Subnostr

There’s this archetype of engineer I have a lot of respect for, it’s not a permanent state for most but I’ve seen too many who’ve had this role and succeeded under appreciate how valuable they really are

The fixer

A group of fixers is a cleanup crew, and I think if you’re around any org long enough you find out who these people are— There are the engineers who blaze trails and make new things and when they’re successful it’s great, but when they muck it up a new opportunity appears for someone to prove themselves.

The fixer gets pulled off their work and plunged into the middle of whatever disaster they’ve been volunteered for. Effective fixers learn new skills on the fly, stay cool under pressure, communicate well and avoid the blame game. A cleanup job is the ultimate engineering trial by fire, and at very least people who take up this duty come out better engineers. At best they show themselves to be exceptionally valuable.

Nick Slaney 2y ago

In hardware, my first engineering jobs were basically to be the full time fixer. Find issues in the field, diagnose, make necessary changes and ship it. I was the guy who didn’t like fixing other people’s mistakes, but with what I know now, those experiences were foundational.

Fixers see what can go wrong so they are more informed on how to do it right.

Fixers understand the Pareto principle, what we need to do now to fix what’s in front of us vs what’s better left for when we have three luxury to put a bow on it.

Effective fixers work professionally under pressure, communicate well, cut through the BS.

Reply to this note

Please Login to reply.

Discussion

Nick Slaney 2y ago

When I’m talking to other engineers now, of course I’m interested in what they know, what they’ve done, how they think and communicate. But what really gets an engineer’s experience across for me is the war stories of battling X issue or Y bug.

Engineers with experience like that are the ones you want building your products. They’ve seen pitfalls, navigated tough situations, and made things better honestly by doing the shit work. That is character and experience that can’t be taught, it has to be lived.

pam 2y ago

its a very nice way of framing this idea. My first hw engineering job gave the opportunity to learn but my second one i was the only fixer with no support (low budget company) - covering 5 countries - tech support, application engineer, system integrator, trainer, lecturer and consultant - crazy crazy times but learnt a lot. This helped when I ventured on my own, having no idea what i am doing (probably still don't lol)

I noticed however that people at large, when looking at a problem - have a tough time separating between finding root causes to solve the problem, and blaming someone for it. Often times, they think they are that someone and become very defensive. Hence there is a need to establish that trust factor.

This was a nice book that i read recently on setting that environment for growth. Its def something I want to be better at.