One of the most enlightening moments I had when working with engineers vastly more capable than me was the disproportionate amount of time they spent planning and designing versus coding, and how much faster they moved as a result.
It seems to me that the kind of management the article is hinting as is what I like to refer to as ass-chair management (it's similar to asshat management, but that's a conversation for another time). To me, this speaks volumes more about the incompetency of the manager than the efficacy, or lack thereof, of the engineer. Unfortunately, most managers I've had have gauged work solely on the amount of time someone spends in an office chair.
Personally, I couldn't care less how many hours someone works. If the work is getting done, I'm more than happy to have everyone work four hours a day from home; then everyone is happy.
"To me, this speaks volumes more about the incompetency of the manager..."
Yes, and in particular, it may indicate that the manager knows absolutely nothing about software development, and couldn't tell good code from bad code if his life depended on it. Since the guy who wrote the article was working on billing and provisioning for a cable company, it's possible that his boss was someone like the head of the billing department - not a technical person at all.
It's even more depressing when tech-savvy managers, who should be able to judge employees by their actual contributions to the end-product, practice "ass in chair" management.
Also: Lots of interesting discussion from when this article was originally posted 2 years ago:
I've been programming for about 25 years now and my take on the situation is that people learn bad habits from those they've seen, which is why tech-savvy managers tend to act like their non-tech-savvy counterparts.
I agree that its wrong to be giving pay raises / promotions to employees solely based on who worked longer hours. Obviously, pay and promotion should be judged on the value delivered not the effort put in. However, in my opinion, great developers who build robust systems and leave at 5 are not necessarily hard working, probably just more experienced / competent. If you can get your job done by 5 while your co-workers are slaving away until midnight fixing bugs, whats stopping you from putting in another couple extra hours to deliver even more value to the company? Sometimes taking initiative and showing passion is just as important as being smart.
No kidding. It's like rewarding employees for putting in 20-50% more time/extra effort on the job with a 10% bonus. It's mathematical proof that you don't properly value their time.
