Questions tagged [management]

"The powers that be" is often a phrase used to describe those in a position of authority responsible for work. Distribution of resources would be a way to describe what managers do though resources include time, money and people.

"The powers that be" is often a phrase used to describe those in a position of authority responsible for work. Distribution of resources would be a way to describe what managers do though resources include time, money and people.

Questions in this area often involve talking to non-technical bosses that control funding of various ideas, getting into being one of those bosses, or communicating technical limitations to managers.

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I'm a manager. How can I improve work relationships and communication with programmers?

A little background first. I'm a project manager at medium-sized company. I started as a CS major and had a little exposure to programming, but after a few months I knew it's not my path, so I switched over to management. That proved to be a good…
AgentSmith
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Why do business analysts and project managers get higher salaries than programmers?

We have to admit that programming is much more difficult than creating documentation or even creating Gantt chart and asking progress to programmers. So for us that are naives, knowing that programming is generally more difficult, why do business…
Joshua Partogi
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Perks for new programmers

I intend on hiring 2-3 junior programmers right out of college. Aside from cash, what is the most important perk for a young programmer? Is it games at work? I want to be creative... I want some good ideas
Autobyte
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How do I prevent Scrum from turning great developers into average developers?

I found this also happened in my team although he may have exaggerated the situation a little bit. Scrum is a way to take a below average or poor developer and turn them into an average developer. It's also great at taking great developers and…
Qiulang 邱朗
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How to convince my boss that quality is a good thing to have in code?

My boss came to me today to ask me if we could implement a certain feature in 1.5 days. I had a look at it and told him that 2 to 3 days would be more realistic. He then asked me: "And what if we do it quick and dirty?" I asked him to explain what…
Kristof Claes
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How do you balance between "do it right" and "do it ASAP" in your daily work?

I find myself pondering over this question from time to time, again and again. I want to do things the right way: to write clean, understandable and correct code that is easy to maintain. However, what I end up doing is writing patch upon a patch;…
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How can I convince management to deal with technical debt?

This is a question that I often ask myself when working with developers. I've worked at four companies so far and I've become aware of a lack of attention to keeping code clean and dealing with technical debt that hinders future progress in a…
Desolate Planet
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Is it unusual for a small company (15 developers) not to use managed source/version control?

It's not really a technical question, but there are several other questions here about source control and best practice. The company I work for (which will remain anonymous) uses a network share to host its source code and released code. It's the…
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What kind of innovative non-cash financial benefits do I offer to my developers to retain them along with a competitive salary?

Stock options don't make much sense, since the company's private. [It still does, if you are a facebook of sorts AND the regulatory system permits sites like secondmarket, but I digress.] I could think of some: Health benefits to parents and…
Fanatic23
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What's the career path for a developer who doesn't like management?

If you're developer (Senior or Lead Developer) and you'd rather stay with code/design than pursue a management career, what are the available career paths at your company, or any you've heard of? How far can you go? Is it possible to continue being…
Shady M. Najib
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What is the (craziest, stupidest, silliest) thing a client/boss asked you to do?

See title, but I am asking from a technical perspective, not Take my 40 year old virgin niece on a date or you're fired.
µBio
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Dealing with management that does not see value in improvements that are not immediately visible to the user

I can understand schedule pressure. You want to please your users, as they are the lifeblood of the company. However, it is also true that certain changes will make everything easier down the road. Unfortunately, management in my organization has…
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Reasons Programmers Leave

I am interested in finding out why programmers leave their jobs and if the reasons for leaving have resurfaced in your now job? Is the reason for leaving simply down to remuneration, location, I hate my boss / coworker, lack of recognition or…
Kane
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Choosing between two programmers: experience vs. passion

I am in a position where I have to hire a programmer and have the option of 2 candidates, the first has experience but he doesn't have a passion for coding and he says so while the second doesn't have the experience but he has the passion, he did…
Duke
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Is a company order to switch to a certain IDE a red flag?

I recently joined a rapidly growing startup. In the past 3 months the development team has grown from 4 to 12. Until now they were very laissez-faire about what developers used to do their work. In fact one of the things I initially found…
Justin Alexander
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