After spending nearly 10 years in this industry, I think most of us (developers) don’t expect our managers as highly incompetent. We don’t expect our bosses as cody-savy or Gantt Chart wizard. Instead, what we do to expect from them is ability to gauge our productivity: recognizing and rewarding the best performers while taking action against those who are less motivated.

I believe that the ability to measure results objectively is what makes a competent manager. The recent desire of large tech companies to restrict and/or entirely prohibit remote work has highlighted the lack of this ability in the industry. A manager who can evaluate the work of the team and its individual members wouldn’t worry about whether they are. Frankly, if the developers know exactly “rewards & punishment” system, they can motivate themself and their co-workers. If not, they need a manager, an office and daily supervision stand-up.

If the management is incompetent enough to “make office attendance part of performance reviews”, let’s play along with them. Let’s show them the amount of our time spend staring at monitors, rather than the amount of our time spend solving the problem. You should be where your boss(es) can physically see you. Here are few things that I can share

• Participate in all meetings.
• Attend all events, workshops and team-building activities.
• Be vocal in the office to ensure that your boss hears you.
• Respond to every Slack chat threads.

This strategy can’t make you a better programme. But I can guarantee it will convince your boss that you are.

DISCLAIMER: the opinions expressed within the content are solely the author’s and do not reflect the opinions and beliefs of any organization.