Is your boss a "really good" programmer? A business manager that knows nothing about computers? Does he/she treats you well? When you write good code, does he encourage you or only bash on you when you write bad code? I'm really interested to know more about the kind of boss you have. On a side note, maybe you could add what you would like your boss to do better or, if you are your own boss or a boss, what do you think make you unique? :)
+16
A:
my boss is an excellent programmer, but is also a relelentless task-master. He is always pushing me to do more, be more efficient, work smarter, go the extra mile, and in general be better today than i was yesterday. He always expects me to astonish the customers, every time they ask for something, to find new ways to improve on the services provided last time.
i'm self-employed, of course. ;-)
Steven A. Lowe
2008-12-05 04:13:14
Your boss micromanages you too. Better be careful or your boss will fire you.
Windows programmer
2008-12-05 06:04:22
@[Windows programmer]: you ain't kiddin'! that lousy so-and-so is always looking over my shoulder. I'm just glad that stackoverflow.com keeps him distracted for an hour every day so i can eat lunch in peace!
Steven A. Lowe
2008-12-05 15:24:27
+1 What I like most about your boss is his modesty!
Andrew Rollings
2008-12-05 16:06:50
And actually, come to think of it, you're not actually talking about your boss... She's at home! :D
Andrew Rollings
2008-12-05 16:08:14
@[Andrew Rollings]: that's my OTHER boss. And the OTHER OTHER boss is taking his morning nap.
Steven A. Lowe
2008-12-05 16:29:13
+2
A:
Actually I have three bosses... no seriously. One is a non-programmer business person who defines the requirements for what we build. The second is an IT type, but without a clue about how to do good software. She also controls our payroll. The third is a programmer himself and does our performance appraisals. Fun starts when the three of them can't agree on what my priorities are.
dacracot
2008-12-05 04:33:20
A:
I've been very lucky to always have bosses who either were developers or knew software development.
They ask the right questions and give good feedback.
Their bosses on the other hand...
Jeff Cuscutis
2008-12-05 04:35:22
+2
A:
My boss is essentially just a liason between the programmers and the clients. As long as both sides are pretty happy, he stays out of everyone's way.
He has a somewhat technical bacground, but it really isn't relevant in my dealings with him.
Baltimark
2008-12-05 04:42:40
A:
My boss knows next to nothing about programming.
He praises me when things 'work'.
alex
2008-12-05 06:25:28
+1
A:
I manage a small group of programmers (two to five, depending in the project and the time schedule). My direct boss is not technical at all. He is a provider type of boss: good attitude, does whatever is required to help us and get help from others and is always motivating and positive, even when he is not having a good day. Even if he does not quite understand details, he likes to get a general picture of what is being done and how and praises when we get results and when he notices that we are proud of the solution we came up with. Really, he is the only reason why we are still in the company. Salary is not that great there is a whole lot of work and long hours, and if we talk about my boss's superior... that is a completely different story.
My boss' superior is one of those micro managers that wants to get how every small detail is performed, but his experience has nothing to do with the technologies that we work on. Nevertheless he likes pushing his solution whether good or bad and whether it is a solution or more of a problem. Luckily enough we manage to avoid him more often than not as we have a intermediate manager that serves as umbrella.
-- David Rodríguez Ibeas
David Rodríguez - dribeas
2008-12-05 06:54:50
A:
My former boss at Microsoft seemed to have been a decent tech, although I never once saw any of the code he wrote. I was in a test group, and he had his own pet projects that were beyond the scope of our immediate team. In fact, our whole group/subdivision seemed to really value outside projects as the only way to distinguish developers on their annual performance eval.
Anyway, I received almost no feedback for several months, then was slammed on the annual review. After that, I would occasionally receive sporadic comments on work I had done, almost 100% negative remarks about little niggly issues. Sometimes they were valid criticisms, sometimes it seemed to be issues with personal coding style vs. his style. If I defended my work well, the best comment I would receive was barely a retraction of former criticism, always with the same phrase like "well, okay".
This was a nice individual, who I firmly believed meant well and wanted me to succeed, but lacked much in the way of knowing how to guide or motivate. I began to dread meetings as all I could look forward to was lose or draw, never win. Certainly never win/win between us. Eventually, I quit, after five successful years with other managers.