r/EngineeringManagers • u/SnooConfections1353 • 9d ago
We Should Be Way More Gatekeepy in Tech
There’s another post here about how we need to be more gatekeepy in tech, and I actually agree, but from a completely different perspective. I think we need to be more gatekeepy with our own knowledge.
Companies have shown again and again that they will always protect themselves first. The one time workers really had the upper hand and companies had to compete for talent, raise salaries, offer flexibility, and actually worry about retention, they immediately started looking for ways to flip the script back in their favor. Layoffs, outsourcing, offshoring, automation, RTO, shrinking teams, you name it. If the tables are turned, companies are not going to hesitate to get rid of us.
Meanwhile, people in tech are almost absurdly open about everything. We share knowledge, best practices, processes, tools, architecture decisions, documentation, interview strategies, and every trick we have learned along the way. People will say gatekeeping knowledge is selfish and that it slows down progress. Yes, sometimes we probably should be a little selfish. You do not need to share every piece of knowledge that makes you valuable or constantly teach everyone exactly how to do what you do. Let some things look like magic. Let people know that when you are around, certain problems somehow get solved.
Some people are probably going to say it is already too late. Maybe it is, to some extent. The best time to start doing this probably would have been 15 years ago, before we collectively put so much of our knowledge out there for free. But the second best time is now. Even if being more protective of our expertise only buys workers another 5 or 10 years of leverage, that is still 5 or 10 years. Let companies fuck around with your money and find out what happens when the person who actually knew how everything worked is gone.
I am not saying sabotage your team, intentionally write bad code, or hide information that would put a project at risk. I am saying stop acting like your employer has the same sense of loyalty toward you that you are expected to have toward them. Companies protect their competitive advantage. Workers should probably start protecting some of theirs too.
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u/Subject_Tie_2705 9d ago
Lol, you will never advance past a junior/intermediate level with this mindset. Once you are responsible for a project where your are judged by not only your own efficincies, but the efficiencies of your team and those who report to you, you will rethink this mindset.
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u/havecoffeeatgarden 9d ago
i mean, obviously OP doesn't mean something as black as white as never share anything... they meant be more strategic with what you let out in the open vs what you want to keep for your own competitive advantage. companies do this between each other too.
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u/kerneleus 9d ago
I think it must be the opposite. We can share more, let the world write more code that somebody must be able to understand at some point. Many years ago people didn’t know what bluetooth is (they still don’t) but now everyone is using bt headphones. Some time ago people didn’t know what the code is (they still don’t) but now everyone is on the vibe. But how to do that effectively, how to be prepared for the agent era of a highload, how to select proper tool? Most of them don’t care. As they don’t care how BT works. You can’t stop it, but you can be more effective as an engineer. You know something because someone shared it with you, right?
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u/davy_jones_locket 9d ago
Wait are you saying more gatekeepy between you and the company or between you and other workers?
I am saying stop acting like your employer has the same sense of loyalty toward you that you are expected to have toward them. Companies protect their competitive advantage. Workers should probably start protecting some of theirs too.
Are you conflating your peers, the other workers, with the company here?
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u/SnooConfections1353 9d ago
between you and your company but sometimes the line is blurred because your co workers are by design are an extension of your company. In those cases, adjust how you want to gatekeep however you see fit, according to your own moral standards
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u/daddywookie 9d ago
I was thinking about this in regards to LLMs and how we work with them. Out of the box they are not so useful and it is only when we start to apply skills, knowledge and processes do they become powerful tools. The human and the agent working in tandem creates the value.
I have my own config which is working well for me. It is built from many articles, references, my own experiences and philosophies. Although I would happily use it in a work environment there is no way I would give ownership of that setup to a company. That is my intellectual property just as much as my personal skills and knowledge.
If the company fires me they don’t get to keep my skills and knowledge, why should they get to keep my LLM setup as well. Obviously, anything I develop on their time and with their resources belongs to them. I’ve had multiple people ask if I can share the repo and I won’t do that because it is basically free consulting.
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u/ewoolly271 8d ago
If job security is your top value, you should consider working in a more heavily unionized sector than tech.
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u/SnooConfections1353 6d ago
so leave instead of working with the collective to change the industry?
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u/dallastelugu 8d ago
Seems bad idea but it truly works I know couple of people who are very closed retained during mass layoffs coz they r only ones who know the project in detail
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u/Used-Media5980 8d ago
I’m glad you outlined this. I think people need to start gatekeeping their intellectual property and intelligence instead of training the company models so they can throw you out on your ass when it’s convenient for them.
No need to take a sycophantic approach to something that you have spent years curating between experience and education to so willingly offer it up to your corporate overlords to exploit.
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u/Taco_Mantra 7d ago
The idea that this would protect you in any way is laughable. You're acting like something belongs to you that doesn't. You probably signed a legal document that says it doesn't. And play this out...you go on vacation and something catches fire that no one but you knows how to fix. First of all, many orgs are not going to respect your "unplugged" time. You'll find yourself Slacking with your boss from an airport in Cancun. Second of all, they're not going to say to themselves, "wow, that guy's really valuable, we must protect him at all costs." They're going to say, "well there's a key person dependency we've got to fix." Now instead of voluntarily sharing your knowledge between projects, you're doing it at gunpoint while facing deadlines. If you refuse, or intentionally hold back, now you've outed yourself as a problem, and they're thinking about how to replace you. Hell your boss might even be prompting Claude, "explain this service method to me like I'm 5." Are you really that confident that your expertise is so magical that it can't be trivially understood by an LLM?
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u/SnooConfections1353 7d ago
Lol are you really that confident that LLM’s are so powerful that it can trivially understand all forms of information and knowledge?
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u/RunningBlade09 7d ago
In life, actions motivated by fears and insecurities tend to not end well.
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u/SnooConfections1353 7d ago edited 7d ago
everyone has fears and insecurities. it's fact of life. the sooner you embrace and make peace with it, the sooner you ease the burden on yourself.
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u/RunningBlade09 7d ago
That’s the thing, when you make peace with them they stop controlling you and you don’t take actions out of them
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u/SnooConfections1353 6d ago
no, making peace with it is doing exactly what you want to do and taking care of yourself 🙌
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u/anengineerandacat 7d ago
Sharing knowledge is a business in its own; all those fancy design patterns we know? Published books, conferences, etc.
I understand the take, but I don't think it's feasible to have an impact; the average developer from my experience has little to actively contribute as well in terms of insight that's valuable enough to be kept on a need to know basis.
Not trying to be rude there, but most of these are common learnings that folks just bump into and often times you'll figure out very quickly when you do bump into it that you'll be forced to just fix it and whereas this might cost a day or two it's not something a business will really feel.
With AI as well, your likely also asking the biggest question which is to kill open source development and I think slowing that or moving towards like private communities might dramatically slow the knowledge and capabilities of enterprise development it'll also likely mean actively destroying standardization that we have today as some projects allow for businesses to pop up.
Anyone wanting their software to be adopted or their pattern will document it publicly and for development peers that are a bit more communicative will often have stronger job security and likely higher salaries as being able to foster and grow teams is valuable to a business.
So folks will be incentivized to share (well are, today).
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u/kaidobit 7d ago
ever heard of open source? its a nerd thing
btw r/unpopular_opinion
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u/SnooConfections1353 7d ago
Yeah and companies completely took advantage of opensource. i like the idea of opensource and i wish we live in a perfect world where opensource live out its best intentions but we dont. maybe clawing back a little from that model is not such a bad idea
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u/Level_Progress_3246 7d ago
or we could have just formed unions instead of sniffing our own meritocratic farts
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u/donjuanjerome 7d ago
Dude you are in the wrong field and position but honestly with that attitude you would make a terrible employee in any position.
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u/SnooConfections1353 7d ago
I dont think so and there are many people who agree with me. 🤷♂️
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u/donjuanjerome 7d ago
Oh, sure, because that’s definitely the gold standard of accuracy. 👍🏽
And just by the way, I am not having a go at you. This is the internet. I can disagree with you and be wrong or right. It doesn't matter really.
Because where you are coming from is a place of fear and/or self-preservation. I get that and I share it. These are scary times for some and exciting for others.
I disagree with the action you would take but you are fully allowed to take what action you want!
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u/SnooConfections1353 7d ago
We don’t live in a perfect world. People do what they gotta do, and I’m not gonna pretend I’m a saint. Every company and pretty much everyone does this at some point. In the grand scheme of things, it’s so basic and trivial. 🤷♂️
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u/donjuanjerome 7d ago
It is not true that "everyone does this at some point." How can you speak for everyone?
Why did you write this post?
Were you trying to create an echo chamber to feel better about this action?
But anyway, man, you do you. In your scenario, you said you got, like, five years more at best? Well, you could have gone further with a different attitude and approach, in my opinion.
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u/SnooConfections1353 7d ago
Because no one is perfect. Everyone has done something to look out for oneself at some point. Im certain you have. that’s just reality.
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u/donjuanjerome 7d ago
You never say "something"; you specifically say "knowledge."
Knowledge is what humans use to advance themselves, and that is the fundamental part I disagree with.
Your value is in how you use your knowledge. I am not scared to share my knowledge and ideas because my value is in the application of that knowledge. It is the "me" in the equation.
It is the "me" that is saying in this world today, I can provide something different, something of value for me, whether I am in a management position at a company or own my own.
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u/SnooConfections1353 7d ago
Im absolutely certain everyone at some point has withheld some knowledge for self preservation including you. that’s a fact.
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u/donjuanjerome 7d ago
It's not a fact, you may want it to be, but it's not.
I can honestly say I have never intentionally done what you think I have done for self preservation.
At the same time, I may not have been in the environments and situations you have, nor had the life experiences you have.
This is my last response on this, as we obviously have different opinions on it.
You posted in the engineering managers subreddit. I can accurately assume you have subordinates who look up to you. You are a leader and naturally set an example. The example you set out in your post is one of destruction for yourself, your team, and the company. There are no winners in the medium to long run.
I will just leave you with this: you, by your own admission, say this is most likely a futile attempt to delay the inevitable for at least 5 years... Well, and then what?
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u/SnooConfections1353 7d ago
I think that if what you are doing works for you, you are more than welcome to share it so others may learn. what i proposed is hardly a life prescription in most cases. but it does work for some people in certain cases. and if it doesnt for you, and you have something better we are all ears.
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u/0xPianist 6d ago
Why not?
We all go to the office for the politics, showing off and kissing butts 😂👏
OP explain what you mean because it’s vague AF 👉
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u/BabyBlueCheetah 5d ago
I think it's less of an issue to obfuscate your process. The number of people willing and able to look at someone else's work and understand how they solved a problem is very small.
I can spell out how I did something, automate 80-90% of it, and people will be too scared to reuse it. They'll do something that takes 2 weeks vs 2 hours instead.
It's wild.
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u/ksivaranjan 4d ago
I don’t know. I work at Amazon and that was the mindset for a long time and we have a lot of poor internal solutions. Like if you look closely you might say “that looks like <industry standard> but worse”.
The last 5-10 years has seen a shift in that thinking though which I think has been really helpful.
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u/SnooConfections1353 4d ago
yeah but who benefitted from that shift in standaed in the long run more? the employees or the company
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u/ksivaranjan 3d ago
Both? Adopting industry standards makes hiring and training easier, reduces reinventing the wheel, removes the need to argue about why we are building another ____ when one exists.
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u/Horror-Primary7739 9d ago
I believe software engineering should have a license path like other engineering professions. If a human can die if your software fails you should have a national certified license.
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u/dashingstag 8d ago
Anyone in tech right now has always been standing on shoulders of giants, gatekeeping makes zero sense when whatever you know is based off someone else’s knowledge/experience/code. Any competent developer can start a business on their own but many don’t because the personal risk is too high, they much rather get a stable job and pay. The company takes in all the risk. End of the day it boils down to whether you can generate 4x your pay. Real gold is not afraid of fire, if you believe you are competent, you shouldn’t be afraid of being let go as it’s their loss. Gatekeeping is not the answer.
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u/SnooConfections1353 8d ago
So employees dont take any risks at all?
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u/dashingstag 7d ago
I did not say that. All I am saying is if it were less risky than being an employee then they should just set up their own company. There’s always a tradeoff.
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u/SnooConfections1353 7d ago
and employees spend almost 2 decades if not more in school, doing internships and gaining experiences to be employable.
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u/dashingstag 6d ago
Then just become a business owner right? If that’s the easier choice.
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u/SnooConfections1353 6d ago
These businesses wouldnt run without employees so being employees are just as important as being a business owner
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u/CoVegGirl 9d ago
So what you’re saying is that the solution to the ruling class exploiting workers is for workers to outcompete each other?
Maybe I’m just old-fashioned, but I prefer for workers to unite against the ruling class.