself, is the ability to recognize patterns in a software ecosystem. Finding opportunities to shake up the expectations technologists hold about a platform or implementation allows for stronger practical innovation. Put another way, exposure to diverse problems and people creates pattern recognition to build better tools — a benefit to both the platform and the career of the recognizer. ## Practical Practice -As platforms mature and careers mature, it's easy for individual contributors to get bogged down or caught up (depending on how the contributor sees it) in doing stuff that isn't code or practical work. A lot of strategy and planning can take over their schedule, and it's easy in those places to get disconnected from the problems being solved. Mentally and socially, it is exhausting to switch between high-level thinking and low-level implementations. +As platforms (and _careers_) mature, it's easy for individual contributors to get bogged down (or caught up) in doing stuff that isn't code or practical work. A lot of strategy and planning can take over their schedule, and it's easy to become disconnected from the technical problems being solved. Mentally and socially, it is exhausting to switch between high-level thinking and low-level implementations. -It's our goal in AuxEng to provide a structure that leaves deliberate time for planning and implementation separately. Given that the practice requires a subject matter expert to be effective in running an engagement at all: this feed into the happiness of the contributor, and a secondary goal for the program. We want our people to feel like they're involved in the organization, solving real problems. We also want them to avoid being a "powerpoint architect" that barely has the chance to actually play with the software and systems they build. +It's our goal in Aux Eng to provide a structure that leaves deliberate time for planning and implementation separately. Given that the practice requires a subject matter expert to be effective in running an engagement at all, this feed into the happiness of the contributor, and is a secondary goal for the program. We want our people to feel like they're involved in the organization, solving real problems. We also want them to avoid being a "PowerPoint architect" who barely has the chance to actually play with the software and systems they build. -Through direct involvement, as well as the planning of that involvement, we grow engineers into seniority. We retain senior engineers more effectively with these programs by allowing them to "just code again". The knowledge sharing from our senior technical staff and the satisfaction they get from being able to practice their craft is a win-win-win for the platform, the contributor, and the team engaging with us. +Through direct involvement, as well as the planning of said involvement, we grow the seniority of our individual contributors. We retain senior engineers more effectively with these programs by allowing them to "just code again". The knowledge sharing from our senior technical staff, and the satisfaction they get from being able to practice their craft is a win-win-win for the platform, the contributor, and the team engaging with us. From b413aa08305311a819504a0ea7ab9ecf861eb4fc Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Gary White Jr Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2023 11:54:08 -0500 Subject: [PATCH 5/5] added stuff to clarify it's not just code #notallcode --- src/docs/goals/careers.md | 50 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++------- 1 file changed, 42 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-) diff --git a/src/docs/goals/careers.md b/src/docs/goals/careers.md index 63cfe0cd..4b9e5446 100644 --- a/src/docs/goals/careers.md +++ b/src/docs/goals/careers.md @@ -14,14 +14,48 @@ success and ambitions. ## Diversity by Design -Providing a fresh problem space with some familiarity on how to solve it can be refreshing for individual contributors. By delivering value in many areas through their direct involvement, a shared goal in Aux Eng lies in providing technologists with a meaningful degree of influence. That influence comes from understanding many of the diverse problems in a software ecosystem. Especially in senior technical tracks and leadership roles, this kind of exposure and influence in an organization goes a long way in building a career. - -A shared goal that benefits both the platform an engineer supports, and the engineer itself, is the ability to recognize patterns in a software ecosystem. Finding opportunities to shake up the expectations technologists hold about a platform or implementation allows for stronger practical innovation. Put another way, exposure to diverse problems and people creates pattern recognition to build better tools — a benefit to both the platform and the career of the recognizer. +Providing a fresh problem space with some familiarity on how to solve it can be +refreshing for individual contributors. By delivering value in many areas +through their direct involvement, a shared goal in Aux Eng lies in providing +technologists with a meaningful degree of influence. That influence comes +from understanding many of the diverse problems in a software ecosystem. +Especially in senior technical tracks and leadership roles, this kind of +exposure and influence in an organization goes a long way in building a career. + +A shared goal that benefits both the platform an engineer supports, and the +engineer itself, is the ability to recognize patterns in a software ecosystem. +Finding opportunities to shake up the expectations technologists hold about a +platform or implementation allows for stronger practical innovation. Put +another way, exposure to diverse problems and people creates pattern +recognition to build better tools — a benefit to both the platform and the +career of the recognizer. ## Practical Practice -As platforms (and _careers_) mature, it's easy for individual contributors to get bogged down (or caught up) in doing stuff that isn't code or practical work. A lot of strategy and planning can take over their schedule, and it's easy to become disconnected from the technical problems being solved. Mentally and socially, it is exhausting to switch between high-level thinking and low-level implementations. - -It's our goal in Aux Eng to provide a structure that leaves deliberate time for planning and implementation separately. Given that the practice requires a subject matter expert to be effective in running an engagement at all, this feed into the happiness of the contributor, and is a secondary goal for the program. We want our people to feel like they're involved in the organization, solving real problems. We also want them to avoid being a "PowerPoint architect" who barely has the chance to actually play with the software and systems they build. - -Through direct involvement, as well as the planning of said involvement, we grow the seniority of our individual contributors. We retain senior engineers more effectively with these programs by allowing them to "just code again". The knowledge sharing from our senior technical staff, and the satisfaction they get from being able to practice their craft is a win-win-win for the platform, the contributor, and the team engaging with us. +As platforms (and _careers_) mature, it's easy for individual contributors to +get bogged down (or caught up) in doing stuff that isn't code or practical +work. A lot of strategy and planning can take over their schedule, and it's +easy to become disconnected from the technical problems being solved. Mentally +and socially, it is exhausting to switch between high-level thinking and +low-level implementations. + +It's our goal in Aux Eng to provide a structure that leaves deliberate time for +planning and implementation separately. Given that the practice requires a +subject matter expert to be effective in running an engagement at all, this +feed into the happiness of the contributor, and is a secondary goal for the +program. We want our people to feel like they're involved in the organization, +solving real problems. We also want them to avoid being a "PowerPoint +architect" who barely has the chance to actually play with the software and +systems they build. + +Through direct involvement, as well as the planning of said involvement, we +grow the seniority of our individual contributors. We retain senior engineers +more effectively with these programs by allowing them to "just code again". +Not only just code, a large part of engagements is coding and working +with other teams to see how they code, problems they're solving, and how +it applies to work a core team does. By providing pair programming back to +exhausted technologists, Aux Eng gives the opportunity to write and read +code while solving real problems in engagements. +The knowledge sharing from our senior technical staff, and the satisfaction +they get from being able to practice their craft is a win-win-win for the +platform, the contributor, and the team engaging with us.