“Manager” is not really a seniority thing in tech organizations. I’m absolutely on par with other managers in the organization, even though I don’t manage people. I manage technology and code instead. We also have Product Owners, who don’t manage people, but who are also on par with mid-level managers.
I realize in other industries, managing people = seniority, but not in a lot of tech orgs, and certainly not here. Heck, we have Directors with no direct reports, and they are absolutely near the top of the hierarchy, right below “VP.”
This was my thought, too. You may not be Bob’s subordinate, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re his equal, either. You also mentioned that both of you have been promoted once since you did work for him, which would put him one level above you (again) if the company has rigid pay bands.
Regardless, I’d let it go. If you took time off and he asked why you didn’t clear it with him first, that would be an issue. But the opposite - what actually happened - is not, at least in my book.
This has been some of my exact experience as an engineer. I was never called a secretary but I was often called an “assistant” and it was often assumed that I was less senior even around young engineers my age. It’s frustrating and I’m very non-confrontational and I’ve let things slide in the past that I really regret. I would correct Bob in the most non-insulting way possible.
One example where something like this happened to me - I was working on bringing a technician in to work on a specialized piece of equipment in the plant. He came out and started work but when one of the male shift supervisors (same pay grade as me), he stopped communicating with me and started communicating with the shift supervisor and asking him for decisions about what money we would be spending. Those decisions were my responsibility and it would be my fault if the project went over budget. Thankfully, the shift supervisor understood this and deferred those decisions to me but it took several times to remind him.
I was never a big fan of the passive aggressive style. If I had an issue, I would bring it up directly with the person involved. And if somebody had a problem with me, I preferred they do the same. I never liked it when people tried to send messages indirectly by telling a joke or an anecdote and assuming I would figure out their hidden meaning. I liked it even less when they got a third person involved. So I’ll stick with my previous advice: if you have a problem with Bob, go discuss it with Bob.
That said, my work relations weren’t always smooth. Some people seemed to like the indirect approach and didn’t like it when I brought up something they were trying to avoid.
I actually don’t want to get too worked up over the hierarchy; it’s fairly fluid here, and as I said before, I’m pretty certain I’m perceived as being somewhere towards the top in my department. Indeed, my director just informed me that he, Bob, and I will be doing a “chat” at an upcoming department event where, as department leaders, we’ll be asked questions about the department, what we do, the longterm vision, etc, as well as take questions from the crowd (which consists of the rest of the folks in the department). So yeah, I’m fairly secure in my assessment of where I’m at.
What I am more interested in is whether or not I should say something to Bob. I’m leaning towards letting it go… but like slalexan and others have pointed out, sometimes being a chick and a lead, especially in a tech environment, is tough. Everyone assumes you’re the secretary. I’m sure Bob doesn’t, but at the same time, I want my role to be clear - not because I have my ego invested in it, but because I feel pretty strongly that teams work better when people’s roles are clear to everyone involved. Having a tech question that should go directly to me be routed through 2 rounds of team managers and a couple product managers before someone goes “Hey, isn’t Athena our tech resource?” doesn’t do anyone any good.
They both depend on the severity of what’s going on. If I don’t think Joe’s stuff is high enough on my priority list, I’d tell that to Bob and Bob would either have to convince me that Joe’s stuff really is A Big Problem, or he’d go find someone else to work with Joe.
Same with the second one. In that specific example, if I’d’ve said that, I have more that Bob coming down on me; it was an issue in production, and you don’t just let that go until tomorrow. I’d’ve had my boss and my boss’s boss on me for that one unless my house were burning down or something.
If it was a standard run-of-the-mill issue, 1) none of us would have been working late on it and 2) I’d have no problem telling Bob “I can’t do this right now, can I catch up with you guys on it tomorrow?”
More of what I was driving at is in a business conflict with you and Bob who’s going to win and are there repercussions for defiance? The answer to that goes a long way to answering how much Bob is de facto your boss.
Honestly, I don’t think Bob’s minor transgressions are your biggest problem. This is:
If you don’t have the power to say “We are doing <x> and not <y>” when these are technical matters then you are not the “lead architect/technical talent for the department”. That’s where I would focus your political machinations. Try to get the actual authority to have the final say on technical matters within your department. Ultimately, that’s going to be better for you in the long run than worrying about Bob’s annoyances.
Yeah, maybe I am taking out my annoyance with this on Bob. Yes, I AM the lead architect/tech talent for the department; if you ask senior management they would agree with that, and I certainly have partial responsibility when things break. But folks don’t report to me. Other tech folks can comment, but this really isn’t all that uncommon in the tech world. Indeed, the way our company is set up, individual teams have a LOT of power. If a dev team decides “we’re going to do things like <x>” and they convince their team lead to buy into it, in most cases it’s going to happen even if the rest of the organization says they’re nuts and it won’t work.
I’m not the only one bitching about this setup; pretty much everyone who has been here more than a few years and is in a somewhat mid- to high-level tech role says the same thing. It’s absolutely confounding, and leads to things like 4 different UI frameworks in one project. Craziness. That said, so far we’re successful and getting more so, regardless of the goofy structure.
Bob the Senior Manager isn’t Senior Management? Is it more a ceremonial title?
I’ll agree that it can be confusing. My last job in a tech consulting firm was very similar.
I was a “Senior Manager” in that I reported to my Director who reported to our VP and other more junior Managers reported to me. Those individuals have their own departmental P&Ls and would be responsible for things like raises, bonuses or firing.
But as we were a PMO (Project Management Organization), I would also act as a Senior Project or Program Manager and typically have team members like Lead Architects or Creative Directors who may be my level or even more senior. They would report to their own chain of command.
It’s what we in the business call a “matrix organization”.
It can be very confusing when your immediate manager is positioning you for a promotion while his VP who works in some other city is putting you on a “performance improvement plan”.
You mentioned that a lot of the work Bob has called you in on is sort of on a consulting type basis with other departments or his department if I understand correctly. I would probably not worry about saying anything to Bob, but I’d let the other employees know, who you are, what department you are with AND that you are there for consulting purposes, in other words, I’m here to support you, but this isn’t my “day job.” That way there’s no confusion for them as to what your role is.
The next time Bob tells you to come in late, I’d just say something like, I wish I could, but in my department I’m expected in by a certain time, or my department has an early meeting in the morning, maybe he will start to get the idea.
So where I’ve worked - a senior technical person (and architect for instance) is often same grade level and responsibility level as a Senior Manager - and probably gets paid more. Its the “non-people” track - and often is the same grade level as a Director (manager, sr mgr, director, sr, director, exec director, vp, senior vp, exec vp - tech track might be engineer, senior engineer, research engineer, architect…). In many organizations a senior level technical person is much more valuable to the organization and has a lot more status, than a sr. manager, who runs people and budgets. Those guys are easy to replace, management schools churn them out. A good tech professional who can deal with both management and engineers (and a female one! which makes your company look sensitive! Better yet, a black technical person) is much more difficult to find.
Sr Managers aren’t Senior Management in most organizations I’ve been in. Senior managers are just managers who needed to be promoted and aren’t ready to be directors (which is the junior senior management role) and are well down the food chain from a VP.
It is very common for dev teams to report to someone else while being under a lead architect. However, in situations like that, if a dev team says we wanna do <x> and the lead architect says no, you should do <y>, <y> is what gets implemented. If I am reading this right, you are saying the team leads have that authority and if I assume right, those team leads report into Bob. I also assume that if Bob came in and said we should do <y> and not <x>, <y> is what would be done? You say that on paper you and Bob are peers. However, from what I am reading Bob is pretty clearly more senior and has more sway in the organization despite you sharing a boss.
Senior management might describe you as a lead architect for the department, but honestly it sounds more like you are an internal consultant/best practices/tech guru type person. As far as I can tell, you don’t really have any authority to tell anyone to do anything. Instead of bitching about the setup, try coming up with a plan where you have more authority. A simple thing would be regular code reviews with the developers within your department. Another option would be asking for the authority to approve the tech stack and other major design decisions.
As another said upthread, Little Nemo you nailed it. I’m also in a similar situation, also in a SW dev work environment, and I’ve already planned to discuss a similar issue with my boss. I’ve already jotted down notes to guide my talk — I find they really help me stay on point and in scope. Little Nemo, the emphasized parts are more helpful than you know, they are perfect! Thank you, Little Nemo.
I should have that talk today, as long as things aren’t too busy. I hope it goes well, wish me luck.
