Sometimes your job is to stay the hell out of the way

> All of these activities did occur because good work speaks for itself ...

Good work very much doesn't speak for itself, typically software problems represent management problems more than a lack of people trying to do good work. This is such a wild claim vs what I've seen that it makes me quite suspicious of this article and the one before it. It is a nice story that there is a high-productivity engineer who just does great work and everything steams to a happy end out because they are just that hyper-competent. But that is a myth, and probably more a tell that the narrator is misreading something about the situation.

This looks a lot like a manager-once-removed undermining a reporting manager by supporting an engineer to go rogue. I'd believe that the engineer is actually doing good work, but then that suggests there are problems in the management culture here. Either the blog writer doesn't know how to manage managers, or the middle manager has a competence problem. From that assumption I'm not totally surprised that there are problems in the resulting software that one unusually capable engineer can expose with a few weeks of rogue work.

This is an incredibly cringe article. From using “wolf” in a completely forced way, to full quoting a conversation that seemingly only misses “and that testing framework’s name? Albert Einstein”.

> Wolves don’t care if they are seen or not. Wolves are entirely focused on the self-selected essential project in front of them

The wolves analogy is simply wrong. Wolves work in packs.

> process has an unfortunate side effect of crushing innovation unintentionally

We've been taken over by PE and forced into a very strict Jira powered "Agile" with time tracking of how long cards are in progress, and all work needs to be planned pre-sprint.

I cannot even begin to explain the opportunity cost of all this to anyone with any sort of control. The art of building good software is continual improvement. Being able to improve something without planning it.

> Wolves are the result of the work, not asking the question. Wolves don’t ask to be wolves; they are.

Whether or not you find this blurb interesting will probably determine whether or not this link is worth clicking to you.

People like this can be a huge help, but they can also cause real damage. I've seen it go both ways: someone can deliver a ton of value one year and create serious problems the next.

This article's description gives me pause because it reads as non-collaborative and needlessly abrasive. In my experience, people who bulldoze process and relationships are almost always a long-term net negative, even if they can ship something short-term at 10x speed.

If you are 10x, there's still a ceiling on what you can do. If you're leading a team of 50 and you can help each person get to 1.2x, you've created the same effective lift, while strengthening the team instead of burning it down.

And that's a durable change which doesn't go away if the "Wolf" leaves or has a down year.

I have experienced some companies trying to tame wolves with agile type systems with poor results. I have seen wolves getting sick in cages, i have been seen wolves accomplishing amazing feats and being sidelined for not being team players by mediocre leadership because the leadership did not get recognition.

I don't know that I care much for the mythologization of effective developers as "Wolves" and "10x-ers" which are this decade's equivalent of Ninja / Rockstar / Guru, but a similar less tech-centric version of that is just the concept of the "Maverick" within any organization and the parallels aren't too far regardless of the industry you're talking about. Outsized impact in undersold roles with a lot of heavy swinging soft power earned through merit.

It's strange to intentionally try to place or manufacture mavericks within your org for (at least) two reasons:

1. They're emergent phenomena. It's probably more valuable on average to examine WHY someone skipping all of your processes is effective than it is to make the conditions right for someone to become that maverick. Theoretically anyone CAN be that person, but unless something is actively going wrong it probably won't happen.

2. Process exists because it makes your org more efficient. When you start building your teams around the idea of someone explicitly being the maverick(s), ask yourself: "Who exactly is going to reconcile all of this against the framework that the entire rest of the company runs on? Is the rest of that person's team relegated to damage control and cleanup crew, and is that actually more effective than having an equivalent number of mid-level performers all pulling in the same direction?"

In the world of tech, the alleged 10x-er often manifests itself as: Tech Debt, but at High Volume™!

The argument seems to be: don't promote/support good ideas or projects because if they're good they'll likely succeed without you, and then the initiator will be slightly more confident.

Which is phrased as "not my job" for some reason.

This is goddamn terrible advice. You’re rolling a dice to see if the great work ends up making it.

Have we not learned the lesson of bell labs? 90% of the time the great work doesn’t make it by itself. It takes leadership to carve a path for it to emerge and actually flourish.

I swear, there are like two influential things on the internet that have completely wrecked the practice of engineering management:

The Spotify org chart blog post and Rands.

While I'm all for empowering your best contributors, I'll repeat what I say every time I hear someone mythologize about "10x engineers": if you want a 10x engineer, you need to pay a 10x salary.

When companies say they want a 10x engineer, what they really mean is that they want an engineer who will work for 10x less than they're worth.

i'm supporting a small org with their decision making and feedback systems.

reading this post, i see that the founder (already in his 60s) is in many ways that "Wolf" as described here, and he's not great at managing the team around him.

any suggestions what structure/ team set up is working well in such a scenario?

"omegas don t care what other people think, they simply do their thing", thats hoow you people sound, very dumb.

Was this written by the 1980s business guy from Futurama?

I've got to admit to being somewhat disappointed that the "wolf" in question wasn't the character from the film 'Pulp Fiction', because - at least in my mind - it's an apt example for Rand's original article.

I think OP's nickname is a good summary for my thoughts on this article

"I didn't say anything to the manager - I made a subtle hint and prayed that they took it, because ... reasons. On this occassion, I lucked out"

This just in: Wolves is the new hype word for the mythical 10x employee.

A feel good article where you can choose to self insert as the wolf or the wise manager who knew to be “hands off”.

To someone actually running a company this looks like absolute corporate nonsense. Don’t categorize people like this, it’s demeaning and weird. Why can’t we just treat people like adults.

Instead of “Oh yea he’s a total 10xer wolf,” try “Yea Mark, has some good ideas for a test framework we should consider”.

I generally don’t take these articles too seriously but a question has been popping up in my mind.

What the hell is the incentive of the guy posting this to encourage and help The Wolf??? He’s just doing it out of good will? What does he get out of doing the right thing? No recognition. No bonus. Nothing. Yet he still does it.

I find this fascinating.

sure is nice to be paid for staying out of the way.

i think i am an expertise on not getting into other people's business. can someone pay me?

Nice to see Rands back.

Refreshing writing in a world of AI slop.

People wonder how to find great developers - what even IS a great developer in the world of AI, do they still exist or did AI level them all out with the playing field?

They’re still around - they can talk with you in great depth about software and how it works ……. same as ever.

What an untalented writer. His prose is clunky and every paragraph drips with sanctimony and reaching generalizations.