Hey!  Look!  It’s a new Cranky Product Manager mug!

It declares to the world “I AM A CRANKY PRODUCT MANAGER.”

You should get yourself one.  It’s WICKED AWESOME.

PM leaders, just think of it. Finally, the perfect present for your team of put-upon product managers–those hard-working, in-the-trenches professionals that get no love, no appreciation, no free trips to the Bahamas, and no credit.  And, given this economy, they probably get no bonuses or no pay raises this year either.

You gotta do something for them, right? Something to stave off  their burnout for at least another year…

Here’s an Elegant Solution(TM):  GIVE THEM MUGS!

Just imagine how spiffy you will all look at team meetings, each clutching your very own cranky mug.

The first 50 mugs sold get special pricing of $12.99 for the small, and $14.99 for the large.  After that, the prices will go up by $1.50 each.

You can also get a WICKED AWESOME travel mug too.  That’s what the real-life CPM is getting.

So BUY NOW.  Who says you can’t buy for next Christmas now?

Oh, and if you also want to buy some 7 Types of Engineer mugs, you’ll find them here.

Thanks, and ENJOY.

7:00 am. The Cranky Product Manager awakes.  Grabs the Blackberry Curve off the bedside table. Starts deleting spam. Opens the following email from a reader and starts laughing hysterically.

Darling Husband is startled awake and is like “what the???”

Dear Cranky Product Manager,

I have attached a picture of the real Veteran Engineer that works with me. I saw your post, the description of Mike, and bought the mug for him. He, in turn, sent me the proof that corroborates what you have posted beyond the shadow of a doubt.

Please feel free to post on the site.

All the best,
Maggie
Sr. Product Manager

And here the photo, along with Mike’s disclaimers:

• No (party) animals were endangered during the filming of this picture.
• No additional clothing was needed to be purchased by the photo subject in order to take this picture.

You will notice that Mike The Veteran Software Engineer is holding a Veteran Software Engineer mug.  The Cranky Product Manager is always a sucker for a good recursion gag.  It reminds her of her lamda calculus-filled  freshman year at a random institute of technology.

Note that you readers should all take this as a hint to BUY MUGS and give them to engineers.

Thanks Mike and Maggie, for giving the Cranky Product Manager a good chuckle!

At long last, the Cranky Product Manager is posting the winning captions for the “7 Types of Software Engineers” cartoons!!!!

Whoo hoo.

Sorry about the delay.  It’s just a big frakin hassle to put captions on cartoons and create a Cafe Press store — all so the Cranky Product Manager can order some mugs with pictures of engineer archetypes.  Plus she’s wicked lame.

Anyway, you TOO can purchase mugs and t-shirts with the various types of engineers on them.  Give them as presents to your team. Sent some not-so-subtle hints.

In fact, the Cranky PM requires that at least a few of you buy them.  Because if she is the only one carrying around an Engineering mug, it will be difficult to keep her real-life identity a secret.

OK, without further ado…..

The Big Winner – Offshore

The BIG WINNER for ALL the Engineer types is DGentry for his submission for Offshore:

The Cranky PM and “Another PM” (author of the original post) almost wet their pants when they read that one.

You will notice we had to change the cartoon to accompany this caption, but it was well worth it.

DGentry will soon be receiving this fantabulous mug in the mail, courtesy of The Cranky Product Manager.  Why not buy one for yourself?

The Honorable Mention for Offshore goes to Paco for “All your base are belong to us.”

(unobtrusive link to Offshore schwag)

The Veteran

For the Veteran, a reader named “The Other Eric” wins.  Alas, he gets no free mug as he is not the BIG winner.

The Honorable Mention goes to Greg for “Um, we tried that 4 years ago and it was a total failure. Got any other bright ideas?” Too long to fit on a mug, but still spot-on.

(unobtrusive link to Veteran schwag)

The Great One

Our favorite Engineer, the Great One is now immortalized.  Many caption submissions doubted the existence of this mythical creature, but in the end the submission from Eric won:

Honorable mention once again goes to Paco for “It’s okay. It was important to be here for the launch, and I’m sure I’ll be there when my next child is born.” (submitted too late for the contest, alas).

(unobtrusive link to Great One schwag)

The Teflon-gineer

For the Teflon-gineer, the Cranky Product Manager’s most despised engineer, reader Eric wins once again:

All the other submissions were very funny (and long! too long for a mug), but this one from Scott Sehlhorst (of the Tyner Blain blog) wins the Honorable Mention: “I closed that error-message bug with a workaround. ‘Replace users with people who can follow instructions.”’

(unobtrusive link to Teflon-gineer schwag)

The Hotshot

For the Hotshot, the winner is…. THE CRANKY PRODUCT MANAGER. Yep, she liked her own caption the best.  Sorry suckahs.

Honorable mention to Greg for “Dude, I finished that code last night. I’m sure it works! Now ’scuse me while I go grab a Red Bull…”

(unobtrusive link to Hotshot schwag)

The Maverick

No, not that Maverick.  The Software Engineer kind of Maverick.  The winner is roadmapwarrior — check it.  The Cranky Product Manager had a good giggle over this one:

Honorable Mention goes to Scott Sehlhorst again for “I don’t tell you what font to use. What, exactly, is wrong with (lambda (x) (+ (* 2 x) (^ x 2)))?”

His entry brought up nausea-inducing memories of the Cranky Product Manager’s freshman computer class.  Ugh.  Feel sick.

(unobtrusive link to Maverick schwag)

The Clockwork Mouse

The same Eric that won the caption contest for the Great One and Teflon-gineer wrote the original Clockwork Mouse post.  So he kinda wins this too. The actual caption you see below was submitted by DGentry (also the BIG winner):

Honorable mention to NWGuy for “Whew, almost everybody gone; if they got rid of that Naked Programmer I’d be able to go home.”

The Cranky Product Manager has no idea what NWGuy is talking about, but it is just so bizarre she LOVES IT.

(unobtrusive link to Clockwork Mouse schwag)

Anyway, have a GREAT HOLIDAY.  The Cranky Product Manager might actually get another post or two in by the end of the year, since she is off from work and everything.

HAVE FUN AND DON’T PRIORITIZE USER STORIES WHILE INTOXICATED!

Just TWO days left to leave your funniest caption attempt on each of the “7 Types of Engineers” comics.  Don’t lose out on your chance for a fantabulous coffee mug featuring your caption, courtesy of the Cranky Product Manager.

And check out the captions that have already been submitted. Some are FRAKING hilarious.

Reader Eric submitted this addendum to the original “The 6 Types of Software Engineer.” The Cranky Product Manager liked it so much, she changed the name of the series to “7 Types of Software Engineers.”

Submit captions for this cartoon of “The Clockwork Mouse” in this post’s comments. And don’t forget to submit captions for the other Software Engineer Types as well…

The Clockwork Mouse

Unlike the other types of software engineers, the Clockwork mouse is most often female. The Mouse works consistently, quietly, and diligently on any project, sub-project, or tiny little feature that is given to her. She is the perfect engineer for that boring file conversion job.

Distinguishing Characteristics

• Rarely leaves the safe haven of the cube. Must be forced to join meetings.
• People often ask how long the Clockwork Mouse has worked there when she is spotted (briefly) outside the confines of her cube. Very often, the Mouse has been with the company longer than the person asking.
• Often talks with a very meek voice and is unwilling to contradict anybody, even when she clearly knows the right answer.
• Nobody knows what this engineer does with her personal time.
• Will consistently finish projects on time, but in the most bland manner as possible.
• Her sense of interface design is non-existent. The interface will either be horribly complex and confusing or so primitive that it will make you wonder if if a C: prompt would be better.
• She often codes something completely different from the specs because she is too afraid to ask questions.

Project Pitfalls
You may not know this engineer is actually on your project.

Achilles Heal
Any type of social interaction will cause so much stress that the Clockwork Mouse might blow a spring.

Best Bet
Assign non-interface related projects that are intricate, yet boring. The mouse will thrive in this environment. QA is another good bet.

Submit captions for this cartoon of “The Moverick” in this post’s comments.  And don’t forget to submit captions for the other Software Engineer Types as well…

The Maverick

The Maverick will do your feature IF he can do it in Ruby on Rails. Or Haskell. Or Python. Or <other hot new language that his peers don’t know and therefore can’t evolve or maintain>.

And, NO, this type of Maverick has nothing to do with John McCain or Sarah Palin. Well, probably not.

Distinguishing Characteristics:

• Smart. Creative.
• Doesn’t want to build on or maintain the existing codebase (because it’s a spaghetti nightmare AND because it’s written in Java, which is sooo passe), so he’ll roll his own. This will include the creation of an exotic protocol and adapter layer so that the old code can call his code.
• Dependable — if you let him do it his way.
• Magically finds his way off the project if he is not permitted to build in his preferred language.

Project Pitfalls:
Oh, you’ll get your feature all right, and you’ll get it on time and it’ll probably be done well and it may even delight you and your users, but once that guy leaves someone is going to have to refactor it in order to evolve it. And we all know there are few words a PM likes less than “refactor”.

Achilles Heel:
Back in my hometown, we used to say “That dog won’t hunt” when referring to someone who simply and inexplicably will not do the obvious, such as build on the tech stack into which he was hired.

Do you need this engineer?
Maybe you could aim this smart engineer at a custom one-off or a stand alone widget that doesn’t need to be evolved or maintained. No.

Best Bet:
Be prepared to make your perfectly reasonable case for building the feature in the existing language in a public forum. Make said case without emotion, and in front of his peers & manager because, trust me, they don’t want to support his alien creation any more than you want to.

Submit captions for this cartoon of “Offshore” in this post’s comments. And don’t forget to submit captions for the other Software Engineer Types as well…

Offshore

Where are these guys, anyway, and what time is it there? Who knows; you always have to count the time difference on your fingers.

But anyway, they seem very nice, and they do try to read the documentation. They just don’t always understand it and it’s not their fault that they were home sleeping when those critical changes were decided last week.

Distinguishing Characteristics:

• Located in Malaysia, China, or a former Eastern Bloc country. (Ukraine is the new India).
• Their proper English is downright charming.
• Sometimes they say they understand when you know they don’t.
• They make a lot more work for you, including having to attend 9PM meetings. On the upside, it is nice to have a glass of wine in your PJs while discussing the desired behavior of wildly far-flung corner cases for no other benefit than that of QA.
• Will often do the needful.
• Sometimes their code isn’t great. But, as I have mentioned, they are generally quite polite.
• ARE ULTIMATELY NOT CHEAPER. But we’ll let CPM cover that topic separately.

Project Pitfalls:
Too many to count on your hands.

Achilles heel:
Communications.

Best Bet:

• Document the hell out of your requirements and functional specs.
• Provide completed mock sets,including exception scenarios.
• Keep up with change requests.
• Meet with them often, and for God’s sake speak slowly (but not louder, because duh) and speak clearly
• Stop the meeting conversation often to see if they have any questions.
• Also, I know you don’t want to hear this, but for best results, you really should just go there for a week or so.

Submit captions for this cartoon of “The Teflong-gineer” in this post’s comments.  And don’t forget to submit captions for the other Software Engineer Types as well…

The Teflon-gineer

The Teflon-gineer will do anything to reduce his work. If you’ve asked for a sports car, this engineer will try his/her damnedest to meet your requirements with a Model T Ford. Deflects all bug assignments with his/her Teflon Work Deflector (in size ‘J’ for Jerk).

Distinguishing Characteristics:

• Says things like, “Are you sure the users really want that?” and “Is XYZ functionality really that important? How many users did you talk to? Can I see your notes?“
• Reassigns his bugs back to you with updates like, “Please provide more clarity“, even when you’ve already referenced the spec page and section which spells out the original requirements with blinding clarity. When you reassign the bug back to him, you get his Out Of Office response.
• Attempts to lock you into a legal contract specifying everything down to the last minimalist kilobyte of code that will be written.
• During spec reviews or Scrum, says things like “Oh, you want the page to validate the user’s password entry? Well that will cost you an extra 2 days of work…plus another day if you want that alpha tested.“
• Attempts to break your will to live with never-ending requests for excruciatingly documented detail to the point where it would be faster to code it yourself (inclusive of the time it would take you to learn Python).
• When he delivers, his code is solidly mediocre. He never surprises, never innovates, and never has ideas.
• Even his peers think he’s kind of a jerk.
• Likes to watch When Animals Attack.

Project Pitfalls:
Serving your sentence for justifiable homicide will impede the project schedule.

Do you need this engineer?
Did you need your sibling to hold his finger one inch from your nose and say “I’m not touching you. I’m not touching you. I’m not touching you…^“4

Achilles Heel:
His manager thinks he’s a jerk, too.

Best Bet:
Get this engineer off your project. Confront him/her, document as much of this crap as you can, then confront his manager. No good can come of this.

Submit captions for this cartoon of “The Great One” in this post’s comments. And don’t forget to submit captions for the other Software Engineer Types as well…

The Great One

Where did this engineer come from, and can you have five more of him?

Distinguishing Characteristics:

• Always delivers on schedule, even when unforeseen code bottlenecks require more time that initially estimated.
• If unforeseen bottlenecks arise, you don’t hear about it from this engineer. Instead, you hear about how this engineer worked all weekend from one of his peers.
• Respected by engineering peers. Professional in meetings.
• Honest with estimates.
• May have a Star Trek accent or a superhero fetish. Loves watching “How It’s Made”.
• Solid code, sometimes delivers more than what was requested.
• After the feature is launched, asks whether it met the users’ needs.
• Keeps up with his bug queue.

Do you need this engineer?
Um, duh.

Project Pitfalls:
Try not to hug this engineer in public. He gets embarrassed and human contact is sometimes confusing.

Achilles Heel:
This engineer is so dependable that his manager tends to put him on every project. He sometimes has trouble saying “no”, so can become overstretched. Also he tends to be optimistic in his estimates.

Best Bet:

• Give lots of public credit to this engineer, even if he doesn’t care about that — because his peers might.
• Send nice notes to his management.
• Don’t ask him to attend time-waster meetings, but if he must, publicly change the agenda to accommodate his part first so he can leave quickly.
• Add time to his initial estimates to buy him some wiggle room.
• Play Halo with him
• Bring him food.
• Ask how you can help him, and ask often.
• Encourage this engineer to breed.

Submit captions for this cartoon of “The Hotshot” in this post’s comments. And don’t forget to submit captions for the other Software Engineer Types as well…

The Hotshot

Smart and knows it, often quite young. Has great ideas and hacks crap together at midnight, then… is done.

Distinguishing Characteristics:

• Unfortunately has little appreciation for what it takes to actually ship software and thus never really finishes his features and his stuff is often fragile or just broken.
• Can’t be bothered with making sure his stuff is internationalized, thread-safe or designed to scale.
• Can’t be troubled to fix what he built because he’s on to the next thing.
• Detests “process” and all the process hangers-ons like QA, PM, Training, and Project/Program Managers.
• Doesn’t read the documentation OR reads the documentation and codes something “better.”
• Says things that annoy his fellow engineers and managers like, “If it takes Ed more than 2 days to do this feature, then he is seriously stupid.” But of course, Young Hot Shot never actually finished a real feature in just 2 days either. That is, if “finished” means working in more than just an obscure corner case scenario.
• Rarely seen without headphones or earbuds. Plays World of Warcraft and Halo.
• Drinks Red Bull and stacks empty cans up in his cube as some sort of offering to the God of Unmaintainable Software.
• All shirts purchased from threadless.com. Appears to either skate or snowboard. Green IM status 24/7.
• Natural habitat is start up environments.

Do you need this engineer?
Depends on whether you’re building something that a person will eventually need to use.

Project Pitfalls:
None, really, because you are not even on his radar.

Achilles Heel:
Cannot build evolvable, sustainable software.

Best Bet:
Convince him he’s a genius who really belongs in your company’s “Innovation” or R&D group.