I was in a meeting today titled "engineering workgroup" which was supposed to be technical discussion on details of urgent, high priority customer engagement. Attendees were: 4 people managers, 5 different project managers, 1 PAE, 1 QA, 1 dev. 90% of available time got wasted on chit-chat and introductions. That's Intel for you...
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Its nothing about being manager or IC, intel or non intel. Motivated sharp engineers will excel as IC as well as managers. Lazy laggards will be lazy in any role. We are what we are pretty much. Lets not blame intel. Go to any bay area big tech, half if leadership is former intel.
That's exact opposite of my experience. As far as I can see most managers are people who were too incompetent to work as engineers (usually diversity hires), so started to volunteering for various paperwork and ultimately got promoted to managerial roles as the only thing higher-ups care about is paperwork.
Intel more or less forces many knowledgeable engineers into people management roles - many will be more experienced technically than you are and just because they have been burdened with people management BS doesn't take away from their technical skill. I'm an IC so I'm not defending myself here.
It is part of the reason you see tech companies with life cycles that come and go... it is hard to stay on top of the food chain with so much dysfunctional behavior that is self reinforcing... if not irrational in that it ki--s the very organization the climbers hope to master. That plus the Christensen Effect.
If you are too much into checking your checklist and ticking off in a matrix, less gets done. Intel has bogus IMBOs that will plug you across organizations and the endless stake holders. Except that there are so many having the stakes, taking the credit and dubious accounting - sort of. This will claim "win-win" for all. How's it for the book keeping. The ledger is padded. Intel has been a bloated organization for a long time and unfortunately that's how many were let go as they didn't have their stakes everywhere! You are expected to be growing if you find your name across multiple divisions and that's how you get promoted. Hey, that's how some have even climbed up the ladder even outside. In other words, it is a game that techies are playing in the name of growth. No wonder the tech world is having a reckoning now.
Sad but I feel your pain. Intel used to teach 'effective meetings'. The concepts are great, but the problem now is that Intel has gobs and gobs of redundant bureaucracy. The number of levels in the organization is too much. The number of adjacent groups that have a 'stake' in the project seems endless. The amount of producers is less then the number of checkers who want to inspect your work. It really is so engrained in the culture that it will take a complete reset to fix it. Not even sure it is possible. GL.
@ntv I know, during the hourlong meeting, the dev was interrupted nine different times by a different manager after each customer engagement point was shouted out. Ridiculous.
I feel sorry for the poor ba----d dev that now has to do 100% of the work.
yes- i attend weekly meeting on sure self-absorbed mgr. keeps talking non stop and showcasing what he has been doing calls it passdown sharing info.
From across the top -his upper mgmt. forums he is expected to attend-expects his staff to gloat and pitch suggestions or quips which support his mindset.
But engineers are not people persons.