Ted Neward
blogs.newardassociates.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2022
Ted Neward is a software consultant who writes about engineering management, tech debt, buy versus build, and developer roles.
What HN saysHN links it for his posts on management, such as the manager and player/coach topics; commenters engage with his points about managers' limited time.
20HN people shared it
1linked it in comments
44stories submitted
329story points
5 months agolast shared
2022people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Buy vs. Build over Time5 people · 5 points · first shared 2023 · discussion on HN
- 2Debts, Tech and Otherwise4 people · 50 points · first shared 2025 · 17 comments on HN
- 3The Player/Coach Fallacy3 people · 6 points · first shared 2023 · discussion on HN
- 4Synchronous Work, Asynchronous Work3 people · 6 points · first shared 2025 · discussion on HN
- 5Manager Antipatterns2 people · 12 points · first shared 2024 · 2 comments on HN
- 62025 Tech Predictions2 people · 4 points · first shared 2025 · discussion on HN
- 7Things I Think I Think... Preferring Local OSS LLMs2 people · 3 points · first shared 2026 · discussion on HN
- 8The Full-Stack Developer Fallacy2 people · 2 points · first shared 2023 · 2 comments on HN
- 9You Want Modules, Not Microservices1 people · 96 points · first shared 2023 · 72 comments on HN
- 10The Four Kinds of Research-and-Development Teams1 people · 66 points · first shared 2024 · 16 comments on HN
- 11A Java language cumulative feature rollup1 people · 58 points · first shared 2024 · 44 comments on HN
- 12Cheating with Chat-GPT1 people · 2 points · first shared 2024 · 1 comments on HN
- 13Antipattern: The C-Buddy Manager1 people · 2 points · first shared 2024 · discussion on HN
- 14The Subtle Power of Teams1 people · 2 points · first shared 2024 · discussion on HN
- 15An Engineering Manager Challenge1 people · 2 points · first shared 2024 · discussion on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
the_af · 2023-02-07
> do you mean that the capacity of an EM to spend time on growing team skills is reduced? There is a limited amount of time a manager can spend on that. If it’s a small team, then they could do a good job at it whilst doing small bits on the side.
Yes, that's part of what I mean (but also: dealing with red tape, bureaucracy, and removing impediments) and no, the amount of time that can be used for this is basically unlimited: it's a full time job. "Small bits on the side" is not a good use of a senior IC, that's for the more junior members of the team.
Also, playing both roles is less than ideal, see: http://blogs.newardassociates.com/blog/2023/player-coach-fallacy.html
> That’s not really a new failure mode - any manager can be bad.
Agreed that any manager can be bad, but I contend that this is a new failure mode driven by two conflicting goals.