On Becoming a VP of Engineering pt. 2(honeycomb.io)
honeycomb.io
On Becoming a VP of Engineering pt. 2
https://www.honeycomb.io/blog/becoming-vp-of-engineering-pt2
66 comments
What is left unsaid: working at a startup at an executive level typically involves whole percentages of equity in the company.
If honeycomb continues to succeed and there's some sort of exit or liquidation (which can happen in series D, E rounds for select individuals like executives) then I am sure the total comp is not "about average" but instead much greater than average.
If honeycomb continues to succeed and there's some sort of exit or liquidation (which can happen in series D, E rounds for select individuals like executives) then I am sure the total comp is not "about average" but instead much greater than average.
Exit liquidity for executives is great for those executives, but it doesn’t help the rest of the employees.
If leaders are writing blog posts about how everyone needs to accept “average” compensation while cashing out high equity grants for themselves, that actually makes it worse.
If leaders are writing blog posts about how everyone needs to accept “average” compensation while cashing out high equity grants for themselves, that actually makes it worse.
Yeah for executive positions like VP the vast majority of the comp is in stock. At a bigco that will be liquid, at a startup it won’t, hence the difference in “market rate”. But the startup equity is theoretically worth much more, it’s a huge risk but you have to on some level believe the valuation, or you wouldn’t take the job.
> the startup equity is theoretically
But there is nothing theoretical about start up equity in companies that have raised money. They have a very clear valuation, and especially Series D, that valuation will already be pretty mature.
AirBNB did a Series D with a valuation at 10.5 billion in 2014. They are currently around 91.66 billion market cap. That is a nice 900% return, but that's not a completely different ballpark than other LargeCo's (Apple had about 800% return, Amazon 700%, Meta 500%) - the question is, do you really think your Series D start up is going to be as successful as AirBNB (which is among the top 100 biggest American companies by market cap).
The point is, there is really nothing "theoretical" about the value of those start up shares - they have a well determined value, and for many start ups, even the appreciation of those shares between Series D and IPO can be less than the appreciation they would have gotten from LargeCo shares with top of market compensation and potentially even bigger dollar value equity stakes.
But there is nothing theoretical about start up equity in companies that have raised money. They have a very clear valuation, and especially Series D, that valuation will already be pretty mature.
AirBNB did a Series D with a valuation at 10.5 billion in 2014. They are currently around 91.66 billion market cap. That is a nice 900% return, but that's not a completely different ballpark than other LargeCo's (Apple had about 800% return, Amazon 700%, Meta 500%) - the question is, do you really think your Series D start up is going to be as successful as AirBNB (which is among the top 100 biggest American companies by market cap).
The point is, there is really nothing "theoretical" about the value of those start up shares - they have a well determined value, and for many start ups, even the appreciation of those shares between Series D and IPO can be less than the appreciation they would have gotten from LargeCo shares with top of market compensation and potentially even bigger dollar value equity stakes.
No, it's all theoretical until it becomes liquid.
Obviously my experience is my own, but the the net value of my stock was $0 from my three startups (2 acquired and 1 is a lifestyle business for the founder).
I was VP Eng at the last one and did receive a 6 figure bonus (everyone got at least 5 figures, minimum of $20k) and everyone also got new offers with the acquiring public company that included ~20% raises and RSU grants.
For me, all of that combined was equal to my first year at a FAANG, even before accounting for stock increases.
I'm now back as VP at a different startup, though one that's got a much better product and actual customers. It was a 65% pay cut (I view options as a lottery ticket).
For me, startups are more about the experience, than about the money. When a C level exec made a comment about some people not working as hard as themselves (they're a 24/7 kind of person), I pointed out that a) we pay decently well at about 75th percentile but b) the 0.025% or less equity those people have will possibly be enough after taxes to buy a vehicle, even in some wild multi-billion dollar exit scenario. Multiple years of slaving at a (real or virtual) office isn't worth that.
I was VP Eng at the last one and did receive a 6 figure bonus (everyone got at least 5 figures, minimum of $20k) and everyone also got new offers with the acquiring public company that included ~20% raises and RSU grants.
For me, all of that combined was equal to my first year at a FAANG, even before accounting for stock increases.
I'm now back as VP at a different startup, though one that's got a much better product and actual customers. It was a 65% pay cut (I view options as a lottery ticket).
For me, startups are more about the experience, than about the money. When a C level exec made a comment about some people not working as hard as themselves (they're a 24/7 kind of person), I pointed out that a) we pay decently well at about 75th percentile but b) the 0.025% or less equity those people have will possibly be enough after taxes to buy a vehicle, even in some wild multi-billion dollar exit scenario. Multiple years of slaving at a (real or virtual) office isn't worth that.
> At a bigco that will be liquid, at a startup it won’t, hence the difference in “market rate”.
Keep in mind that the compensation was described as "about average" relative to other series D startups. They readily admitted that it was significantly lower than big companies.
Keep in mind that the compensation was described as "about average" relative to other series D startups. They readily admitted that it was significantly lower than big companies.
Most of those D stage startups are now firmly underwater on their options issues in last couple years. Since this person was employee #12 it’s probably not as bad but still nowhere near what one could be making as sr manager at faang (which is what these startup vps are roughly equivalent to in scope and hence pay)
I don't see a conflict. Obviously, the blog post in question is a biased opinion piece. The author is working there. The company allowed the publication. Take it with a grain of salt, will you.
But what you wrote seems like a very intricate way of saying "In the end, no matter how much I want other things in my job, I personally am not cool with giving up on the money".
There are people who are willing to work different jobs or for different companies – let's say the Wikimedia foundation – and be okay with the pay not being as high as it could be at Google, doing similar work, because they derive something from it that's not measured in money.
And that's also important because most companies will simply never be able to generate Google money and still need excellent people to work on good and valuable projects.
Figure out what you value. If, in the end, it's mostly the money and you don't see any value in what the company offers you outside of that, just be honest about it and take the money.
But what you wrote seems like a very intricate way of saying "In the end, no matter how much I want other things in my job, I personally am not cool with giving up on the money".
There are people who are willing to work different jobs or for different companies – let's say the Wikimedia foundation – and be okay with the pay not being as high as it could be at Google, doing similar work, because they derive something from it that's not measured in money.
And that's also important because most companies will simply never be able to generate Google money and still need excellent people to work on good and valuable projects.
Figure out what you value. If, in the end, it's mostly the money and you don't see any value in what the company offers you outside of that, just be honest about it and take the money.
That uneasy feeling is consistent with many of the recent Glassdoor reviews. Sounds like a miserable place to work.
They should definitely renegotiate ("complain") if they're not being paid a fair market rate... Comparing "relative to the world median" is just absurd, the comparison can only be to others in similar roles/locations.
Is she $200k, $400k, or more? Potentially line managers in big companies could be earning more than any of those numbers.
Is she $200k, $400k, or more? Potentially line managers in big companies could be earning more than any of those numbers.
I was thinking more about all of the employees at the company who aren’t VP level and are paid significantly less than this.
When a company espouses “about average” compensation as one of their core principles while simultaneously espousing excellence in everything else, there’s a mismatch.
When a company espouses “about average” compensation as one of their core principles while simultaneously espousing excellence in everything else, there’s a mismatch.
We're paid decent enough for SF bay startup salaries. Worldwide, regardless of where we live/work. This works out quite advantageously for having a distributed workforce, and means many folks earn very top of market for where they happen to live (if there is even a tech market where they live!)
Also, salary bands are transparent both to employees and applicants.
Also, salary bands are transparent both to employees and applicants.
Might explain previous allusions to not being able to find a good external VP to fit the role.
You are oversimplifying it picking comp as a single/only dimension. There's so much more to being in a startup. That's ok. For some people maximizing current comp is the most important thing. Others have a more long term game where working at a startup with lower comp opens up new opportunities later on (even if the startup equity doesn't work out). For other people it's about feeling alive... What's the point of higher comp at a big company if you hate your life (or, in a less extreme case, where you just don't feel fulfilled or satisfied)...
Aside from what others have observed about this being extraordinarily bureaucratic for such a small company, there are big chunks that are missing. This is a VP of Engineering; where is the engineering in here?! As a technical leader, one might not necessarily have line code responsibilities, but you absolutely have technical responsibilities to the team and to the company. For example, there is always a tension between rigor and urgency in engineering ; it is the responsibility of engineering leadership to navigate that tension! e.g.: An engineer insists on stopping ship because of a critical bug, but there is an important customer at the other end to make a contractual deadline; what is to be done? It falls on the CEO to bear responsibility for that decision -- and for engineering leadership to make or inform that decision. Either way, it is the VP of Engineering who is in the hot seat -- not for OKRs or performance management or other FAANG middle management cosplay, but for making tough, technically informed decisions.
That is but one technical piece that is missing here; there are in fact many. Technologists who aspire to leadership: please focus on leadership, not middle management!
That is but one technical piece that is missing here; there are in fact many. Technologists who aspire to leadership: please focus on leadership, not middle management!
From part 1 they mentioned that "Directors run the company", meaning VP is where the engineering stops, and that strategy of the engineering org and alignment with other orgs is their job.
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> While engineering teams often thrive on routine and ritual (sprint planning, on-call rotations, recurring retros, etc.)
My eyes rolled back so hard I'm not sure they'll ever face forward again.
Lotta good stuff in this essay, but that one missed the mark a bit.
My eyes rolled back so hard I'm not sure they'll ever face forward again.
Lotta good stuff in this essay, but that one missed the mark a bit.
Yeah I don’t thrive on that stuff, I barely tolerate it because I am being paid to do so
I don’t just sit around thinking “god I had a schedule I was stressed about keeping. You know what I need right now? A two hour meeting with eight people including my boss and my boss’s boss where I have nothing to say and nothing to hear. If I could pick one thing to change in my life, it would be that I have to go to bed early every single fucking day because I’m worried if I don’t I won’t get enough sleep and it’ll be a struggle to wake up and do work early tomorrow morning.”
Fuck your routine. I thrive on control. Let me have control.
I don’t just sit around thinking “god I had a schedule I was stressed about keeping. You know what I need right now? A two hour meeting with eight people including my boss and my boss’s boss where I have nothing to say and nothing to hear. If I could pick one thing to change in my life, it would be that I have to go to bed early every single fucking day because I’m worried if I don’t I won’t get enough sleep and it’ll be a struggle to wake up and do work early tomorrow morning.”
Fuck your routine. I thrive on control. Let me have control.
Skirting close to a veiled “all engineers are on the spectrum” remark
What's wrong with those things?
In my experience, places that lack things like them are either small, and don't need them, or large, and in constant chaos.
In my experience, places that lack things like them are either small, and don't need them, or large, and in constant chaos.
Yep. In my experience, the only people who like sprint planning and retros are the PMs.
If we have to have a manager, I like retros as they’re a way to give feedback to our manager on things we don’t like about our operational process.
Seriously, the retro each week should be two questions:
1) Is this process working to the satisfaction of the team?
2) Anyone have anything else to discuss about it?
And it should be perfectly fine for it to be less than one minute most weeks.
1) Is this process working to the satisfaction of the team?
2) Anyone have anything else to discuss about it?
And it should be perfectly fine for it to be less than one minute most weeks.
If the team habits you have aren't joyful or even useful, why don't you change them?
I mention it, and I get “[other person] wants to do it this way.” The other person is a product manager, not an engineer. You can only complain so much.
There absolutely are engineering teams that like the routine and rituals of sprints, their version of "Agile", etc. And thrive, in a sense. (But I've not heard of anyone liking anything about on-call, except for extra pay.)
I'm normally concerned when that seems to be going on, especially in a startup...
For example, in a big company, the problems and coordination and politics are usually hard... so you might "thrive" if all you need to do is sprint tasks, you feel individually unblocked and productive, your individual metrics/reviews look good, and maybe your team looks good as far as anyone can tell.
I'd be careful with that in an early startup, which usually (unless it's more a "growth" scheme) needs to be more effective, efficient, and creative than a large, entrenched company.
(You can have some people be doing such brilliant holistic coordination in a startup, so that others can just go through routines and rituals, with their ducks lined up to plink, and get the right great startup execution out the other end... But I don't know how often or how well that actually happens.)
I'm normally concerned when that seems to be going on, especially in a startup...
For example, in a big company, the problems and coordination and politics are usually hard... so you might "thrive" if all you need to do is sprint tasks, you feel individually unblocked and productive, your individual metrics/reviews look good, and maybe your team looks good as far as anyone can tell.
I'd be careful with that in an early startup, which usually (unless it's more a "growth" scheme) needs to be more effective, efficient, and creative than a large, entrenched company.
(You can have some people be doing such brilliant holistic coordination in a startup, so that others can just go through routines and rituals, with their ducks lined up to plink, and get the right great startup execution out the other end... But I don't know how often or how well that actually happens.)
A lot of the essay is along the same lines to me. Top down product strategy that teams then simply execute on versus being co-creators of. In that environment you want rituals/routine since it avoids the team thinking about things that are seen as the purvey of others.
I skimmed this article, and it is basically IMO garden variety IT management perspective that could be dropped into an org from the 70s/80s/90s/00s/etc, aside from the agile namedropping.
Which leads me to: great, you are a "VP of Engineering" but there is little to justify why I should believe you are an exemplar of that title/position. The LinkedIn isn't a fraud, but it isn't full of any formal management degrees, IT coursework, IT Management coursework. I don't see companies whose products are on the front lines of foundational technology, scale, or quality.
Frankly, the resume is full of 1 year hopscotches. That... doesn't really tell me they are battletested. I get IT is an industry with zero respect for the neckbeard, and yeah they went to Yale, so they are of a minimum floor of hard work and intellect.
There are people out there with 40 years of experience in IT, and probably 30 years of management, with stories of massive failures, grace under fire, and the usual stories Machiavellian fake smiles to navigate.
And plugging a "Organizational Health" book is hilarious when you are a startup. Yeah, there are lots of unhealthy startups, but the really hard organizational health problems are long standing companies with the "dead pool" effect that chased away the best people, long standing feuds/grudges, sociopathic/paranoid wars over diminishing resource pools and budgets, and deep problems with legacy systems that need to be updated.
A startup? That's peanuts in comparison.
Which leads me to: great, you are a "VP of Engineering" but there is little to justify why I should believe you are an exemplar of that title/position. The LinkedIn isn't a fraud, but it isn't full of any formal management degrees, IT coursework, IT Management coursework. I don't see companies whose products are on the front lines of foundational technology, scale, or quality.
Frankly, the resume is full of 1 year hopscotches. That... doesn't really tell me they are battletested. I get IT is an industry with zero respect for the neckbeard, and yeah they went to Yale, so they are of a minimum floor of hard work and intellect.
There are people out there with 40 years of experience in IT, and probably 30 years of management, with stories of massive failures, grace under fire, and the usual stories Machiavellian fake smiles to navigate.
And plugging a "Organizational Health" book is hilarious when you are a startup. Yeah, there are lots of unhealthy startups, but the really hard organizational health problems are long standing companies with the "dead pool" effect that chased away the best people, long standing feuds/grudges, sociopathic/paranoid wars over diminishing resource pools and budgets, and deep problems with legacy systems that need to be updated.
A startup? That's peanuts in comparison.
I've had the opposite experience.
Several dev teams I've been on want retrospectives to help review and make things better. But those places are where devs have a lot of autonomy and ability to change how things operate in the team.
I've seen and been on teams that align more with your reaction but those are at jobs where where the dev teams have very little say in how they do things. Well that or it's filled with a lot of cynical people that don't actually care about what they are doing and don't have much desire for things to improve (they actively fight to keep the status quo).
Several dev teams I've been on want retrospectives to help review and make things better. But those places are where devs have a lot of autonomy and ability to change how things operate in the team.
I've seen and been on teams that align more with your reaction but those are at jobs where where the dev teams have very little say in how they do things. Well that or it's filled with a lot of cynical people that don't actually care about what they are doing and don't have much desire for things to improve (they actively fight to keep the status quo).
Other have noted how bureaucratic this seems to be for a 200 person company but to me it also seems so top down/hierarchical. Strategy that flows top down with little visibility, input or involvement from ICs except when forced to avoid the ICs getting too annoyed (why aren't the ICs trusted to help more directly contribute to the strategy?). A VP being involved in helping teams say no versus the teams (or their EMs) being empowered to do so (do the other teams/execs have such fragile egos?).
Sometimes decision making ends up primarily in the hands of the VP Eng and Directors because none of the ICs really care too much about the underlying product or customer. That’s not to say the ICs aren’t smart but rather the management has found an unglamorous yet profitable (or potentially profitable) problem. Unglamorous can also mean the company is struggling for traction and so it’s not even clear what there is to be glamorous about.
And thus the VP Eng has to make posts like these to make the work appear more notable and honorable. When the post is so light on substance, it indicates the VP Eng is fundamentally struggling to focus the team. And as a bonus, the VP Eng gets their story out in front of investors.
And thus the VP Eng has to make posts like these to make the work appear more notable and honorable. When the post is so light on substance, it indicates the VP Eng is fundamentally struggling to focus the team. And as a bonus, the VP Eng gets their story out in front of investors.
That's true but in my experience it's more often that the management chain tries to implicitly not have the ICs care about the product or customer. They may not even realize consciously that they're doing twenty little things to cause this. The reasons are many but often it's once you dig into it because management (both eng and product) then needs to do all the boring and risky work around those ideas but won't get most of the credit. There may also be perception that the ICs lack enough context so these thoughts aren't worth the time to think about. Sometimes the business domain really is unglamorous but more often I've found that the it isn't as unglamorous to ICs as management thinks.
In my experience it's also not that hard to make ICs care about the business and try to drive it forward even if it's not glamorous. Make their promotions, yearly reviews and raises be partially based on the business impact tied to the projects they were on. There's side effects of that to manage but even if the monetary gains aren't massive the team will care a lot more. Of course, many managers don't actually like it when their team point blank asks them "what's the value of this project, looking at data it's not going to help the business."
In my experience it's also not that hard to make ICs care about the business and try to drive it forward even if it's not glamorous. Make their promotions, yearly reviews and raises be partially based on the business impact tied to the projects they were on. There's side effects of that to manage but even if the monetary gains aren't massive the team will care a lot more. Of course, many managers don't actually like it when their team point blank asks them "what's the value of this project, looking at data it's not going to help the business."
This reads like one big case study on why small teams outmaneuver companies that are big enough to have management hierarchies.
That's a good point.
It likely gets worse in larger companies in that misalignment between groups can be significant and very expensive given the sheer number of people involved.
It likely gets worse in larger companies in that misalignment between groups can be significant and very expensive given the sheer number of people involved.
Say no to things, have meetings, play telephone between layers of management. Got it. I think I'll stick to being a lowly producer.
Yes that's a good chunk of the day to day. But there's also laying out strategic vision for where products and the company goes, what sorts of people get hired, doing the culture curation/setting. It's not for everyone that's for certain. I've met many many people that would struggle with this role (and vice versa).
This section describes a tremendous amount of bureaucratic overhead for a company that appears to only have 200 employees.
It feels like they have adopted processes that are really only needed for much larger orgs
It feels like they have adopted processes that are really only needed for much larger orgs
> for a company that appears to only have 200 employees
I was wondering how big the company was. 200 employees isn’t a small company any more, but the bureaucracy and alignment challenges described in the post made it feel more like a 2000 person company.
I was wondering how big the company was. 200 employees isn’t a small company any more, but the bureaucracy and alignment challenges described in the post made it feel more like a 2000 person company.
Yeah exactly. 200 is still a level where everyone knows everyone in their team and all the leaders know each other personally.
I mean spending a lot of time aligning with other leaders. How many director + leaders can there be? Five?
Similarly how heavyweight can the planning and performance process be when you are that small?
I mean spending a lot of time aligning with other leaders. How many director + leaders can there be? Five?
Similarly how heavyweight can the planning and performance process be when you are that small?
You’d be surprised how many layers there can be even in a small org.
Oh I know it happens, but that doesn't make it good.
The only way to get a lot of layers in a small org (200 people) is to have very low fan-out, which is inefficient.
For simplicity, imagine a company with 4 C-level executives at the top. Each of them manages 4 reports, and each of their reports manages 4 people, and so on down the layers. In this simplified example you could have 340 people in a company and still only have 4 layers of management (4 + 16 + 64 + 256).
You could even get the 4 C-level executives and their 16 top-level reports into a single room every week if you had to.
The company in this blog post has almost half as many people (according to parent comment) yet the bureaucracy described within sounds like they have layer upon layer of removal to the point that it's a full-time job for many people just to move information around.
The only times I've seen this happen have been when executives get too focused on 1:1 communication and like to fill their calendars up with recurring meetings with fixed sets of participants. The 1:1 communication turns into a slow game of telephone and the recurring meetings consume all of their time with talk that feels like "work" but could have been replaced with a lot of as-needed e-mails and targeted meetings organized on demand.
The only way to get a lot of layers in a small org (200 people) is to have very low fan-out, which is inefficient.
For simplicity, imagine a company with 4 C-level executives at the top. Each of them manages 4 reports, and each of their reports manages 4 people, and so on down the layers. In this simplified example you could have 340 people in a company and still only have 4 layers of management (4 + 16 + 64 + 256).
You could even get the 4 C-level executives and their 16 top-level reports into a single room every week if you had to.
The company in this blog post has almost half as many people (according to parent comment) yet the bureaucracy described within sounds like they have layer upon layer of removal to the point that it's a full-time job for many people just to move information around.
The only times I've seen this happen have been when executives get too focused on 1:1 communication and like to fill their calendars up with recurring meetings with fixed sets of participants. The 1:1 communication turns into a slow game of telephone and the recurring meetings consume all of their time with talk that feels like "work" but could have been replaced with a lot of as-needed e-mails and targeted meetings organized on demand.
Generally in a healthy org it’s more like 8-10 direct reports per line manager.
At 200 people you should probably be still at around 3 levels deep. The VP Eng with 8 line managers could easily run a 70 person engineering team
Maybe throw in a single director to help share the load and for succession planning
But I agree likely what is happening is too many managers with smallish numbers of directs creating a lot of unnecessary layers and then all the extra management work that comes with that
At 200 people you should probably be still at around 3 levels deep. The VP Eng with 8 line managers could easily run a 70 person engineering team
Maybe throw in a single director to help share the load and for succession planning
But I agree likely what is happening is too many managers with smallish numbers of directs creating a lot of unnecessary layers and then all the extra management work that comes with that
I've seen such bureaucracy at a previous employer. Company is a little over 25 people (including a few that are contractors.) There are 3 people in the C suite, at least one VP, at least 4 directors. There were endless meetings, like you describe. The whole management structure needed to be torn down. People would rather go to meetings and update internal status spreadsheets instead of doing any real meaningful work.
In defense of the dudeperson, 7 years and 200 people is precisely when toe-dipping into a maturing/stratified/annoyingly process centric IT org probably should begin. It is really annoying to ICs, but the stuff exists for a reason, in every substantial company, for the last 50+ years.
If you're looking for a revolutionary approach, this article does not describe it. It is very very very unlikely any article titled "I am VP of XXX" will describe anything highly divergent from the general managerial consensus on how to run things.
A hierarchy and "salaried emmployees" (which a 7 year / 200 person company will now start to have because there is no tangible ownership % available) are going to involve the usual monetary-extraction / exploitation model of companies: employees take salary and some (actually:none) security and forgo any real economic incentive/reward if they deliver truly valuable/transformative work.
If an employee makes a company a billion dollars, he gets a plaque. If an executive does it, they demand stock options and other "rewards".
Thus, employees cease to care about the company. The next step is the creation of middle management, which ALSO have no aligned incentives except the more abstract "one day will be an exeuctive" but have no real production / creation to point to.
But, orgs and execs know that this hierarchy can be somewhat controlled with "bureaucracy and ceremony" and with sufficient scale, rent seeking, and regulatory capture, will produce an effective profit extraction system.
If you're looking for a revolutionary approach, this article does not describe it. It is very very very unlikely any article titled "I am VP of XXX" will describe anything highly divergent from the general managerial consensus on how to run things.
A hierarchy and "salaried emmployees" (which a 7 year / 200 person company will now start to have because there is no tangible ownership % available) are going to involve the usual monetary-extraction / exploitation model of companies: employees take salary and some (actually:none) security and forgo any real economic incentive/reward if they deliver truly valuable/transformative work.
If an employee makes a company a billion dollars, he gets a plaque. If an executive does it, they demand stock options and other "rewards".
Thus, employees cease to care about the company. The next step is the creation of middle management, which ALSO have no aligned incentives except the more abstract "one day will be an exeuctive" but have no real production / creation to point to.
But, orgs and execs know that this hierarchy can be somewhat controlled with "bureaucracy and ceremony" and with sufficient scale, rent seeking, and regulatory capture, will produce an effective profit extraction system.
Sure toe dipping. At 200 people you’ve hit a Dunbar number and you need some process.
Some kind of lightweight performance cycle for instance. If it takes more then a day offsite you are probably overkilling it
Similarity for quarterly planning. You better be doing it at 200 people but the people that need to be there for that will fit in a room and you should get it done in a day
This doesn’t sound like toe dipping it reads more like a full on swan dive. Like someone said “hey shit is getting crazy we need some processes” and just whole hog adopted “what google does” or some such. The processes that are evolved for a 20,000 person org are overkill for a 200 person one
Some kind of lightweight performance cycle for instance. If it takes more then a day offsite you are probably overkilling it
Similarity for quarterly planning. You better be doing it at 200 people but the people that need to be there for that will fit in a room and you should get it done in a day
This doesn’t sound like toe dipping it reads more like a full on swan dive. Like someone said “hey shit is getting crazy we need some processes” and just whole hog adopted “what google does” or some such. The processes that are evolved for a 20,000 person org are overkill for a 200 person one
Honeycomb had some great ideas and lots of momentum around 2020-21. They seem to have stopped innovating and are quickly falling behind.
Looking at their website, seems they’re cloning a few other well-known products. Great time for the VP Eng to advertise their own story to investors on the company letterhead.
It should be said that Charity Majors is a self proclaimed thought leader. Majors wrote an entire book on observability without considering metrics. The company they founded positioned itself as different, progressive, but it's not. It's just missing foundational aspects of analyzing systems.
Nice article. As a software engineer who also specialized primarily in frontend before becoming a technical founder, I also feel like there are few people growing into these positions that have a more frontend background as well.
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Lots of haters on the part1 segment of this article wondering "wtf does this VP even do?!"
> I have friends who are line managers at larger companies who take home more than I do in my current role
I wonder if this is the "liquid" portion of Emily's comp. If it's the "total" comp then that tells me a VP Eng at a Series D startup makes < $400k all in??
> I have friends who are line managers at larger companies who take home more than I do in my current role
I wonder if this is the "liquid" portion of Emily's comp. If it's the "total" comp then that tells me a VP Eng at a Series D startup makes < $400k all in??
how is honeycomb a startup? why are 7+ year old companies with hundreds of employees considered a startup?
They aren't public, so they get lumped in with the startups.
A more accurate description is probably "privately held".
A more accurate description is probably "privately held".
Nah, the distinction is different. Startup usually means, not profitable or barely profitable and focused on growth.
A taco truck is not a startup. It’s tiny and private.
Cargill is not a startup. It’s massive and private.
A taco truck is not a startup. It’s tiny and private.
Cargill is not a startup. It’s massive and private.
> Writing, reading, updating, or providing feedback on strategy, at a variety of levels
What does this look like in more tangible terms? I think many people understand the various managerial aspects of the role by imagining a scaled up hierarchy, but are quite hazy about the "core" responsibilities. It would be great to see a concrete instance of such work entails and the specifics involved.
What does this look like in more tangible terms? I think many people understand the various managerial aspects of the role by imagining a scaled up hierarchy, but are quite hazy about the "core" responsibilities. It would be great to see a concrete instance of such work entails and the specifics involved.
>Charity once said an off-hand sentence that became a mantra for my transition into the VP of Engineering role: “Directors run the company.”
Shouldn't that be obvious to anyone who's worked in a corporate environment for more than a minute?
Shouldn't that be obvious to anyone who's worked in a corporate environment for more than a minute?
Evidence of how many people keep having to rediscover the fact show that even if it "should", it is not.
Beware of the "ould"
Beware of the "ould"
It finally clicked when I read the section justifying the company's low compensation:
> Industry data shows that Honeycomb is about average in this as a series D startup, not an outlier. I have friends who are line managers at larger companies who take home more than I do in my current role. To be clear, I’m not complaining — I am paid well for what I do, and I’m always, always grateful to be extremely well compensated relative to most American workers, who are well paid relative to the world median
It’s great that the author is satisfied with their own compensation. What bothers me is the contrast between their company’s “about average” compensation and these blog posts espousing excellence at every level the company, mentioning “inhumane” schedules in the past to deliver SOC2 and HIPAA compliance, talk of using off time to do continued industry learning, and the insinuation that the insinuation that the author and their boss are established industry thought leaders.
All of this talk of excellence and high performance at every level with one big exception: Compensation. Reading the section about how they have data showing their compensation is “about average” gave me flashbacks to early in my career when I was underpaid (relative to doing similar work at other companies) and yet charismatic company leaders insisted our compensation was in line with industry averages according to some data they found somewhere. It took me a while to realize the 50th percentile compensation should go along with 50th percentile expectations and 50th percentile performance. The companies who expect 95th percentile performance but give “about average” compensation and use charismatic leaders to convince everyone that it’s okay are, in my experience, not a good deal for the employee.