As the author, clarifying some misinterpretations:
First, the act of identifying patterns (anti or not) is not equivalent to labeling human beings with the same terms, nor does it imply that one takes action (management or otherwise) against people as a result. Rather, it's a way to extract and summarize similar behaviors in a way that others can interpret and apply in their own situations. The post intros this as a set of negative pathologies (not people) I had encountered as an engineer (not manager) in the previous decade, and closes with observation that we all can suffer from these in some form or another. In the end it proposes that avoiding them at scale is a cultural problem, hard fought by continually embodying, supporting, and rewarding the positive aspects of the culture, not a management problem won by platitudes.
Second, it is speaking from the viewpoint of someone building the foundation of an engineering culture at a startup. These are not observations of our culture at the time, but rather a set of pathologies we sought to avoid as we grew. It is true that many other companies do not eschew these pathologies, and for example, result in the title abuse referenced in many comments.
Finally, with respect to titles in particular, we absolutely do embrace engineering titles at Delphix. Promotions are a visible and meaningful mechanism for recognizing (through titles that persist beyond these walls) and rewarding (through compensation) our best engineers. The point is that promotions reflect actual impact, not the result of political scheming. As a result, people don't listen to you differently, you don't get fed different opportunities, and you don't get to do more impactful things. Maybe that's not how it works elsewhere, or the audience doesn't believe me that it's possible to achieve, but it's very important to me that it work that way here.
First, the act of identifying patterns (anti or not) is not equivalent to labeling human beings with the same terms, nor does it imply that one takes action (management or otherwise) against people as a result. Rather, it's a way to extract and summarize similar behaviors in a way that others can interpret and apply in their own situations. The post intros this as a set of negative pathologies (not people) I had encountered as an engineer (not manager) in the previous decade, and closes with observation that we all can suffer from these in some form or another. In the end it proposes that avoiding them at scale is a cultural problem, hard fought by continually embodying, supporting, and rewarding the positive aspects of the culture, not a management problem won by platitudes.
Second, it is speaking from the viewpoint of someone building the foundation of an engineering culture at a startup. These are not observations of our culture at the time, but rather a set of pathologies we sought to avoid as we grew. It is true that many other companies do not eschew these pathologies, and for example, result in the title abuse referenced in many comments.
Finally, with respect to titles in particular, we absolutely do embrace engineering titles at Delphix. Promotions are a visible and meaningful mechanism for recognizing (through titles that persist beyond these walls) and rewarding (through compensation) our best engineers. The point is that promotions reflect actual impact, not the result of political scheming. As a result, people don't listen to you differently, you don't get fed different opportunities, and you don't get to do more impactful things. Maybe that's not how it works elsewhere, or the audience doesn't believe me that it's possible to achieve, but it's very important to me that it work that way here.