learning-notes

n, you were the one who asked for advice in the first place...), some people may try once, but they won't want to continue talking to you, because there is no mutual benefit here. Nobody gets anything positive out of talking to you in this manner, if you bring nothing to the table besides negativity and appeal to surface-level pedantry (e.g. definitions from the dictionary? simple acknowledgement that power structures exist?). If you actually learn how to have constructive conversations, where both parties get something positive out of it (aka make it non-zero-sum), then I promise you, you will find more traction with relationship-building, AND it won't feel like "sucking up". But if you can't learn how to do this, then I fear that people will rightfully avoid talking to you, because they get nothing from it except the misery you inflict on them. --- I'm sure you'll want to get a last-word in, so feel free to do that (and likewise, I will exercise my freedom to not respond and just go about my own life). But if you ever have a change of heart, perhaps when you gain a little more maturity or perspective and you somehow revisit this thread, then you may realize that: - I already agreed with you that power structures exist esp. under capitalism, that essentially yes, "superior" or "inferior" are necessary-but-not-sufficient factually true labels. Nonetheless, these labels fail to capture the complete spectrum of human relationships, and you offered nothing substantive to refute this point either, so I assume you either don't understand it, or are incapable of acknowledging new information or alternative perspectives. - I tried to suggest, in various ways with a few leading questions, that you lack humility and an inability to accept feedback. IMHO, this along with your reductive stubbornness about reducing working relationships into simple "boss vs underling" power structures, are the most direct reasons for your professional struggles. In other words, you don't need to learn "how to suck up". You need to reframe your entire approach to human relationships, and recast it in terms other than the one-dimensional interpretation of power structures... We live in a multi-dimensional world, but your "mental model" is too simple, because you reduce everyone to a one-dimensional vector embedding with a single boolean flag: "is_superior (T/F)". - If you think I am over-focusing on one particular phrase like "sucking up", then you were free to offer alternative angles for discourse, if you wanted to steer the conversation in a more productive direction. But what you ended up doing was basically trying to suck me into the same pit of misery that you inhabit, where superiors are evil and holding your livelihood at threat... maybe that's a fun way to pass the time for you, but frankly there's nothing productive about going down that path, so I won't join you there (and I sincerely hope you find a way to climb out of it yourself). --- As a parting gift, here are some random resources for career growth (I don't know if you are an engineer or a manager or what, but perspectives about other people can still be helpful). I hope if you are sincerely trying to grow and overcome personal limitations, that you are willing to engage with curiosity and humility, to learn something new that might challenge your preconceived ways of interpreting the world: - https://staffeng.com/guides/ - https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/engineering-caree... - https://github.com/keyvanakbary/learning-notes/blob/master/b... - https://www.learninpublic.org/

h as an IC before (I'd been one more or less for 16 years before starting to transition), it can be a fun new area to learn. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTik4nt1knY https://github.com/keyvanakbary/learning-notes (but read the books for real) Will Larson's An Elegant Puzzle - Systems of Engineering Management is a nice more modern book. I would balance it with The Empathy Edge by Maria Ross. A lot of management theory begins with Peter Drucker (and then Andy Grove and then John Doerr etc. - that OKR lifestyle approach - which has various and basically comes down to focusing on input metrics). https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/the-stack-overflow/writ... mentions Smart & Gets Things Done (nice final chapter on different types of team challenges). Peopleware though aging has a lot of interesting examples. Leaders Eat Last was recommended to me by another manager. And in general that is basically the sentiment (i.e., put others first, but use metrics). Like having kids, it's an opportunity to reflect on what you would've wanted differently in all the previous managers you have (and a realization that it's tougher than it looks). While managing engineers is different from leadership, it puts leadership on display perhaps more. Your blast radius is bigger. Most companies won't necessarily encourage it right away for ICs because it has a greater negative effect when it doesn't work. And yeah to reiterate what others have said - it's a skill (i.e., a set of areas to make mistakes in) that takes time to develop/learn. And I'd say a lot of your growth comes down to who your manager will be in the process. If you have a good manager who mentors (in whichever style), you can learn a whole lot and improve your growth areas fairly quickly. Also if you have more of an e2e and slight business focus, it can be interesting. It probably works best for those who are more generalist/breadth-first search types (though if good at communicating and delegating it's not strictly necessary); since there is a lot of "herding" for lack of a better word; and less time to depth-first dive into areas. But yeah it gets better with time (or it should - and if it doesn't like I say it should be a two-way door). At first you might be like - what are all these 1:1s and why am I running around so much? And then with time, you'll start looking forward to all your 1:1s. And learning from others re: strategy (in general you'll participate with one level up meetings more; so if you're L6 at a company, you'll start seeing more what L7s see and be asked for input on, if you're responsible for a team). And starting to exhibit the best parts that you've learned before. More links for the curious https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3NLetsLYu4 https://randsinrepose.com/archives/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc The experiences I've heard about it (as mentioned here and which I'd reiterate) are that you can't think of your performance in days, but rather in weeks. You "work" through people. Though automation can be your programming outlet. And most importantly it's best to be honest with people. The people on your team everywhere will know when you're trying to cover things up, etc. Senior leaders will know when you're trying to cover things up. So just be honest and open and keep everyone's best interests in mind. And unlike my default learn to be "crisp" :)