Do I need to attend these meetings?
Agile heavy team, team is 75% data scientists / product analysts.
As an engineer, I find myself often pulled into meetings that are categorized as a “team” meeting but end up being mostly discussions about business logic and how to do things (rather than the engineering implementation of the solution). Is it reasonable to expect engineers to attend all meetings and contribute to business logic discussions? It’s almost like the solution has not been decided yet, and I’m watching a PowerPoint with graphs and spreadsheets and 2 or 3 people going back and forth about a specific topic that I don’t have any opinion on because it’s very business oriented.
The other engineer isn’t even attending these meetings because time zone does not overlap.
I feel like this is so not worth my time. Especially if I’m not involved with the specific product they are discussing. (the team supports several products)
![Senior Software Engineer [E5] at Meta company logo](/_next/image/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ffirebasestorage.googleapis.com%2Fv0%2Fb%2Ftech-career-growth.appspot.com%2Fo%2Fcompany_logos%252Fmeta.jpeg%3Falt%3Dmedia%26token%3Da7a5bcc0-e178-4b5b-b71e-09bf6c6aefae&w=48&q=75){kind=small}
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Discussion
(2 comments)- 0
2 months agoTech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course HeroUnless your manager is weird about people not attending meetings, I would just not go. If you are marked as required though, I would at least attach a note when you turn down the meeting series (you can just say that you're super busy and will catch up via the meeting notes).
I recommend going through this lesson in the productivity course too: https://www.jointaro.com/course/maximize-your-productivity-as-a-software-engineer/not-every-meeting-needs-you/
- 02 months agoTech Lead/Manager at Meta, Pinterest, Kosei
Interesting that your team is mostly non-engineers!
- If you don't feel like you have anything to contribute (and you're not gaining anything), you absolutely should skip.
- On the flip side, since you're the only eng in the room, you have an opportunity to share unique insights. This is actually an expectation as you become more senior, so you could view this as a way to flex that muscle.
