Soft Skills Engineering

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Listener Billy Bob Taco asks,

   I work at a small-medium startup, as a member of a very small team (read: just me). I work on infrastructure and APIs that support every other team, such as mobile and web clients, as well as other services. I’m relatively junior, and had to work hard to prove myself in this role. I do 100% of the system design and maintenance as well as feature development. I’ve been told on job interviews that I came across as a “little egotistical” when describing the role and the impact its had, but I don’t really know how to soften it! It’s my experience that I’m talking about when trying to share my ability and potential to fill a role. Help?

2. Listener TimeDisplacementBox says,

   Great show, your future episodes just keep getting better and better. I have a question about avoiding lay offs. In this timeline I recently joined a large company out of college. I worked hard and surpassed goals set by my manager, getting very positive feedback at review time.

   However, a few weeks ago I started hearing that the company was over budget in engineering, huge changes started happening in upper management, and less work started flowing to our team. The concern was grounded in reality as one morning the company disbanded the team and laid off some of the newer hires including me.

   Aside from additional time travel, are there any questions I can ask during interviews to help ensure I am getting into a team that is safe from lay offs? And on the job, can you directly ask your manager if lay offs are in the future, or do you just need to watch out for the signs?

Show Notes

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2347:_Dependency

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Thank you hosting this show. This show has given me a lot of insight on nuisances of engineering that isn’t mentioned anywhere. Having some experience in industry for a while, I always find in this position where I want some autonomy but I am bounded by the deadline. What do you think should be the way to start a career that gives autonomy while having that sweet benefits from the industry?

2. I used to be a senior manager of an operations team for a fire fighting service in Australia. I managed all of our physical operational assets - for example radio towers, mobile communications e.g. 5g, 4g technologies, mobile data terminals e.g. laptops in fire fighting appliances “fire trucks ;) “, data centers, networking so on…

   A restructuring means my team has grown to include in-house software development. While i am excited for this opportunity and on board with the changes, it is a very big shift from the physical and electrical engineering side to software development.

   The C level staff thinks the team lacks focus and there are “problems” to address.

   I have been meeting the new team and working through the changes. They are very nervous and are skeptical about how I’ll understand their world, which is fair.

   How can I best support this team? What are cultural things I should be aware of? What are key metrics I can measure that will fairly represent their hard work to the executive team? Any thoughts on what things a manager or managers can do to be supportive as the new drop in from across the room from a entirely different engineering discipline? Coding in my world is scripting and hacking about to make things work (telecommunication engineer)

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. A listener named Maria says,

   Hey guys! I am a software engineer working in web development at a small/mid-sized SaaS company. I come from a non-traditional background (self-taught, no CS degree) and I currently have 6 years of experience under my belt, the last 2 years of which I have been tech lead of a small team.

   I want to move into big(ger) tech, but I’ve not worked on any large scale systems so far. The biggest thing I’ve worked far had a user base of ~100k users and traffic would typically max out at ~2k concurrent users at peak times. Due to the nature of the work I’ve been doing at smaller companies (and also thanks to this podcast!) my soft skills are strong - I am good at working with lots of different people, I can deliver broad/vague projects, and I’m comfortable tackling ambiguous problems. I think my technical skills are probably decent, I’ve spent time learning system design and best practices, and I’ve put in the work to study CS fundamentals. Thing is, I would have absolutely no clue how to maintain an API that needs to handle 100k requests per second. My hands-on experience of concurrency and threading is basically just simple ol’ async/await.

   Grinding Leetcode aside, what can I do to make myself a stronger candidate for breaking into big tech? How can I be competitive against folks who already have big tech experience? Are there any projects I could do that would sway you as a hiring manager? I know it’s terrible market timing, I am just planning ahead.

   Love the show, thank you for making me a better engineer! :)

2. Hi! I have been working at my fully remote company with around 100 people in the engineering department for over a year now. While I see a lot of really smart people here, the code quality is lacking. We’re moving from a monolith powered using an opinionated framework to small services powered by a lightweight library, so there are fewer guardrails.

   I have many ideas on how to structure the code, add layering, etc., so the code is easier to understand and maintain. However, the company is very hierarchical, and despite being at a senior level, I don’t talk much to anyone higher than my lead. There are no staff or principal roles. There are also hardly any meetings, and the only ones I attend are within my small team of five people. Most of slack channels for teams are private, and I don’t ever see company-wide ideas like that thrown in the “general” channel.

   I initially wanted to present this to my team first, but I am afraid that if they don’t like it for some reason, it will be awkward to take it to higher management afterward. How can I share my ideas with a wider audience and ideally get this approved as part of my work so I don’t have to work on it in my free time?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I’ve been wondering what kind of career conversations happen between managers and the “max-level” engineers on the team. We’ve all been on a team with those really good staff/principal engineers who are super nice, have great people skills, and seem to have an answer for every technical problem. When I’m asked to peer review some of these people, I basically have nothing to say because they seem perfect. Yet even as individual contributors, they have the same manager and still have the same 1 on 1s with them. What exactly do they talk about? How are their career conversations held? I’m always curious what exactly the landscape looks like for these engineers and what exactly is “next” for them since they seem to have reached the level cap.

2. Hello peeps, I’m an engineering leader in a midsized company. I oversee a couple of teams and things in general have been going well. However:

   One of the teams tackles an extremely complex problem space and is usually up to the task, delivering things that almost seem like magic if you take a closer look. Now, due to the nature of this team’s work the value is not perceived as such by upper management, being questioned (almost pestered) if this is the right thing to do and even doubting if the resources should be allocated to it at all. The way that I see it is, that since this team has been quietly delivering greatness (delivering quality, meeting deadlines, not breaking things), there are not perceived as hero’s (like other teams would when then put out their, sometimes, auto inflicted fires).

   What can the team do to rise awareness about the criticality and impact of their work? This is important so that the team can have resources and doesn’t get pulled away from their current work. Also, is this a good time to quit my job while we are waiting for the AI bubble to burst?

   (Disclaimer, I’ve found an approach and am currently enacting it, but wanted to hear your thoughts on the matter)

   Optional: Shoutouts to S, a long time listener and early Patreon of the show.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Little Z says,

   Hello! I am a relatively new graduate (‘23 bachelor’s in information systems) who is currently working at a large tech company in a technical role adjacent to SWE.

   This is a great opportunity, but as time has progressed, I’ve felt growing dissatisfaction with the role. I don’t enjoy many of the projects I am put on. I feel that I am not fully making use of my technical skills/potential and that the work I do often doesn’t align my career aspirations (transitioning/diving into software engineering). This de-motivates and frustrates me, and I often feel I’m wasting my time.

   However, upon reflection, I feel that my sentiments are rooted in youthful ignorance and I am too impatient and idealistic in my expectations. What realistic expectations should I set for myself for my day-to-day work and long-term career trajectory? Should I expect to “bite the bullet” and work on things that don’t directly interest/benefit me, especially as I am still young and relatively unproven in my career? How, if at all, do economic market forces come into the picture here?

2. Greetings!

   Long time fan, first time caller.

   This isn’t a question per se, but rather an observation that I’d love to hear your take on.

   Throughout my career, I’ve never had a boss that had less than 30 direct report. Yes, thirty. Three. Oh.

   I think this is primarly a cultural thing (I live in northern Europe), but also the fact that I’ve mostly worked in large organisations where tech was a means to an end.

   With that in mind, I find it your podcast fascinating because a lot of your answers and suggestions would be met either horror, disbelief or amusement - often a mix, I suspect.

   Weekly one-on-ones? A carreer plan? Going to skip-level managers? When your only interaction with you boss is a yearly apraisal that usually starts with the phrase “So, uuuuuh, who are you and what have you done the last year?”, your nuggets of wisdom feel less like nuggets and more like peals, as in “pearls before swine”!

   Any suggestions on how to thrive in an evironment such as this?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Listener Anakin asks,

   I have two former co-workers that work at great companies where I would love to work. I reached out to one looking for advice and while talking to him, he said I should join him and he offered to give me a referral. At the same time, unprompted, another old coworker reached out to me asking if I am interested in joining them. It’s like being asked to choose between training with Yoda or flying with Han Solo on the Millennium Falcon (Sorry, James)!

   But I have a big worry: what if by some miracle I get offers from both places? I don’t feel I can turn down an offer after my old coworkers vouched for me. I don’t want my friends to feel like I led them on. At the same time, I don’t think I’m close enough to either to say I want to interview, but I’m also applying somewhere else.

   So I’m thinking of applying to one, and if that doesn’t go well, applying to the other. Is there a better way to go about this? How would you approach this dilemma?

2. Listener D says,

   I asked a question in an episode around number 110. I asked if I should switch my job, as I had just moved to another country and, after half a year, the new CTO wanted to change the tech stack. You suggested staying for a while to see what happens, so I did. It worked out well.

   On to the question! How can I be treated as a senior software engineer in my next job? When I moved the first time, I was downgraded to a mid-level developer, even though I had about seven years of experience. I did my job well, exceeded expectations, and got a promotion after four years. After working there for 4.5 years (half a year as a senior), I moved again to another EU country and was hired as a mid-level developer again! Now, after one year, I got promoted to Senior Dev, but I am afraid that the next employer could treat me as a mid-level dev. I understand that grades are different in different companies, but mid-level developers have lower salaries. How can I assure my next employer that I am a senior or even higher-level developer?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I work as a Senior Software Engineer for a subsidiary owned by a mega corp. I am approaching 6 years at the company. In the last few years the company has had significant layoffs and I have been moved to a team by force with a new leadership chain and engineers I haven’t really worked with.

   Even though I was disgruntled when this happened, I gave this new team a chance. I have been successful in driving change within my engineering boundaries but I just don’t agree with many decisions made my leadership. I have concluded this team and company are no longer for me and I want to move on.

   Repeated layoffs, high bar for promotions, high stress( due to less people), no raises/bonuses have lead to fairly low morale across the org. Unfortunately, or fortunately the public stock price has gone up and many people are just resting and vesting. Even though I really want to leave it would be financially irresponsible. Are situations like this common in a software engineers careers? I am having trouble “resting”. Any advice on how to deal with the urge to perform yet you know it’s a bad decision?

2. My lunch break is sacred, how can I set boundaries as a new lead engineer joining a new company? I’ve discovered the agile process they use is far too exhaustive when compared with the size of the company. They have 3 hour meetings covering the whole lunch window (11:30-14:30) for backlog and sprint review on two consecutive days?! To me this is totally mad, however people seem to have just accepted it. How do I tell them I am not accepting this without rejecting their culture?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Hey guys, love the show! (Insert joke here so you’ll read my question) Should I tell my boss I’m discouraged and have checked out? I’m the frontend lead for a project where I’ve recently gotten the vibe that the project isn’t really that important to the organization. The project is already over schedule and they have recently moved a few engineers off to other teams. Should I talk to my manager and try to work with him to get over these feelings, or should I just begin the job search? I’m 2 years into my first job, so it feels like it might be time to move on anyways. What do you all think? Thank

2. Hi! I’m part of a team of 5 devs with an inexperienced Product Manager who is in way over his head. He was a support agent who, during the acquisition of our startup, somehow convinced the parent corporation to make him PM despite the fact that he had no experience within Product whatsoever.

   The corporation didn’t give him training, he has no experience in Product, and it shows. Our features are single sentences copied from client emails, and our top priority is whatever the conversation is about.

   He is argumentative when we try to talk about it, despite the fact that all of us are careful to avoid blaming him. We’ve tried talking to him one on one, in small groups, as the whole team. No luck.

   The Engineering Manager is at his wits end on how to handle this situation because:

   1. EM has no jurisdiction over PM
   2. The org’s “matrix” structure means EM’s manager has no working relationship with PM’s manager
   3. After many chats we’ve had with PM’s manager, his solution was for dev to pick up the slack instead - at one point our whole dev team was made to sit in *daily* 2hr long “refinement” sessions, spec-ing out empty features and writing user stories to try to sort out our backlog and roadmap - for 6 weeks straight

   PM’s skip level manager won’t give us his time. How do we deal with this situation when our lowest-common-manager is the CEO of this ~2000 person company, and PM himself is completely closed off to any constructive conversation from anyone who isn’t above him in the org chart?

   Love the show! Thanks for reading :)

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. “I’ve been assigned a ticket to “add more friction to the downgrade process” in order to decrease the amount of downgrades our app has.

   The proposed change has 4 modals pop up before the user can cancel their paid plan.

   I would like to push back on this change.

   Any tips on how to bring up the fact that this is potentially unethical / a dark pattern?”

2. I work for a mega corp software company as a senior engineer. My boss and I have been working on a promo for me to principal for the last year (I was passed on for the last cycle and so we are trying again in a cycle next year - aka still 8 months away). I previously was in the top 5 PR contributors in our org of 450 engineers, but we were reorged and I haven’t written a single line of code in 3 months. I enjoy doing architecture work and helping unblock teams with technical design solutions, but I’m not sure if not writing code is helping or hurting me. Is it just part of career growth that engineers at a certain level stop writing code and it’s a good sign for my seniority? Or is a big fat zero code contributions a red flag and I need to look for a role where I’m still shipping things myself?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Hi guys! I’m a technical Data Analyst in a well established Fortune 500 company, in my job I usually work with databases to build queries and prepare reports for our users. In the past 2 years my team and I had a tremendous impact in the business with several successful key projects, and we received very positive feedback from the management during our yearly review. We are talking about an impressive performance that it’s very unlikely to be repeated again in the future, a mix of luck, great decisions and technical efforts as a team.

   I was expecting a substantial raise but my manager, who have been promoted recently and it’s the first time she’s doing this, told me that the salary caps are defined by our Headquarter’s HQ by looking at the average salaries for our roles. My salary is already high based on these statistics. There is only room for a 0.5% increase, which I approved, because it’s better than nothing, but left me with a bittersweet aftertaste. My manager felt sorry and promised that for the next year she’ll fight for more.

   I love my work and I consider myself already lucky to have this sort of issues. However, this method doesn’t reward outstanding performances and encourages to just “earn that paycheck”, knowing that whatever I’ll do, I’ll earn more or less the same unless I get a huge promotion to manager (which I’m not ready to do). I see this in our company culture.

   How can I bring this topic to the upper management and support my manager to change the system?

2. I am a manager of a small team of four people. I am about to absorb another team of three. While we all work on the same “application,” we own very different “micro-apps” within that site. Our tech stacks are similar (node, react). The two teams have different product owners under a different reporting structure.

   I would love to merge the two teams. I think a seven person team would be more effective and resilient than two 3-4 person teams. Already with my four person team, we feel it when someone needs a couple days off.

   How could I plan for and execute a plan to merge these two teams? What considerations for the engineers and our product partners should I have?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Cool-headed engineer asks,

   How do you deal with hot-headed project managers? I have a project manager in my team who really likes to criticize me, a project lead. Most recently, I was criticized for asking a dumb question to the users which they already answered a few months ago. They told me that I should check with them for all the questions going forward. (think: “Why did you ask that question?! Don’t you know that they already answered that?! Look at this message here: . Their intent is clear. Please check with me for all questions going forward.")

   It’s not the first time they scolded me either. They tried to pressure me to push the timeline even though I explained why it wouldn’t be possible. They made a false equivalence by comparing it to a similar sounding project that’s completed very fast but, unbeknownst to them, is very different to mine. (think: “Why was that project completed in three month but you need six?! Those engineers are working on the same code too. Please accept that you are not a strong engineer.”)

   I am demoralized after each time they scolded me. It’s my fault to an extent, but I think the criticism is too extreme compared to the mistake. I feel like they just want to let off some heat after their strong discussions and furious meetings with other people. I’m also a frail person and break easily; I want to learn how to handle hot-headed people and extreme criticism better so I can better speak for my team and not acquiesce to all their demands.

2. Hello! I’m really fortunate in my current company. I have a great team, great workload that’s challenging but doesn’t destroy my work-life balance, and plenty of pay, benefits, and recognition. I feel this comes from having a really small group of proactive devs, and software is the primary source of revenue at this company so engineers are highly valued and appreciated. It really is the perfect place to be in.

   But I’m also really early in my career and I don’t expect or want to stay here forever. I’m coming up on my fifth year, and I’d prefer not to stay for more than 6-7 years because I want to continue diversifying my career. I know I’m leaving for the sake of leaving, but the reasons are sound in my head. All the past companies I’ve worked for have been decent but have been soured by being around 9-5 “That’s not my job” cruising devs, or upper management who say “Customer wants it tomorrow so just write the codes”. I don’t want to risk going back to that. What are some ways I can scope out a company during the interview process to figure out what their real culture is like?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. This is my first time conducting technical interviews (most of which have been virtual), and I had one interview where I had a strong feeling that the candidate was cheating. They breezed through the short problems I gave them, and they were able to explain their reasoning. But during the live coding problem, they sat in silence for five minutes, and when I asked them what they were thinking, they didn’t respond. Then they started cranking out perfect code without explaining anything.

   How do you address cheating in interviews? What if it turns out to be just nerves? I don’t want to assume anything, but I also wouldn’t feel comfortable confronting them about it either.

2. I work as a team lead for a small group of 4 other devs. Our Product Owner is currently handling the requirements for new features to onboard a new large client. This involves them attending client meetings and generally isolating the development team from client shenanigans which is normally great, but it’s becoming INCREASINGLY obvious that someone on the client team has his number and he’s getting HORRIBLY out-negotiated. This has resulted in a bunch of missing requirements, changing requirements, last minute feature adds, and general confusion. I’m trying to push back, but the leadership team is coming back with “Well we promised…” and my entire team is stressing out. Note that this is AFTER we were already pressured to overcommit on capacity to get these “absolutely necessary” features developed for the client to go live.

   I like my PO, he’s a good guy and normally does good work, what can I do to help him stop from getting his butt kicked in these meetings?

   (Note: the POs are neither above nor below us in the org tree, our closest shared higher-up is the VP and I obviously don’t want to escalate it that far)

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Dear Skillet HQ,

   How would you negotiate a difference in work-life balance between teams?

   I love my job and my immediate team. We’re a tech group within a larger non-tech business, and it’s a fun problem domain.

   Our immediate team has some hard-won work-life balance, in part because it would be hard to hire anyone for the role if that balance wasn’t part of the equation. However, I worry about how to communicate differences when anyone we work with - all the people we’re building software for! - have an unbalanced schedule, because, 👋that’s show-biz 👋

   I even understand why other people have their role set up that way and respect it, but I don’t want to give up my balance either.

   How can I best handle the relationship when that difference is there?

   Love the podcast and the skillet-slack! Thanks for the advice, empathy and good humor.

   Tex Archana

2. Listener Frustrated asks,

   My work keeps getting stolen in the name of code quality!

   I’m a new backend developer for a team at a large company. I’ve been with this team for almost 3 months now, and the company for over a year. We’re developing an application to replace a legacy system, and the current feature has fairly well described user requirements. The front end developers keep finding new implementation issues that require more backend development, so new tasks get added during the sprint. The longest tenure developer (LTD) on the team keeps finding better ways to implement these backend changes, but these ‘better’ ways sometimes don’t meet the newly discovered frontend needs, leading to longer development times. Additionally, the longest tenure developer often takes over the implementation work from me, which is frustrating! The longest tenure developer also sometimes becomes too busy to deliver everything in a timely manner!!

   Additionally, the state of software development maturity is very low, so I’m trying to advocate for more technical process improvements like CICD and using version control more than once per sprint! I am frustrated and finding it hard to keep up motivation when everything is such a mess, and the other devs defer to the longest tenure dev who pushes back on many of these things.

   My code quality is fine, but I haven’t yet learned enough about our application to be able to identify these larger, cleaner approaches. Every code review so far has had no issues with my code quality, but inspires the longest tenure dev to implement a simpler solution, and they often will take my tickets and repurpose them for the new work! I’m worried that if anyone looks at productivity metrics they’ll not look good for me, and it’s hard to say what I’ve accomplished so far.

   Is my frustration valid? Should I quit my job?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Hi :-)

   I work as a Senior Data Scientist, and about half a year ago I joined a start up that was founded by a large corporation. And while this job comes with the perks of a bigger company - like good salary, paid overtime, … , - it also comes with its organizational overhead and politics:

   We are only about 30 people but already a quarter of us acts as managers. I write “act” because the official org chart is flat (with the CEO at the top and the rest of us directly underneath). The unofficial org chart is hidden and depending on who you speak with, you get their view point on how roles and responsibilities should look like. As a result, I’m left with putting together the pieces to build a picture that somewhat resembles the truth. So far, I’ve concluded that we have multiple (!) management layers, that there’s a power war taking place in the middle management layer, and that you can make up your own titles that mean NOTHING, because no one has any official, disciplinary authority over any one, but that are still to be respected! What a great opportunity for job crafting :-D

   To make things worse, I prefer and come from organizations that have a truly flat hierarchy. For example, I’m used to step outside of my role should the situation require it (like doing some managerial tasks, supporting sales, …) and that I can speak my mind, irrespective of what the title of the person is who I’m talking to. While this was beneficial in my previous positions, this does not work well here! And while I understand that adapting my behavior would be more in line with the company culture, I find this extremely difficult. On the one hand, because of the hidden org chart, on the other because we are all fully remote and I rarely see people from other teams.

   To avoid accidentally stepping on anyone’s toes, my current solution is to stick my head in the sand and focus on my coding. However, this leaves me disgruntled because I feel like I’m not being myself, and that I’m withholding a viable part of my skill set: to see the bigger picture and serve the company as a whole instead of just implementing tickets.

   Please help, I do not understand how this company works :’-D How would you navigate the situation? I don’t want to quit because, individually, my coworkers are super nice, and the work is really interesting.

   All the best <3

2. Hi,

   I’ve been working at a well-known multinational company for a few years now. The entire time I’ve been here, the company has been well behind what I believe to be industry standards, but they have some great perks, which means it’s been really easy for me to create “wow” ideas (just do the same thing that everybody else has been doing for a few years).

   At the risk of sounding full of myself, I’ve noticed that I’ve created a critical person risk. There’s not only no push for me to train others in my work; things I thought were standard knowledge is entirely new to this team! I don’t want to become the trainer for a team that has no desire to learn new skills, and I don’t want to dumb down my work either. Is there a happy medium where I can build exciting new things and not create an absolute craphow when I leave? Should I even care about it since no one else does?

Show Notes

• The Tyranny Of Structurelessness - https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Hi Soft Skills!

   I’m writing to you as I look forlornly at my paycheck, unchanged for the last year and a half, and wonder if I’ll ever see market rate again. While I prepare my leetcoding skills for the trek that is your classic Soft Skills Adventure (quitting), I think about future interviews and wonder: how common is it to have something like a COLA clause in your employment agreement? Something like “Oliver will receive a raise of no less than the current CPI% per year”. Are there other ways to mitigate this, other than joining a company with more people and less greed? I don’t think I should have to beg for COLA-s with good reviews in hand. In fact I think those reviews call for raises!

   Thanks for bringing more joy to my life :),

   Mr Twist

   P.S. I am grateful I’m not paid in porridge and any reference to Oliver Twist isn’t to suggest Tech Salaries aren’t livable wages.

2. Mr. Peanut Butter asks,

   I’m a senior IC at a small startup and I’m struggling to get along with an engineering manager. M has a say in my promotion and has already said no once, which was pretty painful considering the time and energy I’d spent helping their team succeed. I think there are two headwinds to M changing their mind 1) I’m FE-focused, and M’s conception of FE work is dated and simplistic. 2) M can be a bit of a blowhard. Said generously: M is a top-down thinker, quick to make conclusions, process-focused, and loves discussing architecture and design patterns. In contrast, I’m a bottoms-up thinker, pragmatic, plain-spoken, slow to make conclusions. M and I meet regularly to discuss cross-team matters, and it is my least favorite meeting of the week, even weeks that include dentist appointments. M sometimes devolves into lecturing me about software fundamentals (which I know at least a well as they do). I know from experience that there’s an M at nearly every company, so I’m reluctant to order up an SSE Special. How do I leverage this dreaded weekly meeting to turn M from a detractor to a promoter?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Listener Shayne asks,

   ‌

   I’m about to start a new gig after 8+ years at a company. I was an early employee at the current company and have accumulated a lot of responsibility, influence, and a fancy title.

   I’ll be an IC at my new company (also very early stage) but the most senior engineer second only to the CTO.

   What are some tips for this transition? How can I onboard well? How do I live up to my “seniorness” in the midst of learning a new code base, tech stack, and product sector?

   I managed to stay close to the code despite adding managerial responsibilities in my current role, so I’m not worried about the IC work. I really want to make sure that I gel with my new teammates, that I’m able to add valuable contributions ASAP, and that folks learn that they can rely on my judgement when making tradeoffs in the code or the product. Halp!

2. I got into software development to become a game developer. Once I became a software developer, I found out I really enjoyed the work. My wife and I joined a game jam (lasting 10 days) over the weekend. I very quickly have realized how passionate and excited I get about game development again! But this has led to a problem - I would much rather be doing that. I find myself moving buttons around or making another CRUD end point a means to an end now, thinking about how I much rather be creating exciting experiences. How can I handle this? Quitting my job to pursue a pipe dream just isn’t feasible.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I am an electrical engineer working on and off with software for about 15 years. From mainframe applications with Cobol and PL/1 to plant floor supervisory systems with SCADA and some.Net along the way. 6 years ago my husband got an offer to move to Europe and I came along. Had to reinvent myself amidst the chaos of juggling life with a toddler, learning a new language and a new social tissue. After some time I landed a pretty nice job as a DevOps engineer at a pretty cool company. However, I have never really worked with scrum or agile methodologies before and, oh boy…I found out I HATE retrospectives. Like really hate them. They bring me down every time and I anticipate them with dreadful anxiety. I feel they’re just a way to blame other people for what’s not going so well and I don’t see ownership or any improvements actually being made. Action items are frequently just finger pointing and generally about people that are not even present in the retros. In order to improve engagement my boss said every team member is now responsible for the moderation of this dreadful thing and, surprise, surprise : I am next. How can I moderate something I just don’t believe in? I believe in improvement and learning from mistakes and I genuinely believe that we shouldn’t focus on people but processes. I also have to say my colleagues don’t feel the same way as they seem to love retros (yikes!). I think I’m too old/too skeptical for this. Please help!!! Ps.: I love your show and the episode on “that guy” changed my life. I’m forever grateful for the question asker and your answer.

2. The Letter J:

   Can you please talk about the PIE theory (performance, image, exposure) and its importance, especially in highly political orgs? I lost my leadership role at a large GSI due to what I believe was a poor image. I felt I could not achieve targets without some level of collaboration (which became conflict once others didnt want to actually collaborate) We hit out targets, but unfortunately, by the time I realized I was labeled “hard to work with”, it was too late. Also, I hereby declare that Jamison is the Norm MacDonald of podcast, which is my highest compliment. Dave is some other comedian, also good. Seriously thank you both for all the humor and advice over the years, it’s been helpful and validating.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I am a data scientist and have been at my company for 2 years. Each of the data scientists on my team specialize in a different area of the business (growth, marketing, etc). I have developed a reputation for being the expert in my area and have worked really hard to understand my domain.

   I have a new data science team member who works in an adjacent area and has expressed interest in learning more about “my” area. But every time I talk to him I find myself getting defensive and possessive (on the inside). I don’t want to share my area, and I like being known as the expert, and I don’t want him working on stuff in my domain. Any advice on how to be less territorial here?

2. Should I quiet quit?

   I’m a year in to a new job, and am doing well. I work for a large consulting company, and have been doing a decent amount of unpaid overtime by volunteering for internal projects that we can’t bill to our clients! The extra 5-10 hours a week have been adding up, and I feel overwhelmed. I don’t think the extra work is as appreciated as it should be. I’ve received lots of positive feedback, and my performance reviews have been fine.

   Am I getting taken advantage of?

   Will people notice if I step back and just do the bare minimum expected for my job?

   I like being useful, and do genuinely enjoy some of the projects I’ve volunteered for. They’ve probably also been good for my internal visibility, as I’ve gotten to have my name on some large internal announcements and have had some good face time with very senior people. If I end up sticking around here, it’ll probably be good, and I wouldn’t mind a promotion.

   But I’m exhausted, and it’s starting to get in the way of my personal life, hobbies, and even client work sometimes. I’m also wondering if that time would be better spent on upskilling or open source or something outside the company. How far can I cut back without repercussions?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Listener Brad asks,

   I am currently a Senior Engineer with a small software company. I have been developing software for more than 20 years. We were recently acquired by another mid sized company. Since the acquisition, things have been going downhill. It feels like they’re trying to nickel and dime their employees to death.

   They moved from a bi-monthly to bi- weekly pay, from accrued PTO to Flex PTO, they sat on merit raises for over 2 months , and have paused all promotions unless you are getting a promotion to management. We have a number of engineers who are deserving, but broaching the subject with HR results in excuses, pushback or silence.

   I have about a year and a half to be in a position to retire but I love what I do and plan to continue for many more years in the right environment. I’m really on the fence as to whether I quit for a new role or hope that they somehow become more efficient. I’ve been doing this long enough to know they will probably not change. So would you quit?

2. Hello Dave and Jamison,

   My name is Angelo, and I’m writing to you from Italy. I’ve been enjoying your podcast for quite some time.

   I’m reaching out because I’ve been working for four years at a small company with 11 people in the cultural heritage sector. Although the company produces software, there are only 2 programmers (myself included), while the rest are roles like graphic designers, art historians, and archaeologists.

   It’s a rather unique company in its field, and for that reason, I’m happy to work there, also because I have many responsibilities related to the company’s performance, probably more than I would have in a multinational corporation.

   However, there’s a catch. The fact that there are only two programmers, and in this case, I am the more experienced one, often makes me feel that I don’t have the opportunity to interact with more experienced individuals, and this might hinder my growth as a professional as opposed to being in a team with more programmers.

   My question is: what can I do to compensate for the lack of work interactions with other developers and to keep myself updated?

   I’ve always read that the best growth happens in a company where you’re surrounded by more experienced people, but in this particular case, I find myself in the opposite situation.

   I participate in Telegram groups and often read software development books to stay updated, but it’s also true that the hours outside of work are meant for rest and leisure, so they only go so far. How can I keep pace with those working in larger teams on bigger projects? I don’t intend to change companies at the moment.

   Warm regards from Italy, Sinhuè

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. One and a half year ago, I joined my current team as a tech lead, in an organisation that uses ‘Scaled Agile’. This was my first time joining an organisation that employed dedicated Scrum masters. In previous organisations, the role of Scrum master would usually fall upon a team member that felt comfortable doing so, and the last couple of years that ended up being me. I feel this worked out well and I managed to create teams that were communicating well and constantly iterating and improving.

   Upon joining the team, I noticed that despite having a dedicated Scrum master, the team was not doing sprint reviews or retrospectives, and it felt like every team member was on an island of their own. In the months that followed I tried to reinstate these and improve teamwork and communication, but often felt blocked by the Scrum master’s inertia.

   Eventually, they were let go and a new Scrum master was hired. This new collaboration did also not work out. They didn’t have enough of a technical background to engage with impediments, were trying to micromanage team members during Standups, and would continually try to skip or shorten retrospectives. If retrospectives were to occur at my insistence, they would try to determine actions without the team’s input, only to not do them and never look back at the outcome.

   Two months ago the new Scrum master was let go and I was asked to take over their duties in the meantime. Ever since, it feels like the team finally owns their own Scrum process. Our collaboration is not perfect, but we’re finally tracking measurements, evaluating retrospective actions, and iterating as a team. However, the organisation wants us to go back to having a dedicated Scrum master. I’m not against this, but I’m afraid the next Scrum master might undo our efforts. How do we as a team navigate this situation to get an optimal outcome?

2. A listener named Max asks,

   I’ve been working in a Data Engineering department at a mid-size product company for over 5 years. When I joined, we had a well-balanced team in terms of average proficiency - some juniors, some middles, and a few seniors. Over these years, we’ve developed a great internal culture where people can grow to a senior level pretty easily. The company itself is wonderful to work for, and we have a pretty low “churn rate” - most of my colleagues are highly motivated and don’t want to leave.

   As a result, we now have only senior and staff engineers in the team. This is well-deserved - they all are great professionals, highly productive, and invaluable for the company, having domain knowledge and understanding of how all our systems work. Management wants them to take on only senior-plus-level tasks, which are usually larger projects and initiatives that involve a lot of collaboration with other departments, process changes or technical initiatives affecting our engineering practices. They have two reasons for this: 1) management doesn’t want to waste the time of such skilled professionals on smaller tasks; 2) management cares a lot about people’s morale, because losing them would be very harmful for the whole company, so they don’t want people to take on small and boring tasks.

   At the same time, we have a HUGE backlog of tech debt, small improvements and refactoring initiatives. Ideally, we would hire 3-4 additional middle and junior engineers to share all backlogs with them, but we now have a hiring freeze. The amount of tech debt is starting to damage team morale on its own, and I feel like we have an unspoken deadline to deal with this problem, which could be someone’s burnout and departure, or a major outage in some vital services we support caused by ignoring tech debt.

   How would you approach the problem of overseniority? I appreciate any advice, and thanks again for the show.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. “Hello, Is it considered ok to be a bit funny during an interview? To give more context: In a recent interview, I progressed up to the final cultural-fit round after clearing all technical rounds at a well-known company. One of my interviewer asked how I would deal with conflicts with a peer. In a effort to lighten the mood, I jokingly said I would snitch on them to my manager. I saw the faces go pale on the zoom call. So I backed-up and explained I was just joking and gave them an example of an instance where I had to deal with a conflict. The story didn’t help much to make my case, as there was some “snitching” involved in it. But in all seriousness, if I had a conflict in the past and have reached out to my manager to help diffuse the conflict, is it considered a bad thing. How do I make it sound like a good thing during culture-fit interviews? By the way I didn’t get an offer from them. Can’t help but think I goofed-up the culture interview. Thanks for your time and help.”

2. I recently started my first full-time job out of college. I earned an engineering degree but took a job with a company in a more management/ business development/ leadership track. Now I’m the only person in a department with an engineering degree.I’ll be here for a couple of years before they move me into the next role in my track.

   In a casual conversation about going back to school, one of my coworkers jokingly mentioned they would get free school at a local university because they made less than X dollars. This threw me off, as I (having started less than 3 weeks ago), make more than X dollars despite us having the same position and them having worked in the department for almost a year.

   Should I say anything, or just assume that the difference in pay is due to the fact that I have a technical degree and am on a leadership track while they are in neither? I’ve been told it’s mutually beneficial to discuss salary with your coworkers, but I’m afraid to shake things up at my very traditionally run company in my first month here. My pay corresponds directly to the starting pay that an engineer in a design role in my company would be making and I think I was given this pay so not to discourage me from taking a role in the company in favor of an engineering job with engineering pay elsewhere.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I’m a bootcamp graduate working on a career shift from massage to software development. How much of my previous career should I bring into my résumé? I’ve been building projects in public, and doing open source contribution in a part-time capacity for the past two years, but ultimately have not gotten very many bites on my résumé that resulted in interviews. It’s something like three skill tests and one for roughly 800 applications at the moment? That’s a guess. That’s basically the gist of it.

   Thanks! Curious Coder Tries Tech Transition

2. Listener Joshua says,

   I’ve done a number of things in my career, from Java to web dev on PHP and Angular/Node to low code development on Ignition SCADA and UIPath RPA .

   Because I love learning technologies and I want to go where the money is, I keep hopping to new teams. This usually comes with a decent pay bump, but it’s a lot of rescue operations and self-teaching.

   This doesn’t feel like a career path, and always being the junior team member sucks. I’m often studying for certs trying to meet the requirements for the job I’m already doing or being the senior dev on the team while still a Junior. I get that I’m relatively new to each team, but I’m also punching above my weight consistently.

   It feels like I’m always having to jump through hoops to get the title and pay for the level of responsibility I take on and it feels like my mixed-up background is the reason why.

   How can I pitch a 10 year career of wearing all the hats all the time to get better results? How can I avoid being on teams where all my coworkers think I’m a guru and I’m building all of the architecture, but my manager goes “gee, I don’t know if you have the years of experience to be a Senior”? I’m looking towards Architecture as a long term goal and I’m wondering if there’s a way to spin this skillset towards that goal. Can you get Architect if you aren’t a certified black belt in highly specific tools but rather a demonstrated improviser? What is a jack-of-all-trades supposed to do?

   Thanks, love the show, your advice and the fun relationship you guys bring to the conversation.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Happy Birthday Dave and congrats on the 400 episode milestone!

   Last year I was recruited away from my cushy Sr Dev role at Chill MegaCorp to an exciting technical leadership role at Fast-Paced MegaCorp. It felt like a huge level up since I had always wanted to pick up some of the softer communication and leadership skills to add to my arsenal while still working on technical problems. The 30% pay raise sealed the deal. Fast-foreward one year and I am burnt out, feeling disengaged and thinking about quitting.

   Compared to my previous role, everything here is urgent and high priority. There is little structure on my team, no planning or intake, and we just react to emails and pings from other teams about things not working. Our Sr Dev is very knowledgable but often gets short and impatient with me. My Sr Manager has said things like “sleep is for the weak” and frequently sends emails in the middle of the night. We have weekly evening releases that have gone till 4am. We are expected to always be around in case of a production incident – which happen very frequently because of the sheer complexity of everything and high dependency between internal services.

   I have considered moving to another team, but unfortunately this seems to be a company wide culture. I am considering cutting my losses with this company and moving back to an IC role with better work-life-balance. I am grateful for all the leadership skills I have picked up this past year and learned a ton in such a fast paced environment, but its been a whole year and I still haven’t gotten used to the “always on” culture and overall chaos.

   Is it normal form someone to shift between management and IC like this? What do you guys recommend?

2. Hi Dave and Jamison, thank you for the show. It is the engineering podcast I look forward to most every week.

   I work at a company that, maybe like many others, has lots of title inflation. As a result, my title is much higher than it would be at a larger (and public) tech company. For example, “senior” may be one or two levels below senior elsewhere, and “staff” would be “senior” elsewhere. We also have “senior staff”, which might be “staff” elsewhere, but more likely that might just be a more senior “senior” engineer, too.

   My question is: How should I consider approaching a job search where I am knowingly (and reasonably) down-leveling myself in title? Should I include the relative level on my resume (for example, “L5”)? Should I not address it unless a recruiter or interviewer asks about it? Briefly mention the seeming down-level in a cover letter as comparable responsibilities and scope as my current role?

   I have worked hard for my promotions, because salary bands required the title change for the money I wanted, but now I am worried it will complicate applying to other companies.

   (Thank you for selecting my question!)

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. A listener named Metal Mario asks,

   A few weeks back in Episode 395 you talked about working with a superstar teammate. I feel like for our team, I’m the superstar.

   We’re a small software team in a large non-software company. I joined a year ago and very quickly took on a lot of responsibility. I think I’m a fantastic fit for the team, received *outstanding* feedback in my annual review as well as during the course of the year, and I get along great with my teammates. However, there are two problems.

   I joined the team on a lower salary compared to the rest of the team. I was initial ok with it because I changed to a completely new tech stack as well as a new role. Now I strongly feel like I should earn more than my colleagues. My boss hinted that he agreed in my annual review.

   I fear that by me joining the team and demanding a substantial pay raise, the cake gets smaller for the rest of the team, and that they feel like me joining the team prevented them to rising through the ranks.

   The second problem is related: a colleague of mine (mildly) complained that he lost responsibilities to me since I’ve joined the team. I talked to my boss about that, but given that things have been going very well, my boss would like me to keep doing the tasks. Again- I’m worried that my colleagues might get spiteful with me.

   Would it be better to take it down a notch (in order not to endanger team happiness and keep things stable for the company), or should I perform to the best of my abilities all the time?

2. Impoverished By Pro-ration asks,

   Is it reasonable for a company to pro-rate raises for new employees?

   I recently received a raise that was smaller than expected as part of a promotion I got 9 months after joining the company. I joined halfway through the year and was under-leveled, so I quickly was put up for promotion, and got it! My raise was about half what I expected, and when I asked HR, they told me that the policy is to prorate raises, so because I joined halfway through the year, I only get half the raise that the promotion should come with, so instead of the 20% I was expecting to bring me up to the salary range of the job level I originally applied for, I only got 10% and am now making less than I think I should.

   Have I permanently crippled my lifetime earnings?!?

   What can I do to get the company to pay me appropriately? I understand if bonuses are pro-rotated, but why would raises also be pro-rated?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I’m a junior software engineer who has been placed in charge of a handful of graduates and interns who have joined my team. The project is fairly technical.

   For the first two weeks, the new starters were pair programming. That went well, and after talking to each new starter they were eager to start working individually.

   We’re one month in and I’m concerned about the performance of one of the engineers, “Morgan” (fake name). Morgan has completed a degree from a good university we often hire from but appears to lack any knowledge of software development. As a result, Morgan seems to struggle with researching and working through problems beyond following tutorials. I got the impression that while pair programming Morgan didn’t contribute much.

   Is there anything I could do to give Morgan the boost needed to start rolling? I’m sure I could spoon feed Morgan, but it would monopolize my time when I’m already spending time with the other new starters on top of my own tasks.

   I want to give Morgan a shot, but I don’t know what to do. At what point do I tell my manager about my concerns?

   Things I’ve encountered:

   • When told to insert a colon to fix a syntax error, Morgan didn’t know what a colon was.
   • Morgan didn’t take any subjects at university on data structures or algorithms, which made it hard to explain the tree used for caching.
   • Morgan wanted to do some DevOps having done some at university. Morgan appears to have no understanding of Docker.
   • Morgan said they studied React at university but has demonstrated a lack of understanding to write React code.
   • The last issue Morgan worked on required them to read some source code of a library to verify its behavior. Even after explanation Morgan didn’t understand how to find the calling ancestor of a given function.
   • Morgan has never heard about concurrency.

   Even all these issues in aggregate would be fine with me, but the continual resemblance and behavior of a stunned mullet isn’t encouraging. After being told to research a concept, Morgan must be told the specific Google query to type in.

   Thanks, and apologies for the essay!

2. Listener Confused Cat asks,

   I spent just over four years on a team where technical growth was lacking. Recently, I transitioned to a new team within the same company, and I’m enjoying the atmosphere, the team dynamics, and the opportunity to engage in more challenging software development tasks. Fortunately, my motivation is beginning to resurface.

   However, I’ve noticed that my technical skills have become somewhat rusty. While I can still deliver systems and features, I feel like I’m falling behind compared to some of my peers. This self-awareness is causing me to doubt myself, despite receiving no negative feedback from my current team or supervisor. It’s not just imposter syndrome; I genuinely feel the need to upskill.

   How can I navigate this situation effectively? What strategies would you suggest for advancing my skills while holding a senior position and preventing feelings of inadequacy from affecting my performance?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Listener Jim asks,

   I am currently a senior software engineer in a well funded (but not profitable yet) startup. I am highly effective and well regarded, to the point where the tech lead also comes to me with questions and always takes my technical input onboard. I also get along very well with the rest of the team and with my manager. I am confident that I am in a good position to bargain for a decent pay bump, however there’s a chance I might be asking for pay that exceeds the salary of the tech leads or even my manager’s. Would it be a hard no from the start if that’s the case? Do you know of situations where certain people were paid higher than someone from a higher position? Thank you, I’m loving the show!

2. I did it. I crossed over…

   I’ve been a software engineer for nearly 25 years. I worked my way from junior to senior, staff to principal, and for the last six years I’ve been a technical articect.

   I’ve been very deliberate in my caraeer path and told myself that I would always be on the tecnical side of the wall rather than the managerial side. Most of my boses over the years have been former technical folks that just seemed to have step off the technology train at some point. Maybe they couldn’t keep pace with the rapid changes in their older age, or maybe they just didn’t like IC work, who knows? But I always had this feeling about them, like “they just don’t get it anymore”, or “their technical knowledge is so outdated, how can they make good decisions”? Much like a teenager looks at their parents who stepped off the fassion train many years prior and now doesn’t want to be seen in public with them.

   Well, I just accepted a job leading a team; with headcount, and a budget, and the works. It was not the role I really wanted, but in this market, I didn’t have a ton of choices. It’s billed as sort of a hybrid Architect/Manager role, but it *feels* like I crossed a threshold. I feel like my future will be that of a retired race horse living out the last of his days if the middle-management pasture. So, 2 questions:

   1. What can I do to not become a hollowed out shell of myself as the technology train eventually starts to out pace me, and eventually speed away at ludicrous speed, because I’m not “doing it” every day
   2. Is this just the envitable for every SE? I mean, I don’t see a lot of 70 year old coders, so this is normal, right?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. How do you mentor a junior-level contractor?

   My company has been hiring a lot of contractors lately. Sometimes they hire out a full team form the contracting shop to build a particular feature. Other times, it’s an individual developer, but with the same general mandate: implement some specific set of features from our backlog over x number of months, then move on to the next project somewhere else. Generally this happens when we have extra budget that needs to be spent for the year, etc.

   It works well enough when the contractor is experienced and able to self-direct and focus on just getting the work done; but sometimes the contractor is less-experienced and needs lots of guidance and mentorship.

   Hiring and mentoring a less-experienced full-time developer is a long term investment. Over time that person will become more productive and hopefully stay with the company long enough to provide a net benefit. But when the person is only contracted for a short time, it seems we’re effectively paying the contracting agency for the opportunity to train their employees for them.

   As a senior engineer / tech lead, should I devote the same amount of time to mentorship and growth of these contractors, or should I just manage their backlog and make sure they only get assigned tasks that are within their ability to finish before the contract runs out?

2. Hello, I have a really hard time not attaching my identity to my work. I know I’m not supposed to, but i really take pride in what I do and i feel like if I don’t, my performance would take a hit. But where this really bites me is taking it really personally when things go wrong (like when a customer submits a bug report and I find that it was something I wrote, or when I take down prod and have to involve a whole bunch of C suite people to address and post mortem the issue). I understand humans make mistakes but it eats me up so much inside every time. I know all these things but I have a hard time really internalizing them especially when things go south at work. What are some practical ways I can train myself to approach things without emotion?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Listener Davide says,

   I have a lot of ideas for significantly improving manufacturing processes, but management wants us to focus on business “priorities”. These are fun tasks such as making sure part numbers are replicated in two disconnected systems that have no way of talking to each other. Makes getting Master’s degree feel like time very well spent.

   I end up setting aside some time and doing the legwork for my improvements in secret, and showing my boss when the solution is 90% there. I have a fear that they think the solution appeared out of thin air and required no work, but also if I told them in advance I was going to spend time on it, I would get told off and forbidden from doing it.

   Am I alone in this? Am I stupid? Should I quit my job? Have I written too much? Is the world really relying on a handful of Excel spreadsheets which are keeping us one circular reference away from total annihilation?

   Thanks for reading this far, and greetings from a listener from some place in England.

2. Sorry for the long question and thanks in advance for any help or advice :)

   I’ve been working for a small 20-year old B2B company. It makes money. The work-life balance is amazing. Our workdays are 6 hours, and we are remote. On busy days, I may work 3 hours a day. So everything is great.

   But I hate it. I have no interest in the product. Everyone picks one ticket and goes to their corner to fix it. No collaboration unless necessary, which is rare because there are no complex challenges. I feel no one in the company is ambitious technically. It feels like I’m not growing and learning.

   My previous company was the exact opposite. Brilliant invested colleagues. Lots to learn and I was always inspired to work with them and learn from them. I felt like the stupidest person in the room. They cared about technical decisions and problems a lot. It was as close to my ideal workplace as it could be (the product was meh, and the management sucked). But I got laid off after 5 months of being there.

   Now whenever I talk with anybody about how I feel demotivated, and lifeless, and want to move on from this company, they say I’m crazy. And if I’m looking to learn and grow I have all the time in the world. I want to be in an environment that challenges me, inspires me, and pushes me to learn during work hours at least. I fear that if I stay here for a few years, I will not have the experience and resume needed to move to a company like the one I was in before I got laid off.

   Am I wrong to want to move out of this company in this situation?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I’ve recently started a new Gig as a Senior Developer/Tech Lead at a company where we are our own clients, using the software we develop in-house.

   I’m encountering a bit of a hiccup, though. Our product owner, is primarily focused on support and doesn’t provide formal Acceptance Criteria. This means I spend a lot of time sending follow-up emails to confirm our discussions, drafting these criteria myself, and handling the management of boards and work items. Another challenge is our product owner’s enthusiasm. He’s full of ideas and tends to expand the project scope during our meetings, perhaps not fully realizing the additional development work and the impact on our timelines. I sometimes think that if he wrote down his thoughts, it might give him a clearer picture of the challenges we face in development in keeping up with these changes.

   I’m in a bit of a quandary here. How can I gently nudge him to take on some of these tasks, or should I discuss with my boss how this is taking up about 1 to 1.5 days of my week? While I’m more than willing to handle it, especially with the prospect of moving into a management role, I also don’t want to set a precedent that creating Acceptance Criteria and managing Work Items are part of a developer’s job scope – at least not to this extent. Any thoughts?

2. Sean asks:

   Hi Soft Skills Engineering,

   I love your podcast and I have a question for you. I have a very good memory and I can recall details from a long time ago. This sounds like a great skill, but it also causes me some problems at work.

   Often, I get asked questions by my colleagues or my boss that are not related to my current tasks or responsibilities. For example, they might ask me about the content of an email that they sent or received a year ago, or the outcome of a meeting that I attended (but also did they). They ask me because they know I probably remember, and they want to avoid searching for the information themselves.

   This annoys me because it interrupts my work and makes me feel like a human search engine. I want to be helpful, but I also want to focus on my actual work. I can’t redirect them to my boss, because he has a very bad memory himself.

   How can I deal with this situation without being rude or lying about my memory? How can I set boundaries and expectations with my colleagues and my boss? And without gaslighting them into thinking I already answered their questions, of course.

   Thank you for your advice.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Listener Bobby ForgedRequest asks

   One of my coworker, who is the nicest, most humble person I’ve ever met, is about twice as productive as I am! They’re super-uber productive! They close about 2-3x as many tickets as I do during the same sprint. For reference, I’m a software eng II and they’re a senior dev. Their work is very solid too, and they’re not just selecting easy, 1 point tickets to pad their stats.

   How do you cope with a super star teammate like this? Do I direct more questions towards them to slow them down? Do I volunteer them for more design heavy projects? Jokes aside, I’m curious if this is something that you’ve seen in your career, and if you were a manager, would this make you feel like the other, not-super-uber-smart teammate, is just not doing enough? Is the answer as simple as “well, sometimes people are just very, very gifted”?

2. In my previous job of 5 years, I worked only 3 hours a day due to a low workload. Seeking a change for career growth, I switched jobs a few months ago, exposing myself to new technologies. Initially stressful, the pace has slowed down, and there’s no external pressure to learn. Despite getting praise and raises for minimal effort, I aspire to be a smarter software engineer.

   How do I motivate myself to learn and step out of my comfort zone when there’s no apparent reward, considering I’ve easily found new jobs and advanced in my career without exerting much effort?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. My team are about 4 months into transitioning from a scrum/kanban way of working to a more traditional scrum/sprint way of working.

   I feel like our scrum master is “weaponising” some of the scrum practices in order to show up weak points and failures in the team, rather than working with the team to ease us through the transition and make gradual improvements.

   In private conversations with me and some other trusted developers (lol jk I clearly shouldn’t be trusted as I’m writing in to Dave and Jamison) the scrum master speaks about how little refined work we have in our back log, and how they are looking forward to “exposing bottle necks” in the team. As they expect this will lead to pressure on our PO and Business Analyst and force them to step up their game.

   Whatever amount of work we bring into a sprint is law, and they forbid more tickets coming onto the board mid sprint (even if all the tickets are done half way through the sprint).

   If one single ticket is on the board they will try to block more tickets moving into ready for Dev as they believe we should all be focusing on getting the highest priority pieces of work into the done column. And they take no notice when I’ve expressed the issue with this too many cooks approach.

   They’re a nice enough person outside of a work context. But in work, it really feels like they’re setting us up to fail (and sort of releshing in it).

   Dissent is rising in the team, and everyone from all sides feels unhappy. Can you recommend any action I could take to prevent the failures that are inbound?

   For context, I am a junior developer working for a large company. Within my department we are split up into “SCRUM” teams made up of around 6 Developers, 2 testers, a scrum master, a Business Analyst and a Product Owner. The senior developers within the team have not taken any action other than to complain in secret about the SMs behaviour.

2. Before the tech recession, I would recommend engineers stay at a job for 12 months before looking for a new job in order to avoid having the stigma of being a job hopper. But with the tech recession enabling employers to be more picky, is 12 months long enough? Or should engineers stay at a job for even longer than 12 months before looking for a new job?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. NK:

   Hi, I am starting a SWE internship at big tech company in a few weeks. Given the current state of the market, getting a return offer has gotten harder. I have a few software internships under my belt at this point but I am looking to excel in this internship. My goal is to get a full time offer with high pay from this internship. What are the soft skills that are specifically important for interns? This is probably applicable to junior engineers as well.

2. Hello Soft Skills, I’m a junior engineer who transitioned from an intern to a full-time role at my company a year ago. I anticipated training in development, but I’m stuck in a low-value automated QA role without proper leadership or team integration. My efforts to improve processes and change teams haven’t been successful, and I’m concerned about being pigeonholed early in my career. I need advice on how to initiate change with limited authority and create a competitive job application despite my limited traditional development experience.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. We are a team of under 10 people who provide technical services to other departments of our organization. We use a tool that is built by my boss to supplement our work but it is crucial for the team to do actual work. The boss maintains it all by themselves and nobody is familiar with its code.

   The boss is going to retire in a year or two, nobody wants to learn the code of that tool and the team can’t do much without the boss as we are more or less just individual contributors writing standalone code and delivering it to other teams who asked for it. Only the boss attends the leadership meetings and the developers are completely unaware of the remaining processes that happen in the background, i.e., communicating with other departments to bring in work, and all that business stuff. I am afraid the team would break apart once the boss retires because nobody knows anything on how our team operates beyond within team level except for the boss. Shall I just plan for the job switch?

2. It’s annual review season! When choosing reviewers, do I a) choose the reviewers that will make me look the best or 2) choose the reviewers who might actually give me actionable feedback?

   If it helps, I am on very good terms with my boss and his boss, as well as most of the C-Suite, and there is no way that I get either a promotion or fired in this review cycle. I have been a top performer in previous review cycles, but I expect that I won’t be reviewed so highly this time around.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Hey guys! I’m a young engineer in a specialized area of infrastructure. I’m pretty good at what I do, and I’ve been through some leadership development programs, so I’ve advanced to a “Staff” role quickly, just based on observing the age of my peers.

   Tech titles are completely mysterious to me, so I’m wondering - how much “up” is there from where I am? What’s the top of the IC ladder? Do ICs ever become executives? The idea of being a manager and sitting in 1:1s for hours sounds awful to me, so I’m not excited about that side, but I’ve heard, allegedly, that there is room on the IC side for promotion as well.

   I’m a goal setter, and I kinda feel like I’ve hit a ceiling, so I don’t know where to set my target anymore. I don’t even know that I care about titles that much, but I very much like the pay raises that accompany them.

   Thanks!

2. Johnny Droptbales:

   How do I tell if my manager is a direct communicator or a jerk? Should I trust my gut on this (he’s a jerk)?

   I’ve been working with my manager for a year now. He’s fairly fluent in English, educated, and keeps up with broad knowledge of our team/domain. He often connects different aspects of our work to discover discrepancies, bugs, and interesting ideas.

   I’m trying to wrap my head around his communication style. Here are a few examples that stand out:

   1. I refused to take on a new small project because I was concerned about meeting the deadline on my high-priority solo project. He gave me feedback that I missed an opportunity to demonstrate context-switching skills, which would look good for a promotion. I responded with my own reasoning, but he wasn’t interested and just moved on to the next topic.
   2. He insisted on a new weekly requirement for our on-call pager rotation, which is to come up with one idea to improve the experience. When I asked why asking for help on a problem wouldn’t be enough, he answered that he expected his engineers to have been hired for their critical thinking and leadership skills, and they should be able to demonstrate those.
   3. Recently he’s been leading weekly meetings to improve the on-call experience. He tends to ask very direct questions – we’ll look at a bug ticket, and he asks, “What is the root cause?” “Why do we do this?” “What are your ideas to solve this?” When pressed, he insisted this was a brainstorming sort of conversation, as opposed to a Q&A.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I’m a backend engineer at a large non-public company. I noticed a bunch of our emails and website riddled with typos. I can not claim that it is metrics impacting or impacting business, so I get that teams always deprioritize, but the overall feel just irks me. Many of these come from a CMS I don’t have access too, so it’s not like I could offer to help with code even if I wanted. When things like this are not in your space, any advice on how to up overall quality?

2. Possibly Mute Senior Engineer asks,

   I’m currently a senior engineer in a really small startup, and I’ve been here just long enough that I’m deeply familiar with our flagship product in multiple areas - infrastructure, the guts of the business logic, our deployment patterns, our most common failure modes, etc. Unfortunately, I have to be involved in every project and pick the application up off the ground when it dies. As a result, I’ve become spread very thin, and I have to cut corners just to stay afloat (or I am specifically directed to cut corners to meet a deadline). Frequently (because of all the corner cutting), we run into two situations that really tick me off:

   • I see bad thing on the horizon, talk to my team about it, am ignored, then bad thing happens and I get to have a crappy day fixing it
   • I recommend a basic best practice, we don’t use it and do some coat hanger + duct tape thing instead, thing breaks, and I get to have a crappy day fixing it.

   I’m very tired of being on the wrong end of the consequences of our own actions. I pour so much into this job, but I feel like I need to go get my vocal cords inspected, because it’s like my teammates and my manager can’t hear me when I talk about the things we’re doing poorly that lead to bad outcomes.

   Quit my job? Or is there an easy way to deal with this situation that I’m just missing? I feel like I’m screaming into the void every time I have these discussions and get completely blown off with “oh that’s not important right now” or “oh that terrible thing could never happen”. Thanks in advance!

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. The Sleepy Engineer says,

   Hey SSE, how do you deal with drowsiness? I notice that sometimes when I am very tired at my desk and end up eyes closed head drooped down as I work which I imagine is a bad look for anyone passing by. During this time, I would either get coffee or stand up and walk somewhere which is a temporary fix but ultimately I am still very tired. I know in very few really big company HQs there might be a sleeping quarters if you plan to stay the night but my company is certainly ain’t one of them. Any advice on how to get through the day? Thanks for the great show.

2. After seeing a hyper growth in 2021-2022, our company has become a bureaucratic hell hole. RFCs, PRDs, ADRs, reports. My manager (director of engineering) would request these documents but never read them. When someone doesn’t like the solution proposed, they have the option to say no and the project is blocked. But nobody (including the manager of the team) have the autonomy to say yes and move forward. How do you deal with this? Or is it time to give up and listened to the patented advice to quit my job?

Show Notes

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f84n5oFoZBc - hammock-driven-development

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Hey guys, love the show. Not sure if its really a question or more of a confession. I’m an individual contributor at a software company with a few thousand employees. A lot of professional books/training courses I encountered over the years talk about the importance of positively acknowledging your employees/reports/team members when they do a good job. Most of them say that this sort of praise and other immaterial motivation is more important than material motivation (bonuses/raises). More and more, my higher ups had started trying to motivate us with public “pats on the back” for individuals and teams. They were never generous with the material motivation to begin with. Honestly, i find these pats on the back grating. I don’t need to be told “good job kiddo” to actually work hard. To be blunt, i want a raise and/or bonuses, not empty words. But material recognition is all red tape and budget constraints these days, so I dont actually expect much. The issue is that the immaterial motivation just reminds me of what is just out of reach, and thus just demotivates me. Is there any good way to express these frustrations to my manager without sounding like a materialistic greedy bastard? Which I suppose I am, but I’m tired of feeling like one.

2. I’m a principal engineer working with two teams of developers who own a product domain that is being rewritten on an aggressive schedule. We’ve increased headcount over the past year but we’ve started having friction with some of the new hires. Its clear that they want more input into the patterns and coding styles used by the teams that were established prior to them joining. Unfortunately, this seems to come up in PRs rather than discussions and leads to push back from me and the tech leads on the teams. This has lead to our engineering manager commenting that they’re getting complaints about us being too restrictive and developer happiness being impacted. While I don’t want any of the developers to be unhappy, I worry that the EM is risking hurting the team as a whole by focusing on the happiness of one or two new hires. The Tech Leads are also starting to worry about what they are allowed to comment on in PRs. Help! How do I keep the devs from feeling underappreciated, the tech leads feeling empowered to lead, and ensure that the codebase stays consistent between repositories so all developers can move between services without feeling lost?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Hello Dave and Jamison, I wanted to say thank you for your podcast. It’s been a great wealth of information and comic relief. Can we bring back the guitar intros?

   I work in the technology arm of a large corporation. There are no younger engineers. I am one of the youngest at just shy of 30 (my first tech job after going back to school).

   I receive praise for my eagerness to learn and grow and how much I try to engage with the org. I feel like if we hired more Junior engineers it would both increase the engagement of the org and give senior engineers more of a sense of purpose to pass the torch. One of my favorite engineers from whom I get the best advice has been here for over 20 years and they are awesome!

   I also get great advice from people on my team but some of them are cruising or in a “couple years till retirement” mode.

   Should I try to convince management to hire more junior engineers? Is there anything I can do to relate more to older org members?

2. Hi Dave and Jamison! I’m an engineering manager tasked with getting the team back to an open office (hybrid). My team works very well remotely, with the occasional in-person meetup. I believe that in terms of productivity, work-life balance, engagement, and turnover, RTO will negatively impact the team. I’m torn between representing what I feel is good for the team and supporting the company’s decision. I’ve already expressed my concerns with management, and the overall sentiment seems to be that anyone who doesn’t like it can find a new job. Aside from this, I like my job, team and company and don’t want to quit over this. Any tips on finding a balance representing team needs and implementing higher-up direction?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I feel like I’m stuck. I’m in a senior/lead position technically called an SRE, but I find myself doing all kinds of cleanup work that should instead be spread across teams. My suggestions for automating toil and cleaning up tech debt fall on deaf ears until some principal engineer decides a couple of months down the line some problem is worth solving (then it’s urgent!!1).

   I’ve experienced this at a few companies now and see some patterns, but I’m not sure what the way out is yet. It seems I need to find the most respected person (and fight them! just kidding), gain their trust, and play politics to get basic problems solved and work properly distributed.

   I am exhausted. If you want me to lead, then give me the power I need to lead. If you want me to be a cog, then make it a decent work environment and pay enough. I feel like I’m stuck in some sort of purgatory. I’m considering going for a management job, but I think I’d hate it.

   How can I find a 9-5 that isn’t soul sucking and run by a few people who have the ear of the C-level?

2. As two people who lead engineering teams, have conducting tons of interviews for developers and hired many, what are your opinions on the prospects of career changing self-taught developers landing a decent job in 2023 forward? I have a career in Product Marketing, working very closely with Product, Engineering, and Sales teams. I believe I bring a lot of the “soft skills” to the table and am teaching myself the “hard skills”. My concerns are that it will be incredibly difficult to actually find a job and, if I do, it’ll be an entry level role that effectively resets my existing 9-year career back to the starting blocks. In your experiences, would you hire folks looking to make a career move in anything other than junior positions, or would you be wary of them in favor of other candidates?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Hello! Thank you for your podcast, I definitely find the episodes to be helpful. Lately I’ve been struggling with attention to detail. I just forget to do simple things like run pre-commit hooks before I put in a PR or before merging a PR. I went through a pretty bad layoff when my old company went bankrupt a few months back and now I am at a new role where I really like everyone I work with. The engineers expect checked-in code to pass tests and typechecks and be generally high-quality. How I can be better about attention to detail as a software engineer? How do you keep track of remembering all the little things that need to be done?

2. Hey guys I’m around 8 years into my career as a software engineer, been at a few companies and have been promoted to senior during my time. I like my job and have done relatively well in my career, but I’m burned out. While I think this is the best industry for me, I’d just like to walk away from the corporate 9-5 for who knows how long.

   Fortunately, I’m in a position where my partner is able to be the breadwinner for the foreseeable future. We’ve talked about it, and she’s okay with it as long as I don’t sit on the couch doing nothing all day. I figured I’d take this time to watch the kids, learn some skills around the house, get involved in the community, etc. I don’t know if I’d ever want to get back in the software saddle, or if I do, perhaps I’d return in a different role or capacity.

   But my question is, if I leave this industry for several years and decide to ever come back, what would the landscape be like for me? Am I making a mistake by deciding to hang it up at such a young age?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. A listener named Jay asks,

   Over the past eight years I’ve been promoted from Software Dev to Team Lead and then to Engineering Manager.

   After two years as an EM, it helped me a lot financially, I like what I do and I think I’m doing it really well. However, I have two concerns. First, I love programming and now I don’t have any time other than in my limited free time to do it. I can feel my coding skills atrophying.

   Second, I’m worried that I could only get EM jobs in the future, and there are fewer openings for EMs than for Senior Software Developers.

   Could I go back to a software developer role? Would they even take me?

2. I work for a staff augmentation company in an African country for a software company in New York. I’ve been with this client for the last five years and I have climbed up the ladder enough that I can access the company financials. I am paid based on my location, which is not much after the exchange rate to local currency. My pay hasn’t increased as I’ve become more effective. Since seeing that info, I don’t feel the need to go over and beyond for this client anymore. The client expects me to be a rockstar developer and ship out code faster they can think of more ways to make money but my enthusiasm has diminished over time and my manager has been notified about it. What steps would you take to ensure you get reasonable pay as a dev earning a location based pay? The staff augmentation company is ran by US citizens.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I recently started the interviewing for a senior engineering manager role at a fairly prestigious, but not huge (maybe 30-50 engineers) tech company. The job description heavily emphasized the idea of leading as a peer as opposed to just relying on the EM title. I love this approach, but the lead interviewer then disclosed that they don’t want EMs writing production code. This seems like a contradiction.

   Am I naive in thinking so? I certainly understand that taking on a more managerial focus will result in less IC work. However, as a leader I find a ton of value in staying close to the trenches. It allows me to earn the respect of my reports, empathize with their day to day, and sniff out good/bad decisions quickly.

   As an engineer with good softskills, it feels like gravity wants to rip me away from writing code. How do I stop this? Can I? Should I resign myself to a work-life filled with never ending 1:1s?

2. Hello Dave and Jamison, thank you for your podcast. I have listened to almost all episodes and they provide both educational and entertaining values, you rock!

   I would like to ask you for advice. I am struggling with a problem related to communicating and cooperating with people in general. I have over 10 years of professional experience. I was always a hardcore nerd, sitting alone in front of the computer and programming, focused only on pure technical skills, everything else was unimportant. Most of my career I spent in small companies where I could just spend time writing code and I wasn’t bothered by anything else.

   However, one year ago I started to work at FAANG and now I feel overwhelmed. Technical skills seem not so important anymore. Most of the problems are being solved by talking, negotiating and following up with other teams, participating in meetings and presenting results to management. It stresses and burns me out. I feel it like a waste of time and potential but also I was never a people person, so I am anxious every time I am in a new social situation.

   How could I convince myself that such non-technical skills are equally important as technical skills? What steps can I take to improve my attitude and skills? What would you advise if you had to work with a person like that?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. There aren’t a lot of engineering management growth resources in my company. It’s a relatively small company with about 50 engineers. My manager doesn’t have time to properly mentor me. And I’m not sure I would want him to because I feel like his advice isn’t always the best. Where can I go for management mentorship or other learning resources? Is it worth exploring non-engineering managers on other teams? Or leaning more on my peers? Or should I be looking for outside advice?

2. A recent episode mentioned awkward Zoom silences. My experience is the exact opposite.

   I recently switched teams at the same company. This new team has a Zoom room open for the entire work day. The first person to start their day begins the Zoom and the last to leave ends the meeting. They do “mob programming” using a command line tool that switches users every few minutes along with all the strict rules of Extreme Programming - a driver, navigator, etc. But they also do everything in groups: story refinement, diagrams, documentation, everything. Live collab, all day, every day.

   I’m one month into this transfer but worried that this isn’t a good fit and that I made a horrible mistake. ALL the other engineers here rave about how this is the greatest thing ever. Am I the weirdo for not liking it? I feel like I am of split-mind to only either speak or type (but not both) and have not yet rediscovered my coding flow.

   Mostly I just wanted to roll a perception check with you: Am I the weirdo for not liking all this collaboration and 100% Zooming, or would this workflow drive most other engineers mad as well? Any pep talk about sticking it out would be appreciated.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. My company is doing performance reviews. While writing my self-review, I was shocked by how much I had accomplished in the last 6 months. I’d led our org to adopt multiple new technologies and supported other teams in adopting them, to great effect. But looking back, I wish I could trade half the accomplishments on my self-review for time spent taking better care of myself and my partner and kids. I’m not working crazy hours; I work a pretty regular 40hrs per week on a flexible schedule (with 3 young kids, this is, in fact, a crazy schedule). I’m on track for the promotion from senior to staff, maybe in this cycle, and I’m wondering: would it be crazy for me to propose that I stay in the senior pay band, and start working 4 days a week?

   I’ve also considered scheduling personal time during the day. But I know I’ll be fighting an internal work-time-clock forged by years of cortisol flow. What’s your advice for lightening up a lead foot?

2. A listener named Aisha says,

   6 months ago I quit my first job out of college. It was a very toxic and hostile workplace. I sucked it up for almost 3 years, but it got so bad that I had to quit my job without another lined up (yikes, I know).

   I was a great employee, and was always given excellent performance reviews. After giving my boss plenty of notice, I asked if I could use him as a reference and he said yes.

   It’s been a struggle finding another job. I’ve submitted hundreds of applications, reviewed my resume with mentors, and attended workshops for interviewing skills, but nothing helped.

   Out of sheer desperation, I had a friend pretend to be a future employer and call my boss asking for a reference. As I suspected, he was providing a bad reference that included outright lies about my work ethic and me as a person. I have no idea why he would do this.

   I am at a loss of what to do. The obvious thing to do it not include that job on my resume, but without it I basically have zero experience and a large gap between graduating and now. :(

   I have contacted some of my old team members if they could be a reference instead of my boss, but none have gotten back to me as of yet weeks later. Please help! What do I do?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Listener Ashleigh asks,

   I’m a mid-level developer at a small company with a non-technical manager. After several months working on migrating our users from a legacy system to our new system, our non-technical business analyst discovered our current system re-uses lots of code from the legacy system. The BA immediately escalated their “concerns” about this to our manager. This quickly resulted in a group message from our manager to the BA, our senior engineer, me, and another developer. Without asking for more than a cursory explanation of how two sets of users who need the same functionality can use the same code base without breaking things for each other, our manager made the decision to fork the project and maintain two separate code bases.

   The developers tried to explain why this was a bad idea, but we were immediately shot down. This has already resulted in issues in pre-production environments. They were afraid that having changes in one unified code base would break things for both groups of users. We were given no opportunity to make further arguments. Two months later I find that my motivation at work has tanked. Despite being below market rate, I’ve stayed because it’s allowed me to advance my skills as a developer.

   But my trust in our BA and management is completely shattered. Is it worth staying in my current role? Is salvaging my current situation a hopeless cause that will likely just collapse again in the future? Or would I be wise to get out ASAP before things blow up and the blame is pushed on our development team? I feel like I already know the answer in my gut, but I’d like to hear your perspectives on this.

2. Listener Damison Jance asks,

   I sometimes find myself struggling to describe how software issues will affect product designs to non-software engineers. It is hard for me to explain “this seemly tiny change in user experience you’ve asked for is actually driven by this backend functionality that is totally transparent to users and really no one besides backend engineers has any reason to know about it, but yeah anyway that small change is going to require six months of work and changes to multiple services.” I have found this approach quite ineffective, and I think it comes off as me sounding like “my way or the highway”. I’m wondering if you guys have any tips for explaining how systems work to people who aren’t software engineers and don’t necessarily have all the context you do.

Show Notes

Microservices video (keyword: Omegastar): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8OnoxKotPQ

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. “Hi! Love the show, long time listener.

   So an architect noticed an issue with credentials embedded into request body being logged. I had planned to resolve that, and someone already had done so for another instance.

   I took a day or two to figure out how to fix it globally, and even tied it into another filtering we did. That would mean one list of sensitive data patterns to maintain – that we already had, and don’t need to worry about which context keys to scan in. Scan them all, CPU time is free after all /s

   I opened this PR, and received no feedback for a day. Another engineer did mention an alternate approach that would resolve this particular case, but I was trying to fix it globally so we didn’t have to maintain a list of keys to scan on.

   Next day he mentioned he made some click ops change that resolved THIS PARTICULAR INSTANCE, meanwhile still not providing any feedback on the PR. This approach is IMO a maintenance burden: keep two different filtering in sync, proactively add keys to strip. High chance of mistakes slipping in over time.

   So I said OK works with some caveats, and rejected my PR. I can not explain why but this incident tilted me hard. For one thing he essentially grabbed my ticket with no communication and resolved it himself. Then he provided no feedback and went with a different approach without consulting anyone else. Worst of all, he ended up with an (IMO) markedly worse fix that I had already dismissed as being too brittle and likely to miss things in the future.

   What do? Am I unreasonable to feel undermined and disrespected?”

2. Hi Dave and Jamison, long time listener love the show. I work on a team that is relatively small in size but we own a huge scope including multiple flavors of client-side app and a bunch of backend integrations. We recently launched our product and since then there have been constant fire due to various tech debt that we never fix. Our manager has attempted to ask the team to share the burden of solving these tech debts, but there are only very few that are actually doing it. I can think of many reason why they are not able/willing to take on the task, likely due to other priorities or unfamiliarity with the part of the codebase. Due to my familiarity with various component, I’m usually the one proposing the fix and actually fixing it. I have started to feel this is taking a toll on my own career development because I ended up not having bandwidth to work on those bigger projects/features that have high visibility and good for promotion. I do think solving the tech debt is important work and don’t mind doing them. How would you navigate this situation? Thanks for the awesome podcast!

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I’ve managed an ML team in a small company for ~2 years now. I created an 8 person team from scratch and I’m super proud of the team I’ve built. However, I miss being an engineer and wish I could spend more time coding. I was considering asking for a role change to IC, but out of nowhere my manager offered to me a promotion to head of platform engineering. I would have 3 engineering teams reporting to me - about 30 people altogether.

   I have trouble saying no to new opportunities but can I put the genie back in the bottle? If I get “Peter principled”, I feel like it would be challenging or embarrassing to return to IC work.

How can I stay close to the ML side while managing other teams? Would other teams feel dejected if they know I had a “favorite” team?

2. Is it just me or do people also find silences over Zoom unbearable? I work in a team that is mostly remote, and I find myself deliberately logging into meetings late to avoid the silence or the stilted, awkward smalltalk. If i’m running the meeting, I kickoff at 1 minute past to avoid having to deal with that dead air. I also find myself too quick to fill pauses during meetings. I never have this problem in person meetings. I’ve been in the same team now for nearly a year and I still dread uncomfortable silences over Zoom. How do I get over this?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Hi, I’m a senior software engineer at a big tech company, where I’ve been employed for precisely one year. So far, the feedback I’ve received has been overwhelmingly positive. My manager has even mentioned that her superiors are impressed with my performance, and my colleagues have shared their positive feedback as well.

   While I’ve been told that I’m doing exceptionally well and may be on track for a promotion in my upcoming year-end review, there’s a slight concern. Given that I’ll have been with the company for just over a year at that point, my relatively short tenure might affect my chances. During my mid-year review, my manager advised me to tackle more complex problems and take on larger tasks that have an impact on multiple teams to bolster my promotion prospects.

   I don’t really know what to do with this advice since I don’t know what else to do besides passively wait and hope that these famous ‘complex problems’ come my way. I feel like whether or not I get to prove myself in a big way to secure the promotion will come down to luck, is there anything I can do to reduce this luck factor?

2. I recently started a new remote job as a lead engineer at a startup. Previously, I was working for an agency and was almost constantly busy. Additionally, I was held extremely accountable for the time I spent working through submission of daily timesheets.

   Now that I’m at a startup, I’m struggling to not feel guilty when I feel like I have nothing to do. My area of the product moves much slower than everyone else’s, so while everyone else is constantly busy, I feel like I’m making much less impact. My manager, the CTO, is fully aware of my lighter workload and is fine with it.

   My question isn’t necessarily about how I can make more impact. It’s about how to make peace with the idea that I’m not being productive for 8 hours every day. When you’re in an office, you feel like you’re working even when you’re not, because you’re physically there. When working remotely, I tend to feel guilty when I’m not physically sitting at my desk writing code, even when there isn’t really any code to write. Do I need to just get over myself and feel more grateful for all my free time? Or is there another way of looking at this that I’m missing?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I applied and was hired for a 100% telecommute position. Recently, the company has mandated all employees near an office switch to a hybrid schedule. I’m looking at an hour or more round trip and the yearly cost of parking is several thousand dollars. The company also announced to their investors that massive layoffs will be coming due to the economy and redundancies due to a large merger.

   I’m relatively new to the company and left my previous company after only a couple of years. I like where I work and the company benefits. I do prefer working in office and don’t want to be seen as a perpetual job hopper. I’m just not thrilled about the commute time and commute paycut.

   We have been assured my product is invaluable but should I believe that? A friend referred me to a hybrid position biking distance from my house. Assuming I’m made an offer, should I take it? What if it’s slightly less than what I’m making now?

2. Hi Jamison and Dave, another long time listener here. Thank you for all your advice and the good laughs you provide in the show!

   I’m in my early 40s and have been working since I was 19 with a few years spent in education at university. In all these years there have been ups and downs, financial crises, personal crises, layoffs, good laughs and friendships, great teams, projects and bosses, and not so great teams, projects and bosses. I have enjoyed some of the work I’ve been doing in my industry, and I’ve enjoyed making some good contributions to my field.

   I have been badly burned out two times in my career. Healing and recovering was hard but thankfully I was able to rejoin the workforce successfully (or that’s what I thought). Last year I identified I’m slowly burning out badly again. Since this will be my third time, I’m *very* seriously reconsidering a career change, to quit tech and software altogether. I’m passionate about the field I work in though it seems I can’t avoid getting sick badly from time to time in part because of the difficulties for finding a good team/project fit, having to deal with difficult people at work and a mental health condition I’ve been struggling with since my teens.

   I have friends in the industry that are very senior, and we all share common struggles and our complaints about the industry are getting worse and worse with time. Is that a symptom of becoming more experienced? Are we all becoming jaded?

   My current job pays well, but I’ve come to the realisation that it isn’t a good deal to trade great compensation for my health. I’m seriously considering downshifting and quitting tech to hopefully (and finally) bring sanity and peace to my life. This is something I’ve been also discussing with my therapist lately. So here’s my question: do you think it’s worth pursuing a long career in tech, or it’s just that the more experienced and senior you become the hardest the job becomes because your awareness raises? Do you have any other advice?

   Thanks for reading and congrats again on the podcast!

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I work as a Software Engineering Manager at the European office of a US company. Recently, many of my colleagues successfully obtained US visas for an upcoming business trip. When it was my turn, everyone said it would be a piece of cake because our company is well-known. However, to my surprise, I was rejected during the visa interview. Now I won’t be able to join my colleagues (including my direct reports). I’m concerned they might perceive me as less capable because of this. What would you think if your manager couldn’t travel with you? To make matters worse, I might soon be managing a few US-based employees remotely.

2. Hi guys, love the podcast. I never miss an episode!

   I have a co-worker, let’s call him “Bob”. Bob’s a lovely guy and very eager to learn.

   Here’s the thing. Bob never learns from his mistakes and needs to be continually asked to correct the same types of errors over and over again.

   The problem is that Bob doesn’t seem to have a developers mindset. I’d go so far as to say that if there’s a decision to be made then Bob is 95% guaranteed to do the opposite of what everybody else on the team would do.

   The end result of this is that whenever a pull request is opened up with Bobs name attached to it I can be sure that I will be spending more time reviewing it and inevitably the PR will need to go back and forth multiple times as Bob is asked to correct the same types of things that he was just asked to correct in the last review.

   The frustrating is that my manager is also nice and wants to encourage Bob to grow and improve and so regularly gives Bob some pretty complex tasks in order to encourage this growth. While I admire the managers attitude (and surely have benefitted from it on occasions :) ) my heart sinks just a bit more than normal when this happens as I know that the previously mentioned merry go round of reviews will inevitably be larger than usual. Sometimes it can get to the point where much (or all) of Bobs work ends up being discarded.

   I do precious little development work myself as my senior position in the team means that I’m the one ends up doing most of the peer reviewing. So each time I see Bob being given a piece of work that I would have enjoyed doing (and sometimes have even specced out) I get disheartened.

   Bob has been a developer in our field for about 6 years and still needs to be told on a regular basis about things that you would usually need to tell a fresh graduate.

   How do I broach the issue of Bob with the powers that be?

Show Notes

• https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018904948/from-space-junk-to-international-treaties-nz-s-only-specialised-space-lawyer

This episode is sposored by OneSchema, the best way to build CSV import into your product.

Check OneSchema out at https://oneschema.co/softskills

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Morning! I will cut straight to the chase: I’m burned out and tired. At the same time, I’m aiming to get a promotion during the next cycle. My manager is aware of the latter, but not the former. Should I tell them? I suspect that I would get a lighter work load and less responsibilities, but it might also impact my chances at getting a promotion. The project I’m working is a “high stakes, tight deadlines” mess. I usually would just take a week or two of PTO, but the tight deadlines make it hard. Do I grin and bear it till promotion cycle (another 4-6 months) or just tell my manager and risk losing the rewards?

2. I’m about to get promoted to L6, what my company calls Lead Engineer, but I have to move to another team for it to happen. The other team already has a few people who are applying for that same promotion, and they got skipped over for my promo. They’ve also been devs longer than me. (4 years for me) So, I’m worried about tension on that team when I join.

   On top of that, I’ll be learning this role too! How can I make room for myself to have failures and make poor decisions, while also not undermining my expertise? How can I step into this lead role while not stepping on the toes of the engineers already on the team?

   Any tips for someone leading a team for the first time, while also joining that team?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Love the show, you guys have saved my bacon more times than I can count!

   I interviewed at an organization for a Senior Engineering role, but the interview went so well, they actually offered me the option to accept a Staff role! I definitely didn’t feel ready for that, but I accepted as a way to stretch and challenge myself. The company has been through some internal churn and re-arranging for most of my time there, and I bounced between a lot of projects, which means I’ve now been at the company coming up on 2 years, but not really had the chance to grow into the role. Now, I’ve been here awhile, don’t have a lot of excuses, and am bad at being a Staff Engineer. My biggest failing, is that I lack a bigger vision for our project, beyond just meeting customer needs for today. I’m not even sure how to start building that bigger vision! In my current project, this is especially apparent, because we do need to meet internal customer needs, but the end goal is a larger platform. We need features that inspire new avenues of work as well as enable current ones. How the heck do I even begin to start imagining what this bigger vision could be? Moreover, once I have that vision, how do I get buy in for that vision? My inability to do this kind of forward thinking has been a boat anchor around my ankles my entire career, and I’m lost as to where to even start.

   Help me guys, I love my job, but I fear I’ve become the embodiment of the Peter Principle. Help me chew my ankles off to save my career

2. Listener Trevor asks,

   ‌

   I work as a data scientist at a small company. I joined the company specifically because of the positive work environment. I do mostly software development and until recently have only received positive reviews.

   Recently we had a heated meeting with the CTO and CFO where we demonstrated that a customer’s request wasn’t feasible. The CTO challenged and expressed disbelief in our numbers which we had thoroughly analyzed and confirmed as accurate. I felt like their reaction was due to our results conflicting with our business needs.

   After that, my manager began pushing me to prioritize data science tasks. He attributed the outcome of the meeting to my lack of attention to detail, even though the results were accurate. He also said this would affect my next performance review. We reached a resolution when I apologized and committed to improvement. I’ve only received positive feedback since, but I still feel the assessment was unfairly based on such a brief meeting.

   Now I view the company and my manager differently. Without the positive work relationships with management and colleagues, I’m not sure what is keeping me here. Our tech stack is outdated, and there’s reluctance to change practices. For example, we didn’t have a CICD pipeline until only a few months ago. Additionally, the performance review and promotion schedules are nebulous and irregular.

   I’m uncertain about my next steps. Should I address the perceived unfairness of the meeting feedback? Or would it be better to start exploring other job opportunities?

This episode is sposored by OneSchema, the best way to build CSV import into your product.

Check OneSchema out at https://oneschema.co/softskills

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I joined a startup at the peak of the tech bubble which sadly means that my equity was based on the company’s valuation which was very over-valued. To corroborate this, the company has not grown much in terms of users or revenue. The company also had a layoff just like many startups.

   As even public or unicorn tech companies are often devalued by 50-75%, I think it is reasonable to say that my equity grant is worth a lot less and I’m being underpaid.

   Most likely, I will leave the company anyway for some other reasons, but I was curious whether it would be reasonable to ask for significantly more equity. From a pure financial point of view, if a company is valued 75% less then asking for 2x does not seem too unreasonable to me, but I can see that it can be seen as too calculative and the company may be unwilling to grant more equity to that extent. What do you think?

   Assuming that asking for more equity grants is not unreasonable, I’m also curious how you would bring it up to your manager without looking to be too greedy.

2. I have been a software engineer at a large finance firm for around 2 years out of school. My team works in a hybrid model but most of my meetings are still remote.

   At least once every couple weeks when I try to ask a question or otherwise participate on a group call or more rarely when I’m responding to a question about my own topic I get interrupted and completely cut off by more senior people on the call, such as my manager, product owner or architect. The other developers and technical people rarely interrupt each other.

   Some other details: I try to wait for pauses before speaking, and have tried reiterating after the new topic changes again but often it’s just too late. I also tried ignoring the interruption and continuing to speak but I really don’t enjoy having to do this in order to be heard and it feels disrespectful.

   I’ve noticed this also happens to other more junior members of the team, most of whom are much more reserved in meetings than I am. Another thing to mention is its not really a problem for me during in-person meetings.

   Am I being a special snowflake to find this annoying and humiliating or is it just par for the course of being a more junior member of the team?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Kate asks,

   Hi Dave and Jamison!

   I’m in a situation where my predecessor, Jane, was a super helpful “Mary Poppins” type. She did anything and everything beyond her role for the sake of being a team player. I was told she even went as far as providing homemade snacks for meetings.

   I, on the other hand, am a one trick pony; I only do the tasks I’m paid for. I’m often indirectly compared to her and worry I’ll be seen as an inadequate despite doing my duties well.

   Should I go with the “ol reliable”? Or wait to see if her legacy fades? Thank you so much!!

2. I’ve been involved in a project (architecture, design, code review) that has been ongoing for several months now, and I’ve put many hours and days supporting the project success, but only on the engineering side and not the PM. The obligatory announcement email blast came not too long ago, and my name was dropped from the pretty long list of people who have been involved with the different aspects of this project. On one hand, I feel that I should have been acknowledged for my contribution to the project success, especially when exposure to LT is at play here, but on the other hand I don’t want to play politics at work, I want to make great products for our customers while learning a lot and working with smart people.

   My question is should I care? I hate the fact that it’s even bothering me.

This episode is sposored by OneSchema, the best way to build CSV import into your product.

Check OneSchema out at https://oneschema.co/softskills

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Hello Jave and Dames, Long time listener short time Dev. Big fan of the show, my confidence in my skills as a programmer has always been pretty low so having a podcast centered around the “soft skills” instead of more complex topics like “Covariance and Contravariance”, “Temporal Logic”, or “Basic Addition” gives me the strength to press further on.

   Onto the question, how do you gain more confidence in yourself as a developer and not feel like a burden to your team?

   I’m a recent graduate with a bachelors in CS. During my time in University I struggled and took more time to grasp many of the concepts than my peers. After somehow graduating I was too scared to even look for a programming job for a full year.

   After being encouraged by some amazing people I finally applied and started a job as a Junior Dev for a software company and I’m now in a constant state of screaming internally. Everyone there is so much smarter, the training routine consists mostly of being given a project then having to stop another developer for help. And we program in an IDE and language that is so underused and underdocumented that I won’t name either for fear of doxxing the company.

   I actually like the job, my coworkers are super nice. My project manager is the same and cares about the team. I’ve finished the projects given to me on schedule so far and of course it’s pretty nice making more than minimum wage + tips.

   Any advice on how to gain confidence? I’m programming and learning in my off time but I’m still worried one day they will see me for the weak chain in the linked list I am and will delete me from existence and linkedin as I’m assuming is standard for firings in the tech world.

   P.S. If you tell me to quit my job I will simply find a second job to quit, Checkmate.

2. Listener SuperSonny asks,

   My boss and myself have a difference of what is a value added activity to the company. Even when we agree that our end goal is the same our approaches are night and day different. We have discussed this many times and understand we are different people but can this relationship work? This has created a lot of tension in our work relationship. Can two people at different ends of the “thought process” spectrum work together?

This episode is sposored by OneSchema, the best way to build CSV import into your product.

Check OneSchema out at https://oneschema.co/softskills

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. My employer offered a retention bonus after:

   1. The CTO left two weeks after I arrived
   2. Two weeks later 1/4 of the staff was laid off
   3. Two weeks after that the COO left
   4. Two weeks after that 2 board members resigned
   5. Three or Four weeks after that the Director of Engineering left

   What does that mean? What do I look out for?

2. I discovered your podcast just about 2 weeks ago and I love it, and I listen to them daily when driving to office, this make forced RTO feels a little bit better.

   I am currently a mid to senior SWE at FAANG. For the past 1.5 years I have been trying to interview for other opportunities at Staff level. I have good result with coding and design interview but I felt like I’m always falling short at behavioral questions. Example is “Tell me a time when you have a conflict”. How do I go about showing seniority in these type of questions? I led a few projects and powered through a lot of conflicts to deliver results at my company, at the same time I can’t think of a particular methodology I used to get through them. There were times I compromised, pushed back hard, meet halfway depends on situation. I dont want to show i’m a pushover at the same I don’t want to show i’m not easy to work with. What are the signals they are looking for for a Staff level engineer in behavoral style questions

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I am a senior engineer working in a team of 7. My team lead went through a pretty rough divorce in December. Since then he’s been quite distracted and disengaged at work. I decided to help him out by temporarily taking on some of his responsibilities.

   Over the months things seemed to have gotten worse. He shows up late for the 10am standup meeting almost every day. He never contributes anything in stakeholder meetings. I am effectively leading the team at this stage.

   Last week we had a one-on-one meeting to conduct my annual performance review. I wanted to discuss my situation and a potential promotion/raise. Instead he spent the entire hour crying about his life situation. He also shared with me that he has been heavily drinking and doing drugs for the past few months. He is clearly in a very dark place. I have experience with depression so I was able to empathize and offer some advice. I genuinely feel bad for him and I’m a quite worried that he might not be OK.

   But now I’m in a difficult situation. I’m sleep deprived while trying to do the job of de-facto team lead/manager as well as my regular senior/IC role. I don’t think anyone in HR or management is aware of what is going on.

   I don’t know what to do about this. I feel that if I tell HR about the situation that I will be betraying his trust. (and I might even get him fired depending on how much I divulge)

   On the other hand if I do nothing then I’m the one who has to keep shouldering the burden without compensation. It’s also negativity impacting the team as I have no management experience while simultaneously my code quality is suffering.

   This is putting me under a lot of stress during a time when I’d love to spend more time with my newborn.

   Sorry for the long and difficult question. Even if you don’t answer it at least I feel better for sharing this with someone :)

2. Hi there! Long time listener, first time caller. I’ve been working at a small, seed stage startup for a little over a year as a senior IC and team lead. There are developers on another team who have been working at the company longer than me who have… questionable practices. For example, in production they set their log level to debug because they claim it is critical for them to find and fix bugs. However I’ve never seen or heard of an example of them actually using these logs to fix a problem, and this results in log spam and higher cloud costs. Whenever I try to open a dialogue about this or another one of their practices, they’re quick to deflect and insist on not changing anything. They don’t get defensive but just don’t want to do anything differently. Usually I give them my opinion and let them handle their own services but we’re seeing real financial costs to their decisions. I know our greatest costs are on people but I think we should still be responsible with our cloud spending. How can I get these other developers to Quit Their Job™ or otherwise be more open to new ideas for their practices?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. We’ve recently switched to mandatory 2 days of in-person work a week but my employee keeps working from home! Whenever I ask him to come in person he says sure but continues to work from home. When I confront him about not showing up in person he just says “sorry I wasn’t able to make it that day”. He’s a good employee so I don’t want to fire him, but I’m concerned about what upper management will say if/when they find out about this. What should I do?

2. Hi! I am a huge fan of the podcast and a longtime listener.

   I recently made a professional judgment call in a high-stress situation that, unfortunately, did not turn out well. It was an excellent learning opportunity for me. Both my team and mentors were very supportive and said they’ve all fumbled at one point in their career.

   I was understandably reprimanded in a private meeting with my manager. I embarrassingly started crying halfway through, which I’ve NEVER done before in a professional setting.

   I momentarily excused myself to regain my composure, but even after resuming I had to keep the the tissue box close by.

   It was awkward, and I could tell my manager was very uncomfortable despite being his kind demeanor. I am worried my reaction will call my reputation and professionalism into question. Please help! How do I recover from this?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I’ve been working with this fintech company for the past year as the only FE developer in a team with other 6 BE developers, but recently, I’ve noticed that the product team has slowly stopped including frontend (FE) tasks in the sprints. Moreover, they seem to have deprioritized FE tasks in general, allocating me only one task that I can extend at most to three days within a two-week sprint.

   This scarcity of work has been bothering me and has left me feeling unwanted in the team, which is particularly pronounced given there’s a significant amount of FE work that needs to be done, yet these tasks still don’t seem to make it into the sprints.

   During our one-on-one sessions, my line manager has given me good feedback, which leaves me even more confused about the situation.

   I’ve raised my concerns about the lack of work with my manager, who simply suggested that I discuss the issue with the product team or feel free to tackle a backend (BE) task. When I’ve tried to engage with the product team, they usually dismiss me with non-committal responses such as “we have some work coming.” and sometimes “we’re at max capacity as of the allowed story points in a sprint, try helping where you can”. Additionally, when I’ve attempted to take on some BE tasks, my colleagues often seem too busy to guide me through this new approach, leaving me in absolute frustration.

   Other FE developers from different teams seem to be shipping loads of features. Given these circumstances, am I genuinely unwanted on my team? What further actions should I attempt before quitting my job ? any advice is appreciated.

2. I suspect one of my colleagues is either not an actual dev or not as skilled a dev as they claim to be. During meetings, whenever they are asked a question, there is always a very long pause before they unmute, and sometimes when they do unmute, I hear the tail end of a different voice answering the question before they themselves answer the question. Should I bring this up to my manager?

This is a rerun of episode 307. Enjoy!

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I work for a big bank. I recently found out I am severely underpaid. I have only received “exceeds expectations” ratings since joining over 5 years ago. I rage-interviewed at a bunch of FAANG companies, made it to the final rounds of all, but always came up short on the offer.

   Expectations at my current job are low. I’ve been putting all my extra energy and time into my own startup idea with a group of small people, that shows a lot of promise.

   I so desperately want to leave my current job, but I can’t prep for interviews and work on my startup at the same time. I never interviewed since joining the bank over 5 years ago.

   I truly believe my startup can ultimately be my escape, but I’m just grappling with the fact that it may take years before I can quit vs. if I got a new job I’d have much better pay and not be depressed at my 9-5.

   P.S. are you hiring?

2. I’ve recently been placed as tech lead for a small group of 3 people, myself included. One of my teammates seems to be having a hard time communicating in a timely manner when they are stuck on something or when their task will be late. I’ve spoken to that person a few times individually on the importance of communicating early and often, but it seems like that person is happy to just muddle on until the time runs out.

   I’ve had to jump on to finish some work that was time sensitive and I’ve gone to greater lengths to slack dm on how things are going. It’s getting old. I don’t want to be micro managing. Each time I bring it up with them, it seems to get through but never manifests in action. I’m not sure if this person realizes the impact that lack of communication has especially in a remote first setting. A sense of urgency might be helpful in some respects.

   At one of our 1on1 dm chats the topic of imposter syndrome came up and we shared our mutual struggles with it. I’ve tried to encourage that person that my dm’s are open and can help but I can’t keep checking in. There should be some ownership on their end to getting help from me. How do I get this person to communicate more, share blockers or confusion so we can finish our work on time and learn on the way?

   Love your show, long time listener, first time caller.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Do you think an EM should only be involved with management tasks, and let the members handle the technical stuff, or should they have some technical expertise to manage things like architecture reviews or handle urgent incidents?

2. Hello! Love the show, thank you both for all the knowledge. I discovered this podcast when I was struggling as a newbie who was learning on the job at a tech firm two years ago. By applying your advice for fellow listeners to my own situations, I now find myself a well-regarded senior frontend engineer in fintech. I’ve noticed that a big reason for this is my communication, organizational, and soft skills (English major and former operations manager). What really sets me apart is my effective and friendly collaboration with junior devs, tech leads, and product managers alike. As I work towards becoming a principal engineer, should I lean into extending and displaying these aforementioned skills, or are they actually “time sucks” since they are more fitting of a managerial track?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Listener Thor asks,

   Is there a chance the tech stack I choose throughout my career will hurt my chances to shift direction towards project leading/managing in the future? Say, I do mostly frontend, will this affect the way people see my broader understanding of projects etc. compared to people in roles such as architect?

2. Listener Travis asks,

   My company is starting to expand across time zones. The majority of the company is based in one time zone and a handful of employees are spread across others. I want to emphasize the importance of asynchronous communication. I have begun to feel like I need to respond ASAP to Slack messages instead of when it is convenient.

   If we were to say Slack is used for asynchronous communication, is asking the team to use Signal or even text appropriate for a quicker response?

   What is a good way to handle reaching out to team members in cases where a response is needed more immediately?

Show Notes

• https://m.signalvnoise.com/is-group-chat-making-you-sweat/

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Greetings from Germany! My job is creating a customized Windows installation image with PowerShell & C#. It takes about 2 hours to build and test an image. Sometimes I have to wait until the end to see if a change did actually work or not. During that time I usually browse the web / watch Youtube / read a book. This makes me feel like an impostor, because I am maybe working 10-25% of the time. Since I’ve only been with this company 1 year, 6 months, I don’t really have any other things to do in that time. Most of my colleagues have been with the company for upwards of 10 years and work in multiple projects at the same time, so they don’t have this issue.

   On the one hand, I don’t feel like I’m doing anything wrong. On the other hand, it feels like fraud. Should I feel guilt and if so, what should I do about this situation?

2. I am a software engineer at a large tech company in middle America. I like my job, like my leadership, and am fairly compensated for my work. In fact, I’ve been told I’m about to be moved up a level! When (if 😅) I get the new job title, I believe the responsible thing to do is to update my resume and LinkedIn account so that if (when 😳) my management or role changes for the worse, I can take your advice and find a new job.

   However, I haven’t updated my LinkedIn profile since I graduated college. How can I update my LinkedIn without worrying or upsetting anyone? To complicate matters, my entire team moved on to better things in the last six months, so suspicions are already high.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Listener Schtolteheim Reinbach III asks,

   Hey soft skills engineering, love you guys. I work at a company you wouldn’t hear much about, on a product that you wouldn’t think about as having much tech involved- suffice it to say, it makes me interesting at parties.

   I’m not a developer myself, but on my team, I’m having an issue with a developer who can’t seem to use GitHub properly. Fairly often, whenever he fixes or creates things, he doesn’t seem to check them in properly, and between releases, numerous times, this has caused people to end up reproducing work, for the developers, business team, and QA alike. He’s been at this company for several years, and people have only complained, but no one has made an effort to fix it.

   I don’t manage him, and I can’t see the processes that are in place on his end, how do I go about reducing the amount of regressions that are created due to a developer who can’t Git? I’m also interested to hear if you two have similar stories about devs who can’t Git, or if you’ve been that dev, and what happened.

2. I quit my job and got a new one! What should I be doing during the initial ramp up period that shows I am a skilled engineer even though I do not know the main languages they use? Also any advice on the non-tech side of ramping up? What should I be doing besides learning the tech stack and fixing bugs? Thank you for all your help and feedback.

Show Notes

• https://xyproblem.info/

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. At work, I occasionally mix names of people in my team when I refer to them in meetings. My mother used to do this with my siblings when I was a child and I hated it. I guess I am getting older. Should I just accept the defeat? Any suggestions how to deal with this?

2. How do I find areas to improve without critical feedback? I’ve had regular 1-on-1s with multiple people over the years (managers, mentors, tech leads), and asked for feedback regularly. Yet, most, if not all of the feedback I received was positive. Even when I stress that I want to receive critical feedback as well, the other person tells me that they do give such feedback to other devs, they just don’t have anything to criticize!

   This sounds like a humble brag, but I’m concerned that I will stop growing and improving if this goes on. I’m also a bit worried that deep down, the managers/leads just keep quiet to keep me happy - either because we have a friendly relationship, or because I’m one of the only women on the team (not trying to accuse them of sexism, but lets be real - “locker room talks” are held back when I’m around, and it might cause some people to be less frank to avoid possible “‘drama”).

   Due to the lack of direction, I’m trying to look at my senior colleagues and what they do better than me - do they have more technical knowledge, do they communicate better, etc. - but it’s often hard to apply to myself due to specializing in different areas, having different personalities and so on.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Hi Dave and Jamison!

   What do you do when one of your immediate teammates is constantly competing against you?

   I really don’t like competition. Ignoring the competitiveness + praising his value did not work.

   Some examples:

   • Leaving code reviews comments showing off obvious knowledge which does not really add value to the PR
   • Constantly harassing you to pair on trivial matters (I think because “pairing with someone less experienced” is a trait desirable in our engineer scoring framework)
   • Picking up a bigger version of whatever ticket you just did
   • Trying to be the first to “answer your question” in public without actually answering the question (this makes it difficult for me to actually get answer for question I ask because other would think it’s “resolved”)

   Part of me feels flattered that somebody who has more years in the job sees me as worthy of competing against, but at some point it became annoying and counterproductive.

   Appreciate your thoughts. Please don’t tell me quitting my job and saying goodbye once and for all is the solution😂

2. I am graduating this year and have received two job offers. They are both very similar in terms of pay and benefits, the only difference is that one is fully remote and the other is hybrid (2x a week in person).

   I would normally jump on the chance to work remotely, mainly due to the fact I am a bit socially awkward and shy. However, I am conflicted if I should accept the hybrid offer as an opportunity to work on my social skills and experience working in an office sooner rather than later.

   ‌

   Should I just accept that my personality isn’t suited for in-person? Have you ever had anyone on your team be socially awkward/shy? How did you feel about them?

   PS. Have you guys ever thought of releasing merch? I’d love to buy a “space lawyers tshirt”. Thanks!!!

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. During our next team meeting I jokingly gave a status report on the state of my desk and referenced the note.

   I believe this was the first time someone had publicly acknowledged the note writer, and it invoked a very passionate response from my teammates expressing their own annoyances with the anonymous writer.

   ‌

   It began to escalate the following week. Copy cat writers began writing their own sarcastic notes, and junior devs were (jokingly) doing handwriting analyses to find the culprit. I participated in none of this.

   However my manager pulled me aside to say he is now forced to address the situation due to someone filing an official complaint that I was “instigating workplace harassment” and that I created a “hostile, unsafe environment”. He informed me we will be having a meeting with HR regarding this incident.

   I have never had a meeting with HR before. I am very afraid of potentially losing my job due to this. I find this whole situation ridiculous and feel very frustrated. Please help me not make this a bigger mess than it already is.

2. Aaron asks,

   Last week I listened to a show where Jamison announced that he was looking for work, and specifically looking for small to medium startups. I have only worked at larger tech companies, and currently enjoy my position within one of the largest. However, I’ve always wondered what it would be like to work at a startup. What makes startups appealing? Is it still reasonable to expect a good work/life balance, or do you go in expecting a big shift in how you dedicate your time?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. A listener Steve asks,

   How long is too long to wait to be paid?

   I’ve worked for 4 early stage startups in my career. Two were successful. One failed. My current one is “limping along” but showing signs of taking off.

   At the startup that failed, we stopped getting paid and some of us stuck around for 2-3 months until the CEO closed the business. I ended up unpaid for nearly 3 months of work.

   At my current startup, we are 3 months behind, and it has been this way for 6 months. The CEO is transparent about fund raising and clients slow in paying invoices.

   My question is still how long before I follow your age old advice?

2. Listener Jess asks,

   ‌

   How do I get past survivors guilt when my company does mass layoffs, but I am not one of the casualties? I’ve been at the company less than a year, and this is the second time they’ve fired THOUSANDS of people, including from my team; folks I work with at least weekly, and folks who have been at the company significantly longer than I have. I feel guilty that I, “The new guy”, am still employed, but the folks who’ve been there for years aren’t. How can I get past this and keep working to ensure I’m not caught up in the next round of layoffs? My manager says I’m doing good work, and the layoffs included complex inputs, but it that only helps a little bit.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I recently started listening to your podcast from the very start of the show! One of the largest differences I noticed (aside from the audio quality, lol), is how often you used filler words like “um”. How on earth did you manage to stop using them? In work presentations and demos, I often end up using the filler words, and listening to the recordings later is painful. The rehearsed parts of the presentation go smoothly, but as soon as I go out of the “script”, I start depending on filler words. How do I get better at this?

2. How exactly should spikes go? I’ve done some deep dives to understand the scope and steps of an upcoming effort, all with detailed write-ups, only to later realize during the implementation that I got some things wrong or missed out some important details. Isn’t that the point of a spike, to root out any unknowns or surprises? Short of just doing the actual implementation, which I’m pretty sure is also missing the point of a spike, What am I doing wrong and how can I properly present post-spike findings to my team?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. My architect is too busy with his kids! His kids have had a lot of school and medical issues over the last few months and he’s ended up flexing a lot to take care of them. This causes meetings to get rescheduled or scheduled far out in the future, which is contributing to timeline delays on some large projects that need more attention.

   I don’t want to be rude and insist that he put the company above his family, but he needs to be driving organizational alignment, not his kids! I’m stressed out by not knowing when he’ll be available and having to do extra work or take important meetings without having him as backup!

2. ‌

   Can you help me understand what happened here? I was put on a ‘performance improvement plan,’ and it became pretty clear to me from the negative feedback at my first review that I simply didn’t have the skill to perform at the level that was being asked for. Instead of immediately looking for a new position, I decided to take some personal time off to work on myself and my mental health, and to use the remainder of the performance improvement plan time to prepare myself emotionally and financially for that. I didn’t blow off work, but I also wasn’t invested in the performance improvement plan either. A few days before my final review, I quit instead of being terminated. Management seemed really confused and angry when I quit. Why would they be so upset if they were about to terminate me anyway? One in particular started backtracking and pretending like I wasn’t going to be terminated.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I work at a startup that makes embedded devices and the software that runs on them. Everyone on the tech team does both. We recently hired someone to lead the tech team to give the CTO more time for other duties. My new boss is incredibly experienced with hardware design and embedded systems and has been in the industry for a long time (40+ years). However, they are not familiar with modern software practices like version control. They will frequently ask us to do things like delete all copies of a broken version of software. When we try to explain how git works they will ask us to make a new repo with the now working version of the software even if the fix was a 1 line change. How can I politely explain that they just don’t understand how this works and correct them without being rude?

2. What’s a “normal” rate of performance firings on a team/engineering department? I recently got a new job at a growing startup, and it’s fairly uncomfortable seeing the ghosts, on messaging apps and docs, of like 6 people in the ~25-person department who’ve been fired in the last half year. With that said, the department is continuing to hire, so I don’t think this necessarily means I should be worried. But does that sound like an unusual amount of performance-based firings?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I work for a startup with a distributed team. Recently one of our clients experienced a production outage. As a small startup, we do not have an on-call rotation, and teams usually resolve issues during business hours. However, during this particular incident, most of my colleagues were on annual leave due to an Easter break, leaving only 10 out of 70 engineers available to assist. Although none of these 10 engineers were part of the team responsible for the outage, I was familiar with their codebase and knew how to fix the problem. Additionally, I had admin access to our source control system which allowed me to merge the changes required to resolve the issue. This was the first time I had done this, but my changes were successful and the problem was resolved.

   Now that the break is over, the team responsible for the codebase is blaming me for breaking the process that requires each pull request to have at least one approval and for making changes to “their” codebase without their approval. They want to revoke admin access from everyone as a result. However, I disagree with their assessment. While it is true that I made changes to a codebase that was not directly under my responsibility, I was the only engineer available who could resolve the issue at the time. I believe that helping our clients should be the priority, even if it means bending the rules occasionally.

   Did I make a mistake by making changes to a codebase that was owned by another team without their approval? Should I have refrained from getting involved in the issue and adopted a “not my problem” attitude since the responsible team was not available?

   Thanks and I hope I’m not getting fired for helping a paying client!

2. J Dot Dev asks,

   ‌

   What’s the worst thing you’ve had to do as a software engineer with direction from your employer?

   Years ago at a webdev shop we had a client who didn’t want to pay for e-commerce set up.

   My boss’ solution was to implement a form that included name, address, and credit card information fields that we would read on form submission and then email all of that information to our client in plain text.

   “Is that really ok?” I asked my boss. “Why wouldn’t it be?” “Isn’t that insecure?” “Only if they have her password. Just make it work so we can be done with them.”

   To top it off, they also had me email the information to myself just in case the email didn’t go through to the client or in case they accidentally deleted it, so I’d have all of this information just hitting my inbox.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. My manager finally exploded. They screamed and insulted our whole team because one teammate had a 4 day delay on a 2 week task.

   Our manager Theo (fake name) was recently promoted and now on top of managing our team of 7 engineers, they also manage 2 other managers with 6 engineers each. I have noticed that Theo is under a lot of stress and as one of the two senior engineers in my team I tried to support him with planning and organization tasks. Sadly, it’s reached a point where if Theo doesn’t calm down, the whole team might implode.

   Last week, after one mid-level engineer in my team surfaced that the two-week project he was working on was going to be delayed by 1 week, Theo called the whole team up for an emergency meeting. There, Theo screamed at us for 15 minutes and insulted us as a team and our work in general. The gist of it was that we are not real professionals if our estimates can’t be trusted and that Theo has given us too much freedom. Theo said that if we keep on behaving like ‘[expletive] children’, then he will start to treat us as such and sit next to us while we do our homework. After their screaming monologue, Theo refused to hear any response and left the meeting.

   Chatting with my team members, no one felt very motivated by Theo’s rant. I would like to approach Theo with some constructive feedback, but I fear he might not be in a very stable state of mind. I’ve never had a boss treat me like this in my 12 years as a SWE. What should I do? Is this HR worthy? Should I document it in some way? Is talking to my skip level an option?

   Thanks

2. At the age of 36 I am having what feels like a midlife crisis. After grad school, I fell into a well-paying job at a giant Fortune 100 tech company and have been doing well here. I’m a senior engineer on my team and have consistently good performance reviews, but, I have zero passion for the industry. I have never been that into computers and I just don’t care about making them run faster! My spouse and I have enough money saved that I could comfortably afford to not work for a year. I’d really love to take some time off but I’m paranoid that I’ll never be able to regain my earning power. I’m the primary wage-earner in my family and my spouse makes about a third of what I do, so if I never go back to work then it will be a severe lifestyle hit, like having to sell our house and stuff. What do you recommend? Possibly-relevant context is that we had our first child just a few months ago and so I now have much more angst about wasting hours on silly meetings when I could be with my daughter instead.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I’m not a software engineer, so you can stop reading here if you like ;-). I listen to this show every week as the soft skills you discuss are just as applicable to my role as an electronics engineer.

   I have 5 years of experience and in my opinion, the right level of competency to step in to a senior role. I recently started a new job and I’ve been encouraged by my boss to be more proactive in taking on senior work so I can be considered for a senior engineer promotion. The problem is, the existing senior engineers in my team are uninterested in sharing their workload with me. I will try to assist them with their senior-level tasks but it never lasts long as they will carry on with the work themselves after a short while. I’ve also been assigned senior-level tasks by my boss and when I’ve asked for small levels of assistance from the senior engineers they’ve taken it as an invitation to do the rest of the work for me.

   My boss is indifferent to my struggle as he only cares about the output of our team as a whole and not who does what. I know that I’m performing well as I was recently given a good performance review, so I don’t understand why I’m being denied these chances to step up.

   I don’t want to quit as I just started this job and the pay is good. But I also don’t want to just sit idly as a mid-level engineer while everyone I know gets promoted. What can I do?

2. I am a junior dev and recently accepted a C2H position at a large enterprise company as a junior developer. I work closely with 3 or 4 other devs.

   Over the past couple of months, I have increasingly taken the lead on the project that I am working on, while the Lead Dev (also a C2H from a different agency) has taken a back seat and essentially stopped doing any work. The last time Lead Dev committed any code was over two months ago. Worse yet, Lead Dev is tracking time and marking tasks as “complete” in our work tracking software without actually doing those tasks. Lead Dev also approves all pull requests without reviewing the code, so I have become the de facto code reviewer for the other junior dev’s pull requests. I seem to be the main dev taking initiative on the project and trying to move work forward.

   Our manager is quite oblivious to this situation. They see that work is getting done, so have no reason to put our team under the microscope. I like Lead Dev personally, but I feel like my alacrity is being taken advantage of while Lead Dev kicks back and relaxes, and I feel like I have become a “Senior Junior” developer as a result.

   I think the “right” thing to do is to make our manager aware of the situation, but I don’t know if that’s necessarily the *correct* thing to do. If so, how I should go about doing so; if not, what else should I do? Help?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Hi, have you ever been through a technical interview and bombed a question? I did, and it feels awful, especially when the question was easy but I couldn’t focus due to time pressure and stress. Do you have any tips for dealing with interview anxiety, and get rid of the bitter feeling if the interview goes bad?

   Thanks!

2. A listener Dustin asks,

   ‌

   Do tech companies or recruiters dig into our individual backgrounds during the hiring process? Also is there a bias towards part-time courses vs. Full-time? To keep it short, I’m 28 and from 18-22, I was homeless and involved with specific substances. Ultimately got on my feet around the age of 23 and now I’m currently attending university, part-time while working full-time. I have noticed a bias from full-time students towards part-time and I’m wondering if this happens as well in regards to employers?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I am a senior engineer looking to make staff. Every week at my one on one I ask my manager what I can do to improve and always receive the answer “keep doing what you are doing”, but when I receive my performance review, I don’t receive top grade or promotion and there are listed areas of improvement. How should I feel about this and what should I do?

2. I’m a software group manager for a medium sized applied research organization that deals with both software and integration onto hardware. I am fully remote while the rest of the company has returned to the office due to the integration work with hardware. I started managing just before the pandemic. What are some effective strategies to deal with this setup? What are some typical gaps or issues to look out for? How can I reassure team members that may be skeptical of this setup, as well as peers and my bosses? I do have full support from above as of now.

   My rough thoughts so far include: be candid about limitations of this setup, experiment and iterate quickly on communication and collaboration processes, solicit regular feedback, and use it as an opportunity to grow members of my team into seniors and tech leads by having them focus on mentoring juniors and managing integration with other teams.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Hey Dave and Jamison, long time listener of the show. looking to get your advice on dealing with guilt at work. Lately, I’ve found myself in a lot of situations of having to deal with bugs/incompleteness after pushing out a feature. It’s not my intention to be careless and I do feel like I’m giving it my 100% but there seems to keep being thing after thing that I’m not catching. It’s impossible to sweep these things under the rug when you have to put up a follow-up pull request to fix something that was clearly your fault. I feel like every once in a while is okay but when it starts to become a pattern, I wonder how this may reflect on my performance review. My coworkers aren’t letting on about any frustrations they may have but every time this happens, I can’t help but feel shameful of myself and it’s causing my anxiety to hit the roof. I’m waking up for work each morning wondering what’s it gonna be this time and feeling pits in my stomach.

   Please help.

2. What are your thoughts on low-code platforms? I feel they will end up like WordPress (small companies with the tools in a varying degree of spaghetti that pay a contractor to clean up)

   I found myself on a team that wants to use it, and I feel like it’s a detriment to my career. I feel like another employer won’t take me seriously in an interview as I try to explain my way around it.

   Is this something I should be concerned about being in too long? I’ve voiced my concerns, but it doesn’t seem like direction is changing. What would you do? How do you feel about low-code in general?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Our small team where I work as a senior software engineer has a new engineering manager. They don’t trust me at all and verify simple technical things like how git rebase works, in the middle of meeting calls. I feel micro managed. Calling me on slack (slack huddle) without prior notice breaks me out of my flow. Recently they called an “Architecture meeting” and ended up talking about 2 spaces vs 4 spaces and other trivial stuff. I just felt like the facepalm emoji for the entire time of the call.

   They are technically good, but lack depth. For some reason they think know better than everyone else in the team. Unfortunately, they are my boss. How do I politely tell them, in a professional way, that they have to back down and trust the team? Any help would be highly appreciated. Thanks a lot.

2. Federico asks,

   Hi! I’m a junior engineer. Our project managers are really crappy. I keep getting wrongly managed and “exploding” projects, where in the last days everything goes wrong with the client. Should I take a project management course so I can organize better my projects and discuss with project managers how to prevent this? I don’t know how to make them work like they should.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I recently applied for a job for a great company. The interview went well until we talked compensation. I said I expected to get a pay raise for changing jobs, but it seems that they can only offer me as much as I already have. I have never negotiated salary before. With my current job (which was my first) I happily accepted what they offered and we have had regular bumps without negotiations.

   Although I am really interested in the job, I feel like it is a defeat not to get a pay raise when I’m changing jobs for the first time in my career. The benefits are also not as good.

   Do you have any advice? Should I lower my expectations for a non-consulting position and switch despite not getting a raise? Should I negotiate harder? Wait for something better?

2. Hi Dave & Jamison,

   we recently started a new project with a new team of devs that never worked together before. The team consists of two experienced backend devs, two junior backend devs and a couple of frontend devs. One of the junior backend devs has a mindset of just jumping into tasks, doing things without any previous analysis, just writing code for the first thing that comes into his mind. I like him being proactive, but this is causing big trouble: bugs, technical debt and often absolutely useless code. We had several discussions in the team pointing out some of the problems, but he is not interesested in changing his behaviour. During the last discussion he didn’t react to any of our arguments, just insisted on doing things his way. After that discussion we realized he even made some commits on an issue that has not been in the sprint nor has been refined yet _while we were talking to him_.

   Our team has no dedicated lead nor a scrum master and we work remote only. The next organization level is our CEO. I love the company, i love the team, i love the project, i even like this dev on a personal level. If we talk to the CEO i suspect it might have a bad ending for the junior dev since he is still in probation period. I know that we must talk to our CEO if things do not change.

   Do you have any advice? How can we reach him?

   Thank you for your great show!

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I have around 14 years of experience and was recently promoted to a Head of Engineering role. I am now leading an engineering department of around 75 people. I’ve become increasingly ‘hands off’ with coding, and it’s been at least 2-3 years since I wrote code regularly. My role is completely hands off technically.

   I’m questioning whether this is the right role for me. I want be more hands on, but I worry my skills are now so rusty that I’d have to start over and spend all my spare time learning to code again.

   Do you think it’s realistic to get back to a hands on engineer role at this point? Have you seen it done successfully before? Does walking away from this leadership role make it harder to potentially take on other leadership roles like CTO in the future?

2. Hypothetically speaking, let’s say that you were pretty sure layoffs were coming to your company even though they say they are cutting costs everywhere else that they can in order to avoid layoffs. Now let’s say that, hypothetically, in anticipation of this you took some interviews and received an offer from a company that you believe will ride out the upcoming economic downturn fairly well, and, hypothetically, you accepted the offer. Would you go to your manager and offer to take a voluntary severance, and in doing so, would you let them know you had something else lined up or would you leave that out and present it as just taking your chances while your severance checks were coming in?

   Thanks for doing what you do.

Show Notes

• https://charity.wtf/2019/01/04/engineering-management-the-pendulum-or-the-ladder/

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I’m a senior front end engineer at a medium sized tech company.

   During the good times of limitless tech growth, a common way for engineers to grow our “impact” (an important criteria at many companies for promotion) was to find ways to lead/manage more people, whether this was becoming a manager and having more direct reports, or becoming a tech lead and mentoring more people, especially interns and junior engineers.

   Now, with many companies doing layoffs and hiring freezes (mine included), teams simply aren’t growing and there just aren’t as many people to “impact”. What are some other ways to have more “impact” and grow my leadership skills? Both for hitting promotion criteria, but also for my own growth as an engineer that would like to be a manager or staff engineer someday.

2. I am a very senior engineer at my company. There is an engineer on the team less senior than me, but not under me on the management tree. This person is well regarded in the organization, but has a strong tendency to over-engineer things. Normally I don’t mind a little over-complexity if it means that the person leading the project is taking ownership/accountability of the feature. But with this individual, they tend to be put in a place to make sweeping decisions that broadly impact systems when it’s clear that they don’t really have a full picture of what’s going on. To make matters worse… when I raise these points directly, the person will usually offer to accommodate my concerns by further over-complicating their solution/architecture rather than stepping back and picking an approach more appropriate for the problem.

Show Notes

This episode is sponsored by the original podcast from Red Hat, Compiler. Listen to Compiler: https://link.chtbl.com/compiler?sid=podcast.softskillsengineering

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. A listener named Mike asks,

   I’ve been offered an Engineering Management position at a company I previously worked for. The team is very small and composed of juniors and mid-level developers. The role is also completely new and because of the size and experience of the team there is some expectation that the manager will also have a fair amount of involvement in PR reviews and likely also writing some code. Is this common? Do you feel like a manager can also be a team lead from a technical perspective on a day to day basis? What should I be thinking about when considering this role?

2. ‌

   How do I keep up juniors’ morale regardless of bad code/ideas? I work in a team of 4-5 developers. We have one junior, one mid (me), one senior and our team lead. I think we mostly work well. However, sometimes the senior and team lead sort of talk down at the junior. For example, in a meeting talking about how to solve a problem the junior will propose an idea, but the senior and/or both team lead would respond by saying that no its not a good idea which is fine. However the tone of the voice often hints ‘oh you should know this it’s obvious you jamoke’.

   The junior has started to stay quiet and has told me he doesn’t feel comfortable asking the seniors for help. I’ve interjected in meetings to say I understand why the junior might have this idea but I don’t think it’s the best solution. What should I do? Should I talk to the senior/team lead? Do I just let it play out?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Hello Dave and Jamison, thanks for your great work. Your podcast has the bizarre magical property of making me look forward to long drives. Keep it up!

   I have been feeling anxiety over losing my job to AI, especially after the all the ChatGPT stuff from a few months back. I know that it definitely isn’t flawless but I know that this technology will just keep improving as time goes on.

   I am a software engineer with 2 years of experience. I can’t help but feeling like I will lose this amazing career in the near future. I left my old line of work a couple years back and am in my mid 30s, so switcyhing careers again is a dreadful thought.

   Is there anything you can suggest to ease my anxiety? Will being more social with my coworkers, or aiming towards management help reduce my chances of being automated? Any advice will be great, thanks.

   PS: If someone tries to replace your podcast with an AI generated one I will boycott them and stick with you.

2. It’s review season! I am an IC software engineer, and I am required to document my impact for the last year. However, I work on an auxiliary team/new business team that is always trying to find new use cases for the existing product platform. If you look at the numbers, the impact is very low compared to the core business. Also, my team was disproportionally impacted by layoffs late last year. Lot of folks with institutional knowledge and good relationships with the core team were let go which disrupted our team and contributed to missed deadlines. How do I write my review for this bad year, with little to show for it?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I am an American student finishing my undergraduate degree in computer science in the Midwest this semester. I am concerned about the economic climate of the technology industry. I am doing my second internship at a major technology company this summer (Microsoft). After that I will go to graduate school and try to ride out the storm. I have applied nearly a dozen programs including one year and two year masters programs, and even a few PhD programs (MIT plz accept me). My biggest concern is having my offer rescinded. I thought there might be economic turbulence, so last summer I had my return offer place me in the most profitable and highest growth division of the company. How do lay-off decisions get made on the issue of rescinding offers versus laying off people? How can I reduce the risk of the offer getting pulled? I am working on finding another software engineering internship, but it’s extremely difficult to find any open roles.

2. Listener Andre says,

   I need a gut check here. I have a senior engineer on my team that does not perform well. He keeps procrastinating on tasks that I know wouldn’t take much effort. I think it would be great for the team and the company to substitute this engineer for someone with more passion. One idea I have is to volunteer this person to my director to be laid off.

   It would be great for the engineer to feed on the potential 3-month severance package.

   Firing him doesn’t seem like an option because he does the bare minimum for his role.

   What would you do?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. A listener Daniel asks,

   How do I handle periods of time where I am just not productive as I used to be? I’m talking about periods of several weeks. For example, when your kids are ill all the time (daycare fun) or you are down because of XYZ.

2. How do you turn not really constructive feedback into useful feedback?

   I have a difficult time dealing with PR reviews from a specific colleague. They have a way to push my buttons somehow, it’s like even when they are actually right, the way they approach the subject or how nit picky their comments are just make it hard to take the feedback or start a healthy discussion. It prompts me to become confrontational. I know it’s not good to react like this, but I don’t feel comfortable talking directly to them about it to try to smooth things out. I don’t think its personal as I’ve seen this kind of comments on other people’s PRs too.

   I am aware this might be me being overly sensitive, but its like every time he is the one reviewing my PR I get the feeling of “oh, not this guy again” and need to mentally prepare for his comments. I’d like to find a way to take the core of the feedback that might be useful and kind of ignore the rest that might feel dismissive or opinionated, and I thought you might have some tools for this.

   The main reason I care about it is that this reflected badly on my latest performance review, as I had stellar feedback in general and the only improvement areas were that I should learn how to deal with mistakes or negative feedback better. I am aware it can be a weak point on me , but I know that a big part of that comment from my manager comes from my interactions with this specific colleague.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I think the new hire on my team is juggling multiple jobs.

   On several screen shares, I’ve seen them quickly close IDEs with third party code, browser windows with what look like a third party jira instance, etc. Maybe that’s some open source project, or a jira instance where they’re reporting a bug, but it seems fishy. In the latest instance, this person meant to post a link to the Jira issue they’re working on in our company Slack, but accidentally posted a link to a ticket on some other company’s Jira. I did some digging and this is definitely not a public-facing Jira instance. It’s internal for their employees only.

   Normally if somebody could do both jobs competently, I’d say good for them and they’ve earned both salaries. However, their performance hasn’t been great. We’re still in the onboarding phase and a lot of missteps could be excused by that, but I’m starting to worry that this person’s goal is to offer only mediocre performance at this job (and probably the other one as well) and we’re unlikely to see expected levels of improvement as they continue to get up to speed.

   Am I being paranoid? Should I raise my concerns with management or give it more time to shake out? Is there a clever trap I can set to *prove* my suspicions for sure?

2. I recently joined a large software defined telecommunication company, only to be surprised that their internal blind space is very quiet and very few ppl are on blind if any, how do I change this ? how do I get ppl to use blind more? without giving away my blind account. quitting my job is not an option due to the economy

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Listener Mattoosh asks,‌

   I’m the last remaining support specialist on a really old, not actively maintained, but still lucrative SAAS product. I’m stuck. As a front end engineer I want to work on other projects within my organisation to gain contemporary framework skills, but nobody can backfill my workload. I know option A is “quit your job” but what other options do I have?

2. ‌

   I started my journey as an engineering manager at a startup. Over my stint, the company grew and so did the engineering team. Overall I received good feedback from the engineers but the founders didn’t recognize the value of this role and I felt that I wasn’t getting the required mentorship there to grow further. I ended up quitting. It’s been challenging to find another manager role. I get good feedback from the interviews but haven’t received an offer yet. I still am a good backend engineer but that is not what I want to keep pursuing. Appreciate any thoughts or suggestions on what I should do to bag one of these interviews as I don’t get that feedback from the panel. I don’t miss any of the podcasts and do enjoy the show.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I am a mid-level engineer with ~5 years of experience (1 year at my current company). My team has recently hired a new principal engineer, and I’m wondering how I can help the principal engineer. There is, as always, some organization-specific context that I am familiar with, and the principal engineer is not. As a mid-level IC, I am not used to being a repository of knowledge for engineers that many roles above me, and have only ever been on a team that hired engineers at my skill level or below. Are there general tips on how to provide help for someone who has much more experience than I do?

2. I have been in the industry for 5.5 years and have had 5 managers. My newest one (call them “S”) has been my manager for 4 months. Our communication is terrible. We do not understand each other and I am usually left feeling like I missed something or I am not interpreting his question correctly. I literally have told him “I am not sure what you want me to say” because that is better than “wtf”.

   I ended up crying in a meeting because I was so frustrated and confused. I know and trust my team mates. This is only the second time in my career where I just did not get along well with someone. The meeting was supposed to be some feedback for him and me, some career development, and some goals for 2023. It ended up with him giving lots of examples of technical deficiencies, the fact that I am unable to work independently (which is not true, I ask more senior engineers for help), the fact that I give him pushback (no duh why at this point). He even said I was careless because I made some silly copy paste errors in my code (which we all do and is human). [Sidenote: he does not code. He just sometimes asks questions on prs or gives nits.]

   I do not know what to do. His manager J used to be my manager. Should I talk to J about my issues since he knows both of us well? Do I go to my manager with ways that I would prefer our 1x1s go and how I personally like to get feedback? Do I ask for a new manager? I know he says he wants me to succeed, but nothing in the last 4 months have made me feel like that is true. I am a young woman in engineering, and I have never felt less trusted by a coworker. Especially the fact that I cried makes me feel like I may have lost more credibility to him. What do I do? Please help. I love my team. I just hate my manager.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Dear Dave and Jamison,

   I work for a medium sized startup, and our planning process sucks!

   We used to do quarterly planning, and it seemed like the product managers had no idea what was going on at a higher level. The big focus seems to have changed every quarter that I’ve been here, and the whole planning process is a charade: 75% of the so called ‘road map’ gets thrown away after a few weeks.

   Normally, this wouldn’t bother me, but I end up spending a lot of time in meetings helping these product managers come up with plausible timelines and making sure that what the business wants to build is actually feasible, and it’s bad for my morale to see so much of my work wasted.

   The product management team heard some of this feedback from me and others, and started changing to ‘continuous planning’, but now there is even less structure for when they build the big spreadsheet roadmap for the quarter. They bought new tools, and don’t seem to be using them.

   Should I suck it up and just check out or try and get a license to use the patented soft skills advice and quit my job?

2. Hi Dave and Jamison in no particular order.I have been listening to the podcast for a couple of months now. I have enjoyed every episode and and the advice you give.

   I am a junior software developer who has been working at a startup 9 months ago. I was offered a remote junior position and accepted even though the company is based in a neighbouring city. This made sense at the time because I would not have to worry about commuting to the office.

   3 months ago my manager suggested that I come to the office more often as this would benefit my development and give a me a chance to socialise with my co-workers. We agreed that I go in 3 times a week.

   Now the past few weeks there has been pressure to start coming to the office full time.

   I would be fine with this but the problem is that I currently do not own a car and have to rely on public transport to get to work. With public transport it takes almost 4 hours to get to and from work each day (I actually listen to multiple episodes of the podcast on each trip) There is about 40 minutes of walk time included in that because the nearest bus stop is not close to the office.

   As you can imagine that is physically draining and also affects my work life balance as I spend almost 15 hours of the day either travelling and working. My biggest concern now is that 9 months ago If I was offered this job but as full time on site I would not have even considered it.

   Do you have any advice with how to refuse going to the office more often without making it seem like I’m opting out of an option that is more beneficial to my career. Thanks in advance.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Greetings Jamison and Dave, love the show and all your shenanigans! I’m a mid-level dev who has quit my job (TM) a few times. While I feel like I’ve absorbed some good experience from each company I’ve been at, I also feel like my training is not yet complete.

   At my last company, I hit my ceiling as a dev but I also felt the bar was really low. I had to do a lot of hand holding and fielded a lot of engineer questions that could have easily been Googled and it was really frustrating. But now I’m at a place where I feel everyone else is heads and shoulders above me. The tables have turned! I’m trying to learn as much as I can on my own but I’ve found there are limits to what I can do. I feel like I’m drowning but I’m timid to ask too many questions because I remember how annoying it was to get pinged every 10 minutes at my previous job.

   What are some tips you have to navigate the murky waters of being a mid-level dev wanting to learn as much as possible to become a seasoned dev without giving off an “intern smell”?

2. Listener Charlie,

   Nearly all your answers presuppose a software engineer has a good manager and leadership. Why is this?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Long time question asker, first time listener. I recently started to go back through the original episodes of this podcast where a few episodes were themed were around networking, open source work, and building your personal brand. I just wanted to share my “NETWORK=NETWORTH” story. About a month ago my CEO was terminated by our board of directors, a week after it was announced that we were having layoffs for the vast majority of the company. I had been with this company for around 4 years, a lot of my work had been doing open source projects and interacting with various other companies. Unfortunately I was one of the people who was let go as part of these layoffs. I immediately reached out to various folks in the open source world that I’ve interacted with, seeing if their companies had any openings. Within two weeks I was able to interview and get an offer without a technical interview. Building my “personal brand”, interacting with the open source community had turned a pretty stressful situation into one that was relatively a lot less stressful!

2. Listener Stochastic Beaver asks,

   I’ve recently joined a big tech company remotely and my team is super AWKWARD. No one says anything non-work-related in team chat. My manager is the only one with a camera on in team-wide meetings. I barely saw anyone’s face. When I try to chitchat about their life during in 1:1s, somehow they don’t feel like interested in talking about themselves so I eventually stopped asking anymore. In meetings, my manager is most vocal person within the team and the other people barely speak. As a result, it’s always feels like my manager’s one man show trying to make a conversation and discussion and throwing a joke and the responses are usually some ‘lol’ in the chat.

   It’s not that the team members are not engaged to the team. Everyone is very passionate and I usually see their work related messages, code reviews, and emails coming back and forth after the evening, even in weekends. Is this normal that all the people are extremely shy in the same team? I like the work and the problem we’re solving but sometimes I find that the silence in the air is suffocating me and I also want to establish a good relationship with my coworkers. Am I asking too much for them in ‘work’? Thanks for listening.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I have been at my job for 5 years since I graduated college. I love who I work with and what I do. My question is more about the future. I have a family now and I love my work/life balance and limited meetings as an IC. I used to confidently say “I want to be a manager and eventually a CTO.” Now I am less sure.

   I would love to help people achieve their goals, but I love coding and do not want to give that up. The thing I love the most outside of coding is bringing engineers together. I am in charge of a monthly meeting for BE engineers to share what they work on. I am good at getting engineers to show up to events. I have hosted other demos and events and potlucks that even the most quiet, introverted engineers show up and have fun.

   What options are there for engineers who love coding and want to have a bigger person impact, but are not 100% sold on being a people manager?

2. I recently interviewed at a large tech company. I did three interviews at the remote “onsite” and did well in two of them but flunked the system design one. Since I was interviewing for a mid level position, I feel like I missed some things that are inexcusable. I’m a very growth and career oriented person so I’ve been doing my due diligence and have been heavily studying system design concepts since. I haven’t received a response yet but I expect a rejection and I do think it would be fair, given my SD performance. However, if they miraculously come back to me with an offer, I would decline it, because this would mean their hiring bar is low and that’s not the level of colleagues I’d like to work with. I know this sounds very self righteous and so I’d like to hear your thoughts on it, since you guys are always very insightful.

   Thanks!

Show Notes

• https://thesystemsthinker.com/the-ladder-of-inference/

‌

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. My company recently had a big layoff - about 40% of engineers are gone. My job is safe (for now). About 6 months ago, I was promoted to a “Staff”-ish position that I’ve been really enjoying and looks great on my resume if I hold it for a good length of time.

   Besides just enjoying my job, I’ve just moved house and I have a baby on the way, so I’m highly motivated to have some stability (and get paid parental leave.)

   My gut says give it the 9 months to see how it all plays out - but my brain thinks my gut is an idiot. Interviewing while taking care of a newborn for the first time feels like an incredibly difficult thing to do and the job market may not be getting better.

   Do you have any advice for how to navigate this situation?

2. Big fan of the pod! How should I approach being slightly younger than my peers at the workplace? I graduate in December with my bachelor’s in CS but just turned 18 a couple of months ago. I’m actively interviewing at big tech companies and plan to start working as soon as I graduate. Should I avoid the topic or would it be completely inconsequential for my peers to be aware of my age? I’m looking to move up the ranks quickly, and can imagine many developers wouldn’t love knowing their manager is in their early 20s. For what it’s worth as well, I haven’t been open about being slightly younger in my university setting, as early on I noticed professors didn’t respect my contributions as much when they were aware of my age. What’s your take?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Listener ninjamonkey says,

   I am a new grad who is half a year into the role now at a very large company. Recently, a senior engineer on my team asked me to create a ticket for an infra team for a problem with a service. I provided logs and steps to reproduce the issue and did a health check before submitting.

   Right after, the manager of the team put me into a group chat with their team, asked why I created the ticket and told me to start doing my job and they can’t debug for me.

   From these interactions and comments on the ticket, it feels the infra team will likely not work on the tickets I report or de-prioritize them. This has left me discouraged and hesitant.

   I will have to do lots of this kind of infrastructure work in the future. Additionally, one of the goals my manager set for me is to work with more external teams for the upcoming year.

   What do I do here? Do I tell my manager about these interactions? Do I tell my team lead, staff/seniors to swap out for different kind of story?

2. I work for a small startup. I was the first employee other than the 2 founders.

   Being the first developer hired, naturally means I have the most knowledge about our application. I also have good organisational skills, which has led to me becoming and being referred to as the “Lead Developer”.

   I have recruited 2 of the 3 new developers, and have trained both of them and got them up to speed.

   At first I was pleased with the progression and was keen to grow into the position, and told the founders so.

   Since then, I have changed my mind, I don’t want to be the lead - due to the following:

   • The communication is absolutely pitiful. Any questions we ask of the founders we get about a 30% reply rate no matter the form of communication.
   • We get poorly defined tasks and requirements
   • The CTO will just blast through some of our features over the weekend and say here I fixed it for you

   I don’t want to quit my job (just yet… its a comin though).

   I have actually discussed the above points with them, but I know these 2 founders will never change their ways.

   How do I tell them I just want to go back to being an Individual Contributor like my Employment contract states?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Dan asks,

   Hey friends! How do you get ahead when your manager gives you mixed signals? I was told there would be lots of opportunities to work on exciting new projects when I interviewed for this role. After six months this hasn’t really happened and I’m beginning to get concerned it never will. Half the team is working on ‘new things’ while the rest of us are working on maintenance work. This is meant to be rotated but my colleagues tell me this isn’t the case. I’ve asked my manager in our one on ones if I can work on the next piece of new work but have got some odd responses. They told me if I want to work on better projects I should look in my managers calendar and invite myself to anything that looks good. This seems bizarre. Is it normal to lurk your managers calendar and just turn up at meetings that ‘look good’?

2. I’ve worked at small but mature companies for about 3 years now, and I feel that I’m soon coming to the point where you would expect me to be a senior engineer given my years of experience (which I’m aiming for!). I’ve struggled a lot to come up with ideas to add value to the team outside of the standard sprint tickets. I know these things aren’t “required” in the job scope, but often with teams at smaller companies, I worry my manager might think I’m not ready for a senior role if I’m not actively thinking outside the box about the team’s goals beyond the tickets I’ve been assigned.

   I do have a lot of initiative and independence, but the thing is I’m just not very creative. As much as I love tech, it’s difficult for me to dream of non-trivial ideas that would actually make an impact. I feel that if I want to progress in my career, I’m going to have to get better at seeing the bigger picture. What tips might you have?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I’m a few months into my first full time job, and the learning curve is immense. I feel like I’m falling behind and not keeping up with my work, as well as not understanding things that should be simple. I often feel I am wasting time on a lot of work that I do. How do I know if this is just an anxious feeling, or if I am legitimately falling behind?

2. I am currently a staff engineer and have a career goal to move into management. I have been with my current employer for 15+ years and positions to promote into just don’t come up. The tech i work with is not very technical, there is no coding and its incredibly specialized. I have applied and interviewed for manager positions outside of my team/company and i get the same feedback that i am well qualified, but there is someone with previous manager experience that beats me. I see it being forever if not impossible to get a manager position due to people needing to retire etc. If i go to another engineering position i feel like i would need to start over in a junior spot. What other options do i have.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I’ve joined a team at a small startup and our team lead has mentioned in passing a few times about a developer they used to have but had to let go. Not in a malicious way but just as a matter of fact when it’s come up organically. Now it’s eating at me because I’m not sure if I’ll ever go down that path and I want to know what they did so I can avoid the same fate. I’ve always been a top performer at other companies but now I’m wondering if this would be the one place where standards are higher than what I’m used to. I really like it here and don’t want to lose my spot. Realistically my fear isn’t that I’d get fired in my first six months but more that I would fail to respond to constructive feedback over the course of a year and end up getting let go in the same manner. Do you have any advice?

2. Hello! Long time lurker, first time question server.

   I am an intermediate software engineer and I work on a team that has a really tenured senior engineer. His attention is often required for a lot of things and the team can sometimes get blocked by him being pulled into many different directions.

   As someone that is trying to grow into a senior engineer myself, what are some ways to take some of the load off of him and improve the bus factor?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I have recently joined a team as a fully remote member, with majority of my team mates located in one city and meet in office every week. My manager wants me to work on earn trust and drive consensus, to keep me in track for promotion. Being remote, I am unable to get through my team mates effectively, when compared to my previous work settings where it was all on-site. Any tips for me?

2. Hi Jamison and Dave!

   I’m a long time listener and I really enjoy the podcast. I have a small question for you two:

   My coworker recently asked for my opinion on how to write some code and then implemented it a different way. They knew I wasn’t a fan of their implementation and even went out of their way to not get it reviewed by me. Now we’re left with this shared code that stinks.

   Their code works but it’s clunkier then it should be and it’s bothering me. Should I fix it when they’re on leave and guise it as a refactoring that “needed to be done” or should I leave it alone and try to learn some lesson from this.

   The other option is to quit my job but other this small hiccup - it’s been going ok here.

Show Notes

This episode is sponsored by the Compiler podcast, from Red Hat: https://link.chtbl.com/compiler?sid=podcast.softskillsengineering

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. ‌About a year ago I joined what it seemed to be the best company ever.

   It’s a pretty big, pretty successful company which has been fully remote for decades. They have a great work culture where async written communication is the norm. There’s no scrum, no micro management, no crazy and absurd planning/guessing meetings, etc. Of course we also have some pressure to ship product, but nothing out of the ordinary. Salary is good, work life balance is awesome, I like my team a lot and overall people are awesome too, so this sounds like paradise to me.

   However, on the technical side, this is the worst careless outdated bug-ridden untested unmaintainable inscrutable ide-freezing mindblowing terrible wordpress codebase I’ve ever seen in my life.

   No linters, no formatters, the repository is so big you can’t even open the entire thing on your editor and you need to open just the folders you’re touching. The development environment is “scp files to a production server taken out of the load balancer”. Zero tests, manual QA by a team mate before merging, outdated tooling, outdated processes, css overriden 10 times because nobody wants to modify any existing rule, security incidents hidden under the rug every now and then and the worst part: any attempt to improve this gets rejected. My team laughed at me when I tried to write an acceptance test in my early days. Months later I can see how ridiculous it looks now I have a better grasp of the technical culture over here.

   I’m towards the second half of my career. So “learning” and “staying up to date” with the trends is not my priority. I really enjoy this company and love working here until the moment I open my code editor.

   I’m seriously thinking on starting to look for another job, but I have this feeling that wherever I go the code might be slightly better but the perks will be worse. Now I understand why we have these perks, otherwise nobody would be here I guess.

   Have you been in this situation, or maybe the opposite one? Not sure what to do at this point.

   Thanks!

2. My team got a new manager about 6 months ago. While I’ve had managers all across the spectrum of weird quirks in my time as an engineer, this person has one that’s new for me, and I’m not sure how to handle it. He operates in a very top-down fashion, which isn’t unusual. What is unusual, however, is that he will insist that everyone on the team give him feedback on a given issue…and then inevitably just proceed with whatever he had decided beforehand.

   I take giving feedback very seriously, and spend a lot of time getting my thoughts in order when I’m asked to give input on something. Having someone request that and then immediately throw my input in the proverbial paper shredder is frustrating and a waste of my time, especially since the team and company are growing rapidly and there are a lot of these kinds of decisions that have to be made. How should I approach this? I don’t want to keep spending time and effort on feedback that’s going to be ignored, but I also don’t know a polite corporate-speak equivalent of “please don’t ask my opinion on this when we both know you’ve already made up your mind”.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. ‌

   I had a boss once who I was intimidated by. I did not know I was poor performing until I got a performance improvement plan. It was such a bad experience, I still feel anxiety from that day. Instead of pointing out how I can grow from my mistakes, all they did was point out my mistakes and the things I apparently was not able to deliver. And then they proceeded with reading from a pre-written list of steps to take in order to improve, right from the paper and not looking at me. It did not even feel like a two-way conversation. I felt mistreated and disrespected.

   I’m glad I grew from it though. I wasn’t really the person to quit when it comes to facing tough situations. I ended up staying for another year and getting almost promoted before I quit to move on to a higher paying job. It was a very redeeming process I suppose.

2. I have been at a small startup for 3 years. We are still in startup mode, underpaid and long hours. We have two developer teams: Team A and Team B. Team A slowly quit one by one. Team B is still here, including me. After my team lead resigned I was promoted to team lead. But… one week later someone from management shared with me, I believe by accident, a file with both teams’ salaries. I was shocked, really shocked. My team, Team B, has been paid less than Team A from the beginning even though we deliver more value. Also they didn’t even try to match my salary to the previous team lead. What should I do now? Go and ask for more money? Tell them I know? Talk to the rest of the team? I cannot unsee this. I don’t want to leave because I like the project and want to observe how well our technical decisions work out after several years.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I’m currently a junior engineer. I often struggle to understand speakers with accents. I became aware of this when I listened to a coworker in a meeting and barely understanding anything, but when I asked my other colleagues, it seems they got it completely.

   I know how to handle this in relaxed situations, but how do I handle it when the stakes are higher? (i.e. talking to higher levels and not wanting to ask too many questions based on my inability to hear them, interviews, …). How should I prepare to respond to these situations productively?

2. Hey fellas,

   As a backend dev of 3 YOE, I have what I would describe as average technical skills and much stronger than average soft skills. This has been reflected in my feedback across all of my jobs and while the feedback has always been very positive, almost all of it relates to my interpersonal and communication skills, as opposed to my technical chops.

   I’m wondering what’s the long term outlook for this is? I frequently receive more accolades and recognition from leadership than my colleagues whose technical skills and code output are objectively far superior to mine, simply because I communicate better and am more charismatic

   Given management’s favorable view of me, I have been ascending the ranks quicker than is warranted, beating out those that are much more qualified from a technical perspective. While I am able to complete the work that’s asked of me, I can’t help but wonder when I will stall as a dev and no longer be able to meet expectations, nor is it really fair to anyone involved.

   At this point, I can’t help but feel that I would be able to contribute more in a position that utilize my skillset more favorably, but I’m unsure what roles would be a good fit for someone like myself.

   Thanks guys!

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I’m planning to leave my job purely because of low compensation. I like my growth in my current company - but low compensation than what market is offering is quite a mental hiccup in my regular work (yep! I’m slowly becoming one of the quiet quitters). I’m thinking of going to my manager with my new offer and ask him to match it. Do retention offers actually work? As mangers yourselves, how would you want me to approach a retention discussion? I don’t want my manager to make my life hell under the pretense of “Oh he’ll leave in a year” if I do decide to stay after taking the matching offer. Love the show - pretty much my single source of wisdom for all my behavioural interviews xD

2. I was recently let go from a company. They said they would send me a shipping label so that I could return the hardware. I didn’t hear back from them for a week. A few days later a label came in for the laptop, but not for the dock or the two monitors they also sent.

   I did not enjoy my experience there and I’m feeling resentful at having to pester them so that I can get what I need to send them back their hardware.

   What is my due diligence on the score? I don’t even like the monitors.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Listener Olexander asks,

   I was a tech lead on some relatively known project since the beginning for more than a year. I made several trade-offs with technologies and wrong decisions. I participate in some generic Slack organisations and met several users of my product. I haven’t told them that I was connected to implementing the project but sometimes shared some insights on how the product is tested and asked opinions about some of features of the product in comparison to the competitors. Now there is a person who continuously critiques the product. Sometimes the criticism is valid but sometimes is’s just a rant. How can I influence that person without blowing my cover?

2. Listener Kieran asks,

   Hi guys! Loving the podcast from down under. I’m working part time as a dev while I complete my software engineering degree. It’s been fun, but there are almost no processes in place for development and not many other devs seem to care about improvement.

   Although I am the most inexperienced here I feel some of the devs do not care about the quality of the work as I often have to refactor some of their code due to it being buggy, slow and undocumented (still using var in javascript).

   I’ve talked to management about improving our standards. However, they brushed me off saying yeah some of the developers are stubborn. They are not brushing me off because I lack technicality as Ive been given an end user app as a solo project. How should I go about encouraging the team to improve our processes?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. How do you politely tell a reviewer politely, “Your suggestion is stupid. I will not do it” when you get stupid review comments. If you don’t do it then the pull request can’t move forward because of unresolved issues. If you do it, then you’re compromising your design you’ve worked weeks on for some fly-by random comment.

2. A few months back, I volunteered as co-facilitator for my department’s NodeJS Guild meeting. At first, it was a struggle to get people to present. But I tried to lower the bar more and more until it was easy. I asked for 10-15m presentations, and eventually I realized people are happier “Kicking off a discussion” than they are “giving a presentation”. All the listeners are more engaged too, at least after the first 2 meetings doing this.

   Now I want people to share half-baked code, or problems they are struggling with, as part of our discussions. I want people to be able to be vulnerable. If we don’t collaborate on common problems until we feel they’re polished and won’t reflect badly on us, then we will all waste time solving the same problems.

   I also want this to scale across 15-25 small scrum teams. I think success could be my demise–if we have good discussions, then more people will come, but people won’t want to be as vulnerable with a larger group.

   In general, I think my own scrum team is very open and vulnerable to each other, but the remote work in the deparment has created distance. I want to help create more collaboration on similar problems and solutions.

   What would you do to keep this going, and improve it?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I seem to be very hot and cold about how I feel about my job. Some days I hate it and think about quitting, but other days, I feel it’s not that bad and can stick around a little longer. The reason for it seems to change depending on the day, but a lot of it seems to center around the people around me (i.e. developers who need me to Google for them, business people who don’t understand how to provide requirements), but sometimes I can’t tell whether it’s an attitude problem that will follow me anywhere or if it’s just time to leave. It’s a relatively small company, so I feel like I would be betraying my manager who has invested a lot in me if I decided to leave so suddenly. I’d like to give my manager a chance to address my concerns, but I’m afraid to sour our relationship if I come across as a complainer. I’m also not confident there’s any solutions to my current frustrations because it seems to be a company-wide issue. How do I make sense of all of what I’m feeling?

2. I really like my company but their project management is atrocious, ad hoc, and “old school.” They’re not giving me privileges to configure Jira in ways that allow me to get stuff done.

   Is there an effective way to convince my CTO that I’m not going to screw up our secure systems or do I just need to find a new job?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. My company wants several complex applications rewritten. “Steve” wrote the original applications, and has been assigned to do the rewrite. There is very little documentation on the original applications, and the rewrite will take intimate understanding of the existing code and new requirements.

   Management assigned me to work with Steve. They warned me that since we have started working remotely after covid, Steve has been hard to get a hold of and not meeting deadlines. My job is to keep Steve on task.

   When I ask Steve a question he will respond “I’ll work on it tomorrow” or “I’ll have to look in to that.” Then I never hear from him again. If I tell management I haven’t been able to get a hold of him, they will contact him, then he will contact me asking “What can I help you with?” Again, all his answers will be “I’ll have to look into that.”

   Occasionally Steve will report to me that he has finished a task. But because he did it without me, I am even more confused about what needs done or how to do it.

   I feel like my job has turned in to tattling on Steve. I am afraid I’m going to be labeled a whiner and that this project will harm my career growth.

   Over the last 2 weeks my solution has been to just ignore the project. Management hasn’t checked in with me, but I’m sitting on a ticking time bomb.

   What should I do?

2. How to keep our sanity in times of uncertainty? I’ve recently changed jobs and despite the facts shows that I shouldn’t be worried, I can see my judgement is blurred by the fear of getting laid off even there’s no sign of it and I fear I would fulfill the prophecy!

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Listener Albert Camus asks,

   Hello Team. I am a long time listener of the show, and I really enjoy it. I’m a senior engineer and want to get to the next level in my career. I talked to my manager about this. I told them I preferred the technical side and staff engineer was the next level up. He responded positively, although he didn’t give me a timeline, not even a vague estimate. In a subsequent meeting they told me it wasn’t a linear progression at the company and there’s quite an overlap in the salary range between senior and staff engineer. I was also told that the company only had a few staff level engineers and they were considered experts at a particular sub-section of a technology. This makes me feel like I am being stalled. I have seen this a few years ago, at a previous workplace, where I tried for a promotion, and the manager at that place kept giving excuses to buy time. I am afraid that could be the case here as well. I am technically strong and have good soft-skills. I have designed, developed and documented multiple features for the company. Whenever there’s a complex bug, the product manager always turns towards me for help. I also handle inter-team discussions at times, always a part of the interview panel while hiring new team members and at most times the only person representing my team from the tech perspective during alignment meetings with the sales and marketing teams. I could also say with confidence that I bring more value to the table and have data to back it up. But I am not sure how I could use all this information without seeming desperate, to really push for that promotion and a raise. I could quit and get a new job, most probably with a promotion, but I have put in a lot of effort here and I intend to stay at the current company for at least the next couple of years to reap the rewards. What can I do to get that promotion in the coming year?

2. We know that the salary is high in our area, and I don’t need all this money. So, what is your opinion on part time job and how can I get one?

   I’m a senior frontend with more than 15 years of experience and just want to live a little.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I work at a small company that has recently grown from a couple of engineers to 40+ due to some great new project opportunities. As part of this transition, many new policies are being implemented. The policies concerning the engineering department primarily revolve around task tracking and reporting time. Gone are the days when an engineer can charge eight hours to “fixing stuff” and earn a paycheck. Most of us are on board, but there are three engineers in particular who have been around for quite some time and vary between subtly passive aggressive to downright combative when it comes to creating JIRA tasks and logging their hours.

   The problem? They serve an absolutely critical role in our company. They are nigh irreplaceable in an extremely niche market. How should a manager strike the perfect balance between forcing an engineer to do something that they don’t want to do and not forcing them out? If this was a more common skillset, there wouldn’t be an issue with telling them “You don’t like it, go find another job”. But when there are a handful of people in the world that do this kind of thing and it closely involves hardware and these three just happen to be local… well, you get the idea. Losing these individuals would be a staggering blow the company. Making them redundant isn’t economically feasible. Time to ramp up for this position would be close to a year.

2. So I’ve recently followed the first rule of Soft Skills Engineering and quit my job. All right! I believe in the new role and I think it’ll be a good change to me.

   Despite this, I’m feeling guilty about leaving my team behind. When my managers asked me how I was feeling in the last few quarters, I’ve mostly said I’m fine! I never told them my reservations about how the codebase I’m working on has no oversight, that they need to hire another dev because I don’t trust being the sole keeper, that it seems like product has forgotten this feature. I even indulged them when they asked me to make a long-term career plan when I was certain I would leave by early next year at the latest.

   So, what’s your take on how disgruntled employees often have to hide their true feelings? Maybe I could’ve been open, but it really seemed like the odds were against us, it’s just that upper leadership was neglecting this feature and there was no urgency to improve things. But I still feel like I wasn’t being fully honest. What do you guys think?

   Thanks so much and keep up the good work! Feelin’ Guilty

   P.S. Do you feel that this industry naturally rewards lack of loyalty and connection? What do you feel about that?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Hi! I have been a software engineer at a very small company for 10 years. We write desktop products and single server products - I don’t have experience with scaling systems or the latest & greatest Javascript frameworks. I would like to move to a company where I can learn and grow, using a more modern stack. My coding skills are great, but it seems like I just don’t have the experience many companies are looking for. With 15 years total experience I am too junior for senior positions, and too senior for junior positions. I’m feeling stuck and am tempted to quit my job so I can focus on side projects using the latest and greatest tools. Or is there a better way to get unstuck?

2. Listener James asks,

   How do you know when it’s the right time to move on from an almost perfect job?

   I’ve been a frontend developer for 6 years and spent the last 2 years at a really great company. I have lot’s of autonomy, a competitive salary, excellent stock options, and great job security. But, so far my entire career has been working with the same technologies, and there’s no scope to learn new languages at my current job.

   I was recently contacted by a recruiter, which resulted in an interview and offer for a full-stack role with a stack that would be completely new to me but really excites me.

   I’m worried that never holding development job for more than 2 years would look bad, but at the same time I don’t want to be stagnant and not learning.

   Should I stay at my current job where I’m comfortable, or take a risk and jump into the unknown to develop my career.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Do you have any advice on how to give feedback to people who don’t take critical feedback well? There’s a person who joined my team with the same job title and level as me (senior product designer/L5) more than a year ago, and since then he has shown that he not only lacks a lot of skills to be considered senior but also lacks the self-awareness to see where he falls short and how he needs to improve. There have been multiple occasions in our 1:1s where he has alluded to critical feedback he’s gotten from people on our team (including our manager) and has written it off as irrelevant or untrue, will come up with excuses for his poor performance, and will make off-hand comments about the person as a way to discount their credibility. Overall I feel like this is part of a larger display of narcissist behavior; I’ve noticed that the only time he’ll listen to suggestions is if you make it not sound critical and sandwich them in between compliments.

   Up until now, I (hopefully) have avoided being on the receiving end of his negative comments, but since I’m trying to go for promotion, my manager wants me to give him more guidance and tell him directly the feedback that I’ve brought up to her. Seeing how he’s reacted in the past, I’m unsure how to just start giving him unsolicited feedback and am afraid of what he’ll think and say to others about me as someone with four less years of industry experience trying to give him advice. I’m also afraid that this will damage our working relationship as I’ve seen how despondent he becomes when things don’t go his way. I’ve told my manager these concerns and her response was that it isn’t on me if he reacts poorly to my feedback, but I feel like putting in the energy to give him feedback that he probably won’t even listen to is exhausting and isn’t worth the possibility of him becoming more adversarial towards me. What can I do? Any advice??

2. I recently joined a new company following the patented space law certified strategy of quit your job. I have a senior colleague who has been there maybe 8 months more than me. Whenever he has a problem, he likes to call me away from my desk and start explaining his entire problem to me. I have no knowledge of the real codebase yet and am not even an experienced programmer as I barely have 2 year of experience. I just stand there and nod and give various quips from time to time to pretend I’m listening. This can last up to 30 minutes and happens numerous times a day. If I say I’m busy he just waits 5 minutes before calling me over again. I cant get any work done because of this. How do I deal with this senior team mate that uses me as a rubber duck. Should I just buy him an actual rubber duck ?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Hi! Love the podcast and have been listening for a while.

   I have a question about dealing with “that guy” on the team. I’ve been through several teams throughout my career, and every once in a while, I get on a team where there’s always a “that guy” that everyone seems to tiptoe around. They’re the type that would yell and scream to have everything go their way, and they’re typically very blunt to anyone, saying things in a really hurtful way. These people can either be technical or on the product side, but I’ve found it really difficult to work with people like this.

   After working long enough with “that guy”, it seems the common thing people do is just to say “Oh, that’s just so-and-so.” or “That’s just the way so-and-so is.”, which I feel is the only thing you can do, but that just doesn’t sit right with me because it’s incredibly toxic.

   I don’t think the solution is to just fire people like this, but it boggles my mind how so many teams just let this kind of behavior happen because the manager can’t or won’t take any action other than give them a talking to, which seems to just allow the behavior to continue because there are no consequences.

   Have you ever dealt with situations like this? And if so, how do you normally handle it without just ignoring it?

2. I am a senior FE engineer and I have recurring 1-1s with my skip level manager (manager of my manager) who is the Head of Engineering at the unicorn I work for. I usually ask what is top of mind for them (usually hiring), give feedback about my manager, and get additional feedback on bigger picture things I’m working on (e.g. we’re currently working on metrics to measure impact and value of our design system and other internal tooling). What else would you ask them to make the best use of this time?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. After six years at my first job out of college, I took the foolproof SSE advice and quit my job last year during the height of the pandemic. I landed at one of the Big Software Companies and learned that I negotiated very well for pay within my role (in large part, thanks to this podcast - yay!), but I am way overqualified compared to my peers and should have attempted to come in at the next software engineer level (oops).

   To get promoted I need signoff from my fairly new manager and the very tenured principal engineer (PE) who has historically run the team. My manager and the PE are frequently in disagreement, and send me one-off slacks to make requests that are directly at odds with each other. I’m squarely aligned with my manager’s prioritization which frequently puts me at odds with the senior PE. Yikes.

   The senior PE frequently overlooks technical complexity and business context, and gives far more technical opportunities to the men on the team. I don’t like his mode of leadership, and so do not want to mimic his style. Unfortunately, he’s very respected by the VP+ level so I worry that friction with him will swiftly crush my dreams of promotion.

   The parents are fighting. I’m caught in the middle and feel like I’m aligned with the side that is at a political disadvantage. Is there any hope of success for me unless they can magically start to get along?

2. I joined a small team as a developer a few years ago, and was asked by management to help introduce some formal processes to the team to help us release a project that has been in the works for a number of years.

   With the team’s buy-in, I introduced SCRUM, and started playing the role of Scrum Master and Product Owner. I may also be the development team’s functional manager in the future. It seems that having the roles of 1) developer, 2) scrum master, 3) product owner, and 4) functional manager is too much for any one person to do well. With a primary role of functional manager, which of these other roles would make sense to hold onto? Which roles would be better to either hire replacements for or coach other team members to take over?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I’m on a team of two. My manager/teammate is young (under 30, less than 5 years total work experience), minimally experienced with anything other than writing code, and has an inflated self-assessment of their own coding skills.

   They have a habit of either asking for (or simply changing on their own) every little thing to be their own way. This can be as unimportant as renaming all the variables to a different word with the same meaning (think $largeCar instead of $bigCar) or as bad as - after a discussion between two techniques for a feature in which their preferred method wasn’t chosen, - going in later and changing the code to how they wanted to do things.

   I’m feeling burnt out by the lack of control over my work and feeling like what I’m doing doesn’t make a difference..

   Where and how should you draw lines in order to balance writing good software with showing respect for your team members? How do you deal with people who think their actions are justifiable because they are “improving” the code but really can only defend this by claiming it is “more readable” or some other subjective measure?

2. I work at a well-funded startup and am likely going to be promoted (into another IC engineering role) in the next few months. I’m pretty clear on the leverage I have when negotiating salary before accepting a job offer, but I’m wondering how I should approach negotiation and raise expectations when it comes to receiving a promotion. Obviously, my company wants to retain me, otherwise I wouldn’t be getting promoted, but I don’t feel confident in negotiating when I’m already being given a raise and my only alternative to accepting it would be to leave and find another job.

   Additionally, I’m on great terms with my company and manager and I would not leave over a 5-10k difference in raise expectations. Just want to better prepare myself for the offer. My manager has also told me that when/if I receive a raise, I can negotiate (it’s not too late). That came up because I told him I assumed raises and promotions are long processes that need to be decided way in advance, but that is not the case at my company.

Show Notes

Tweet about engineers’ puzzle obsession: https://twitter.com/ryanflorence/status/1534951668214771721

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I’m a senior software engineer at a fast growing software startup. In the past year and a half that I’ve been with the company I’ve gone through 5 reorgs and have had 5 different managers in 4 different teams. Each time I sit down to do a 1 on 1 with a new manager they ask about my career goals and aspirations.

   Initially, when I joined the company I was a weak and feeble non-senior software engineer. When I was asked this question then, my answer was “to learn and grow, and have more authority and autonomy over the systems that I build, and be considered a senior software engineer”. Over the past year and half I have proven my worth and paid my dues and got the title of senior software engineer, along with the pay raise that came with it.

   My career development horizon has not been very broad. I didn’t even know there were levels beyond senior software engineer for a long time.

   I feel like I’m missing out on growth opportunities by not having a clear answer to this question. Please help!

   Love your show, keep it up.

2. I career switched via a coding bootcamp 3 years ago and have been at my current company ever since.

   The bugs created by my garbage code from the early days made me a big believer in clean code practices — I now feel strongly about using descriptive variable names, avoiding duplicate code, etc.

   However, my boss/CTO is on the opposite end of the spectrum. As long as the code works, he doesn’t care what it look like.

   I want to stay at this company because I strongly believe in the product and I love the flexibility of a small start-up, but my boss and I keep bumping heads.

   For example, we recently switched over to PRs, and each PR my boss has made included blatant violations of the coding standards document we created together (!). When I request changes on the PR, he says he’ll do it but it isn’t a good use of our time to rewrite it when the code works.

   My question is two-fold:

   (1) As the most senior engineer on the software team, how can I go about promoting a quality-driven approach when the CTO doesn’t see the value in it?

   (2) If all else fails, I’m open to quitting, but I don’t want to end up the same boat. During interviews, what questions can I ask to find out if the company truly values code quality?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Hey guys! Love the show!

   I’ve worked for 8 years as a Software Engineer for a large aircraft company, and while I had a great time there, I left because I was tired of working with old tech and wanted to learn new stuff.

   I joined a medium-size company, working with lots of fun new tech, but after 8 months I got the opportunity to get my dream job as a Software Engineer at a specific Big Tech company.

   The problem is that after I started on my dream job, I “crashed” really hard. The people and org are great, but the job revolves around working with a large legacy product, using mostly old/basic tech, and overall I’ve been feeling really unmotivated since joining.

   After 4 months there, I was called by my previous fun job, and they offered me twice as much as I’m making at this Big Tech company to come back.

   I’m very tempted, but I’m afraid of screwing my resume by leaving so early. Should I toughen up and stick with my new fancy job, or go back and make more money and maybe be happier?

2. Hello Dave & Jamison,

   First time, long time - I am 6 months into my first engineering job and loving it! (until recently…) my large team split into smaller teams. On my old team, we had lots of work to do and it was fun. My new team, however, is suffering from “spin-up time.” My tasks have shifted from clearly defined individual contributor type tasks, to amorphous research tasks on large architectural decisions. After about 3 months of this, it feels like this spin-up time is never going to end and we just don’t actually have much work coming our way.

   On the one hand, these are more senior engineering type tasks and I could probably learn a lot if I stay to see these through.

   On the other hand, I am certainly not at a senior engineer level and I miss spending my time coding. It was fun and I was learning a lot from that too. I fear that I may be atrophying as I haven’t done much coding for multiple months.

   On the third hand (I have three hands), I could definitely be making more money elsewhere.

   Should I stay and be patient, or is it time to take the magical SSE advice? is the economy crashing? I need help!!!

   Thanks, you guys are the best, Johnny Threehands

Show Notes

Architecture Astronaut: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/04/21/dont-let-architecture-astronauts-scare-you/

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I am working on a devops team building the shared services that our engineers depend on: log aggregation, CICD, Monitoring, K8s clusters, etc. The team is myself, my boss (lead devops engineer), and a handful of pretty junior people. I feel pulled in a bunch of directions. I’ve asked for written documentation from my boss to help establish expectations and processes. Think branching strategies, who owns what, what should be prioritized. I want to make it easier to train up the junior people on the team and enable us to push back when devs ask for stuff with no context of what it will take to finish. Nothing has been written. It’s starting to get to me because without that it’s very difficult for me to push back on requests from the developers on our various teams. How do I tell my boss that I feel like he’s letting me down and that I’m drowning because it seems he just can’t be bothered to write down some base information?

2. I have been working with my manager for almost a year to be promoted. I have been making a lot of progress on my tasks and as a developer. My manager agreed that I would be promoted in the next month or so if I kept it up. Then he quit to go to a new company. I now have a new manager and I feel like I have to start from scratch. Not much has been translated over from the old manager to the new manager about my progress. The new manager is now telling me there is no way they would hire me as a mid-level dev. I feel like I wasted a lot of time with the old manager and that the new manager is not seeing my value to the company and all the work that I’ve done to this point. I’m not going to quit or anything but I just wanted to rant. thanks for listening.

Show Notes

Writing strategy and vision documents: https://lethain.com/strategies-visions/

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I’m currently working at a FAANG in Europe, and seriously underpaid. I recently got an offer from a US startup (Series C funded) to work remotely. Two big pluses: I’m gonna get a 2 times pay bump, and I can finally work remotely (and travel across Europe since they support work from anywhere, now that COVID restrictions are relaxed, something I wanted to do for years). Two problems: Their tech stack is Ruby on Rails, something that no “big” companies use so I may not be considered seriously because of last X years of working on a not-so-famous tech, and current tech environment screams of a recession, so I’m safer at a big company than some startup. Do you think 2.5 years in a FAANG provides enough of credibility to take care of both of these problems if things go south? Any other factors I should consider when moving from FAANG to a remote startup job?

2. So I’ve been working at this big-tech company for around 4 years and working as a mid-level engineer. I recently got approached by a Google recruiter for L5 or Senior engineer position. I’ve led a few projects in my current company, but I don’t consider myself a “senior” level. That and the fact that I’ve worked majorly in Frontend and the role I’m gonna be getting interviewed for is Full-stack (interview rounds seem to be focused on Distributed systems mostly).

   I’ve two questions:

   • Is this some dirty trick in recruitment I gotta be aware of? I hear about downlevel a lot, but never “uplevel”.
   • If say I do prepare like crazy and pass the interviews, do you think I may not have any luck with the team matching Google does? Like no team may wanna hire a “junior” senior?

   Love the show! Keep it up.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I work for a big bank. I recently found out I am severely underpaid. I have only received “exceeds expectations” ratings since joining over 5 years ago. I rage-interviewed at a bunch of FAANG companies, made it to the final rounds of all, but always came up short on the offer.

   Expectations at my current job are low. I’ve been putting all my extra energy and time into my own startup idea with a group of small people, that shows a lot of promise.

   I so desperately want to leave my current job, but I can’t prep for interviews and work on my startup at the same time. I never interviewed since joining the bank over 5 years ago.

   I truly believe my startup can ultimately be my escape, but I’m just grappling with the fact that it may take years before I can quit vs. if I got a new job I’d have much better pay and not be depressed at my 9-5.

   P.S. are you hiring?

2. I’ve recently been placed as tech lead for a small group of 3 people, myself included. One of my teammates seems to be having a hard time communicating in a timely manner when they are stuck on something or when their task will be late. I’ve spoken to that person a few times individually on the importance of communicating early and often, but it seems like that person is happy to just muddle on until the time runs out.

   I’ve had to jump on to finish some work that was time sensitive and I’ve gone to greater lengths to slack dm on how things are going. It’s getting old. I don’t want to be micro managing. Each time I bring it up with them, it seems to get through but never manifests in action. I’m not sure if this person realizes the impact that lack of communication has especially in a remote first setting. A sense of urgency might be helpful in some respects.

   At one of our 1on1 dm chats the topic of imposter syndrome came up and we shared our mutual struggles with it. I’ve tried to encourage that person that my dm’s are open and can help but I can’t keep checking in. There should be some ownership on their end to getting help from me. How do I get this person to communicate more, share blockers or confusion so we can finish our work on time and learn on the way?

   Love your show, long time listener, first time caller.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Listener Þór asks,

   Dear fellow binary smiths!

   I’m a Nordic software developer with about a decade in the industry under my belt who has recently returned back to the office, following a half a year long medical absence during which I helped my partner get through her second tough cancer treatment in as many years.

   I am now contemplating taking a sabbatical for some months to reset myself, as the ordeal has had a big impact on me in many ways.

   As sabbaticals are not a common occurrence in my parts of the world, I worry about what impact taking one could have on my future prospects once I start looking around for employment again.

   How does one frame having a “mental health” gap in the career when interviewing? Are they considered a “bad” signal by hiring managers?

2. For the first time in my career, I’ve been given the opportunity to lead a project at work. This was something I really wanted and my teammates supported me. We agreed on the technical design and I recently started implementing it.

   However, I’ve been thinking about finding another job for a long time. I’m demotivated. Each week, I feel bad about how little I get done at work. It negatively impacts my self esteem, a lot. I never acted upon the desire to find another job because I have a great manager and skip level. Recently, my manager and skip level both announced they’re leaving the company.

   I’d like to pursue an opportunity at another company that seems to be a great fit for me but I don’t want to leave my teammates holding the bag for the project I’ve been working on. I’m the only backend developer working on it and my teammates trusted me to take ownership of it. It doesn’t feel fair for me to complete the more glamorous responsibility of coming up with the technical design and then leave when it’s time to do the “grunt work”. On the other hand, there’s probably at least six months left of work on this project and the company I’m interested in joining may very well not be hiring in six months. What steps should I take to not betray my teammates or myself, taking into account that my manager and skip level leave within a month and probably won’t be replaced by then?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I recently told my boss I thought my comp was below market value and that, while I enjoy working here, I may have to start looking elsewhere for my next opportunity unless there was a way to adjust my salary. He actually agreed with me and said he would go to HR to see what he could do.

   A few days later, he came back to me and said they could do a market-rate adjustment of 20k per year. I was super happy. He said, “great I will let HR know that you accepted by EOD tomorrow and they will get the paperwork started.”

   At 10am the following day, he, along with a couple hundred other employees, were laid off.

   So my boss, my boss’s boss, my boss’s boss’s boss and the HR rep that my boss was talking to are no longer here.

   So my questions is, what’s the appropriate amount of time to wait before bringing this up to my new boss. With so many of my colleagues now out of work , it seems a bit insensitive to be so concerned with a raise, but also, I like more money.

2. I am 8 months into my first job out of college in an entry level role and today the other new hire (4 months) got fired for poor performance. I have been assured that my performance is still satisfactory, but I have been unable to think about anything else since it happened. I know that I am probably fine, but I am still very shocked and on edge. Any advice on how to move past this without destroying my bloodpressure would be appreciated!

   Signed, your fellow high strung engineer

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I just hired someone as my direct report who is very, very smart, and has a great background. Ivy undergrad CS, Ivy grad school, and big tech experience. This is great!

   Except… he’s definitely much smarter than me. I slacked my way through a liberal arts degree, and have worked only for small startups my whole career. I’ve gotten by, but I’m no 10xer.

   How do I be a good manager for him considering all this? I want to help him grow in his career and be a good resource for him, but I don’t know what I have to offer. Should I just give him my key to the nonexistent middle manager cafeteria, and say, “I work for you now?

2. Hi, I have a question about how to handle being confused in certain team meetings.

   It happens when the meeting is about discussing a certain problem to solve and most participants are much more up to speed with the issue being discussed. What ends up happening is that they discuss things fast, while I am hardly following and wondering if I should even be there. That is painful to me, because I’m aware that I’m not contributing much, while my time there is wasted and spent half trying to follow and half stressing out thinking what I should do.

   I guess that in order to contribute I would need to ask to be brought up to speed. Which I find a bit tricky because I’ll be asking myself: is it because I missed something? Or is it because of something I actually couldn’t possibly know? And secondly, should I have it clarified, which would disrupt the discussion and draw it out for others (especially if I need to go back to something that the group already went over)?

   Or should I address this completely differently, for example by requesting meeting agendas and preparing questions before the meetings? I’d love to hear your thoughts on how to tackle this, because it’s a pain every time it happens.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I’ve been a Staff Software Engineer at my company for 1 1/2 years. We have about 120 engineers company-wide. I’ve had 4 different bosses during the last year and our team has moved around a few times on the org chart.

   I lead a team of 2 engineers. My boss told me I shouldn’t be doing any of the coding but should spending my time working with the product manager, doing research for upcoming features, doing code reviews, managing the Jira board, mastering jellyfish metrics, reviewing architecture documents, setting up measurement in our logging tool and coordinating deployments of our features.

   Because my team is small and our product roadmap is pretty well defined, these tasks do not take 40 hours per week. I feel like I have nothing to do. I’ve tried to improve the velocity of the team by doing some coding and triaging on bugs. I miss doing the technical work and feel like I could do more but I also want the other 2 engineers on the team to own most of the big, bulky tasks.

   What do you suggest I do? Should I enjoy my light load or should I be looking for other ways to add value?

2. I am the lead developer on a few projects with developers that have 20+ years of experience compared to my eight years. I have been made lead of the projects, but I’ve never actually had management tell the team that I am the lead or that I have any control whatsoever on the members of the team (typical ‘all of the responsibility, none of the power’ scenario). One of my teammates is tough. He writes unreadable but working spaghetti code. He also works in the field and will often times push to master and then leave to perform fieldwork, leaving the team in the lurch for several days before he can come back and fix his broken code. He habitually fails to push code, often holding the source on his own computer for months before pushing. I have mandated using pre-commit hooks to guard against breaking the build, but as IT has control over the repositories, these become “optional” and appear to be disregarded. I have brought this up with management, to no avail; the behavior continues. I have also expressed my concerns with management, and provided data on the impact this has to the project via tickets and time spent between the remaining team members.

   How do I rein in this unwieldy developer? What else can I do?

Show Notes

• https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4111/dirty_coding_tricks.php?page=4

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. My boss keeps recommending bad movies. I watch most of them but I feel bad because they’re not good and I don’t want to disappoint my boss. They are ‘okay’ but are really mediocre. Do I just ignore my boss’s suggestions or should I keep watching these terrible action-heist movies even though I don’t like them?

2. Does it matter if my emails are well written?

   I’m a software engineer. I asked my partner how I should word a part of my email. After reading my email they were appalled. They said that it was “abysmally written and lacked refinement”. I’ll admit that it wasn’t my best written email, but who cares? It was just an email letting a team member know that I had followed up on a ticket a while ago, so it wasn’t like this was going to a client or something. Plus I felt like the email conveyed the message that it needed to.

   In my mind as long as the email isn’t offensive or covered in grammatical errors and conveys the message, isn’t that good enough? My partner argued that I should write my emails more eloquently since my “terrible” emails will reflect poorly on me. I told other engineers care more about the content and less about how well-written any given email is, but they wouldn’t budge. In addition to that, some of the emails I’ve gotten from our senior and staff engineers seem like they were written with someone who has the English skills of a middle schooler and they seem to do fine for themselves.

   Thoughts?

Show Notes

This episode is sponsored by Compiler, and original podcast from Red Hat. Check it out

Reference to the Dragon book on Wikipedia

Robustness principle: Be liberal in what you accept and conservative in what you send

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Listener Casey asks,

   My team has built an internal framework for continuous delivery that enabled a key product release last year. The tooling has gained widespread adoption and popularity throughout the org, to the point that some leaders are requiring teams to use the framework for any new services. Things are generally going great, except that “my team” consists of only 2 people including myself, and we have so much work that the soonest we can look at new features is ~18 months from now. Some individuals, who are being required to use our framework, are frustrated and protesting loudly about how the framework doesn’t work exactly the way they think it should. How can I shelter my team from the outbursts of unhappy users? Or bolster their resolve so they don’t take on the anxiety of growing pains?

   P.S. We’re all remote so this happens 99% in chat channels and DMs.

2. If something goes right, product takes credit. If something goes wrong, engineering takes the blame. How do you change that organizational dynamic? (Other than your usual answer.)

We are celebrating our 300th episode by publishing unique songs about the podcast. To get access to the songs, join Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SoftSkillsEng

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Greetings! I have been with my current company for a number of years, and was recently promoted to Engineering Manager. I enjoy working here, and have a great manager and team. A job posting at another company recently piqued my interest (great salary, appealing company values, fully remote) and got me thinking, would it look terrible if I applied for, or switched jobs, so soon after a promotion to management?

2. How can I figure out if communication problems with a team member are cultural or personal? My teammate immigrated to the states. We occasionally stumble over conversation and misunderstand each other. I think this is exacerbated by being remote. For example, they will ask a pointed and direct question that sounds like a challenge to my approach to a problem. When I attempt to answer, it’s clear we are nowhere near the same page and I need to back up and provide more detail.

   I am working and have worked with others who immigrated from the same country. I’ve had similar difficulties connecting before that I have not had with other teammates from other regions. However, this is not universally true of every teammate I’ve had from this area.

   If it is a cultural style, I would rather learn to adapt. I’m not interested in suggesting everyone need to conform to my cultural sensibilities. But if I can determine it’s a personal difficulty, we can work on it together.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I’m a new team leader running a new project and when asked for a delivery date I gave my best guess (noob!). That date is at hand, our project is not. I gave a new delivery date and you guessed it, it’s later than the date I said way back when.

   I presented this new date to my boss, but he wants us to deploy what we have now… even though if we deployed what we have now the business’s cash flow would ignite tearing our collective hopes and dreams asunder. I told him this, in those words, and he said (with a knowing look) “ahhh, you’ve got to play the game, you have a reputation to protect”. I said I’d prefer a reputation of honesty, accuracy and improvement. He said he was talking about his reputation. His other teams consistently miss delivery dates, so I’d guess he has a reputation of missing delivery dates.

   I’d love to share my more accurate date, but that now feels like going behind his back, but if I don’t go behind his back - I’m going to get stabbed in my front. For now I’ve settled on putting my new date in confluence so I can use it as a shield when the inquisition comes. Dave, Jamison, what would you do and why?

2. A parallel team has sold our VP on their internal framework, and has the VP convinced all other groups in his org should become dependent on it as a multi-app, multi-platform solution.

   Their framework is very buggy and they are very slow to acknowledge and fix bugs. They claim that due to the overwhelming amount of users/adopters of their framework, they can’t look at bugs, or that other projects take priority. This blocks our development. No one except them wanted to use their product, and somehow they used forced widespread adoption to avoid responsibility for missing their deadlines. This group has magnificent soft skills that have allowed them to evade being accountable for their issues.

   This team is a darling to the VP, so they are immune to accepting our feedback for the points I listed in the above question.

   How can we, who are multiple levels removed from this VP, improve our situation? Our group enjoys working together and on our product, so we don’t want to leave. We just want to find a way to become more tolerant of this other underperforming team.

Show Notes

• https://www.hillelwayne.com/post/we-are-not-special/

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Earlier I decided I would quit my corporate engineering job in 2022. I’d stagnated, I wasn’t writing as much code as I wanted, and my company made me write our services in an internal domain specific language (DSL), which I don’t like. I’ve put off quitting due to anxiety reasons and not knowing exactly what I want to do next. I’ve even thought about taking a short gap to figure things out, but maybe that’s just me being a dramatic young person (I graduated university in May of 2020).

   However, now my company has done something terrible and promoted me to a second level engineer! And my manager has actually listened to my feedback! How could they?

   I still want to leave because the DSL ruins my coding skills and won’t transfer elsewhere. I work with great people. Also, I play an important role in the group because we’ve had so much turnover this past year. I don’t want to fall into the trap of thinking “the grass is always greener on the other side”, but I think leaving would be best for my career. How can I approach this without giving the impression that I’m flaky or ungrateful? And should I stop deliberating and quit my job sooner rather than later?

2. I started a new position three months ago for a large pay increase, I am a fully remote software dev on a team of mostly local developers. My manager-to-be left the company a week before I started, and has not been replaced. The onboarding has been extremely lacking, I don’t have a mentor or buddy, I have very little l communication with my direct manager, and I have very little guidance on what to actually do, so I have been doing… nothing. Some days I do not even open my laptop. How do I start the conversation with my manager that I need something to do, without revealing openly that I have been doing nothing for the past three months?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Liam asks,

   I was the second hire in my team and worked with one lead engineer who created the entire codebase from scratch. This engineer’s code was functional but not well architected and has many inconsistencies. They have since left the company and replaced with two new senior developers who are a lot stronger technically.

   We recognize issues with the current codebase but we’re finding it hard to make decisions on the best way of solving things. We’re all at the same seniority level and the managers above us do not have hands-on experience with our codebase or tech stack.

   Because we’re at the same seniority level I don’t want to start acting beyond my job title and make all the architectural decisions, but at the same time I don’t want to be a pushover.

   How should decisions be made in a team with a flat structure and no defined leader?

2. My previous manager quit the company last year and we’ve been assigned a new one. While the previous manager knew technical side of the project really well, the new one seems to be clueless. He is not even showing any interest in learning about what we do. He is a good people manager, but lack of context makes him really bad project manager. What should I do? Should I talk to him to convince him to learn more or maybe it is normal and we were just really lucky with the previous manager?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Hi! long time listener first time caller. i am the CTO of an early startup with 15 employees (12 engineers). 3 months ago, we hired a new engineer whose output is quite low compared to other engineers on the team. i have brought this up with him many times and tried to coach him on his debugging skills, time management skills, etc. After months of this, I am not seeing any change in output and am growing frustrated. At this point, I suspect that the engineer is just spending very little time on their tasks compared to others on the team (who admittedly often work late into the night). I don’t want to fire the engineer or micromanage his schedule, but am concerned that their slowness will impact our culture and product. Do you have any ideas on how I could help this engineer improve?

2. Howdy fellas,

   I started my first SWE job out of college at a startup in the bay area and work in a team of three. Myself, my technical manager, and one other developer who comes from an adjacent field. I came three years of interning as a developer at a very relaxed company with 3000+ employees. I’m finding I have a lot more ownership over my work now than ever before and I really enjoy that!

   What I don’t enjoy is watching my manager run around like a headless chicken. Between managing all our jira boards, creating POC’s for a complete redesign of our core services, interviewing candidates, planning features for our existing services, and doing regular sprint work they have too much to do and not nearly enough time for all of it. This results in many things that are critical getting scrambled, forgotten, miscommunicated, or just dropped for lack of time on their part.

   I’ve tried to take some of the small tasks from them that aren’t necessarily a manager’s job such as managing the jira board and help desk tickets. Unfortunately they insist that they don’t want me to take over small tasks like that because they can handle it, but the same issues from them being overloaded persist.

   I think the team over all would be a lot more effective if they were able to focus in on particular tasks, but since they won’t let me help what else can I do?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Love the podcast, love the banter and jokes, keep up the great work! Now, for my predicament:

   Good news: I just got my first job at a FAANG! Bad news: I’m coming in at the lowest level of software engineering despite being in my mid-30’s and nearly 10 years of non-FAANG experience.

   Given that it is my first Big Tech™ company, I understand being down-leveled, but I did not expect to be downleveled THIS much. I’m glad to have finally “hit the big leagues”, but I’m not thrilled that I’m on equal footing with a fresh college graduate. Hurt feelings aside, what is the best Soft Skills advice on how to catch up to the mid-30’s engineers who joined a FAANG fresh out of college? My plan is to tell my aspirations to my manager once I start and see how they can help me perform as well as possible in order to promote quickly, but I can see how that might come off as greedy or entitled. What do you think?

2. Should I do anything about a lazy tech lead?

   Since covid and working from home, my tech lead went from a frantic micromanager to a lazy coaster.

   They seem to do 1-2 hours of work per day. They set their slack status to ‘away’ so you can’t tell if they are at their desk or not. They’ve stopped coding completely, but we have an excellent PM so there isn’t much else for them to do. Sometimes during stand-up you can clearly hear them driving their car. Even asking them for help/advice on slack can mean several hours waiting for a response.

   Management hasn’t noticed because we are a large team who all work really hard, so the feature output is still high.

   My dilemma: do I count myself lucky that they are no longer micromanaging and keep my mouth shut? Better the devil you know etc. Or, do I gather some evidence and tell their boss? I could be learning so much more from an engaged tech lead, and the team might feel less toxic.

   Final doozy: due to some incredible stock market gains I have some heavy golden handcuffs so #1 priority is keeping my own job and not creating an enemy that gets me fired.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I work in a squad that has been slow in delivering. Squad leadership (including myself) concluded we need a staff engineer (one level above senior engineer) to help guide tech directions and to support other engineers.

   Unfortunately we have received only a single applicant- senior engineer “Brett” who’s already on the team. Brett is a good engineer and has a lot of great qualities - but falls short of the “staff” level. Our tech lead “Chris” doesn’t think Brett is suitable due to bad technical decisions Brett has made in the past. Chris also thinks Brett should have been discouraged from applying in the first place. (Brett’s manager is outside the team so has less visibility on what’s happening inside the squad)

   We’re suddenly in a bind. If we give Brett the role we are in the same situation as before but having to pay him more.

   If we don’t give him the role we run the risk of losing him in this environment - which would be very bad as he is a good engineer!

   Should our decision be down to how Brett interviews? What could have been done differently?

2. I recently did some extensive planning for a feature with a back-end engineer where we negotiated what the GraphQL api would look like. As I was finishing up my feature work, I realized that they departed from that plan and didn’t tell me. Now the feature is late. They’re having to make adjustments because the departure from the spec made it impossible for the front-end to handle the data. I’m having to do more work because they used a completely different architecture than what we discussed. What’s even more frustrating is that the end result on the backend is going to be exactly the design that I initially proposed (this is documented), which the backend engineer shot down when I proposed it.

   I feel angry that they dismissed my technical expertise. This has also eroded my faith in collaborating with this person. Retro’s coming up. How would you approach retro? What outcome do I even want here? I don’t think more process is going to be helpful (I spent 6-8 hours on the planning portion of this feature). I am starting to wonder if my perception as a primarily front-end engineer prevents the back-end engineers from lending me credibility.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Is it possible to move too fast and do you believe in too much enthusiasm? I am one of the youngest member of the team and am always willing to start new projects and balance a few different things. Is there a point where this can start hurting my career? I’ve gotten bumped in compensation fairly, almost 25% raise since I first started. My career goal is to stay on the programming side but want to become a possible trainer for newer engineers/devs.

2. Listener Michael asks,

   I’m a backend engineer in an engineering/coding role with a small bit of SRE type work. I love the work as I get to dig deep into tech we use and have become subject a matter expert on databases within the company. I really like my team and my manager in particular, and get to learn a lot every week. My manager is leaving my team to lead a new team within the company that is focused on the company’s SaaS offering and I’ve been given the option of joining this new team if I wish. I like their managerial style and how they have helped me with my career progression so far. However, I’d be doing Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) work. I’m not sure if I’m ready yet to commit to being an SRE and code less/focus more on ensuring the reliability of mission critical production systems. I don’t know how easy it would be to switch back to more of a coding role in a years time or if it would pigeonhole me into that type of role. Have you got any advice?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I recently joined a new company that pays me much better and has much better engineering practices than my previous job.

   I referred a great engineer who was hired on a different team. Then, another engineer from my old job applied for MY team and is currently being interviewed for the role.

   This engineer is one of the reasons I left my former company! They have an impressive resume and interview well, but are unable to complete even the most basic tasks and have no interest in improving their skills. They asked me to put in a good word with my tech lead, but if anything, I want to encourage my tech lead NOT to hire them. I’m not a part of the interviewing process but I feel an obligation to let my tech lead know just how bad this developer is. Help?

2. Thanks for thinking I’m neat! I think you are pretty neat too!

   In my most recent 121, my manager asked me to give some feedback on another colleague on whether I thought they would make a good Engineering Manager. My genuine thoughts about my colleague are that they’re pretty good technically, they have good communication skills, are friendly, and just generally a good team player. Outside of work, we’re pretty good friends and so I really want to see them succeed. However, I can’t shake the feeling that they wouldn’t necessarily be a good Engineering Manager and I can’t figure out why. What are some other (not so obvious) qualities that you think are important for EMs, since on paper, I would think they tick a lot of the boxes.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Hi! Thanks so much for all the work you do to put this show out, it’s kept me sane the past year. To sum up my problem…I’m aware this is going to sound like a slightly bananas thing to complain about, but my team’s tech lead is superhumanly productive.

   About 8 months ago, we hired Sarah. I can’t overstate how awesome Sarah is, but, well, in some ways that’s the problem. My team already suffers from under-resourcing. Rather than pushing back on unrealistic requests, Sarah will churn out 90% of the work required by working crazy hours so that we make the deadline. She always shares the credit and plays up even the smallest contribution any of the rest of us made, so again, that’s not at all the issue.

   For context, my team doesn’t have a manager, and our leaders are super high up the org chart.

   The problem is that now leadership expects this velocity from the team all the time, not realizing that this it relies on Sarah’s definitely-unsustainable level of productivity. Many other teams in our org are struggling to deliver due to the same resource constraints we face, so now their work is being lumped on our team as well, because the perception is that we’re The Team That Can Handle It. We’ve already lost one team member this year due to burnout, and the pace just keeps increasing. Additionally, I feel like this undermines leadership’s trust in my opinions. Leadership sometimes asks me how long a given thing will take. I’ll give an honest answer, but then when Sarah delivers the thing much faster by working 14-hour days, it makes it look like I’ve been sandbagging my estimates.

   How do I approach this? I’ve thought about explaining my concerns to Sarah in a 1:1, but I feel like I’d just come across as lazy and whiny…for all I know, she thinks we all should work like she does, although she’d definitely be too polite to say so outright. Are there any other options, or is this a :partyquityourjob: situation?

2. Hello Hosts!

   I love the podcast and its light and humorous tone on a not so light subject.

   Ours is a small team with just 2 engineers in a mid-sized company. I joined recently as a senior engineer. The other person was hired for the same role a few months after me. The problem is that this other engineer doesn’t seem to posses senior level skill-set. I often find them making obvious mistakes and struggling to understand user stories. On most occasions they aren’t even able to finish their work, let alone making technical design decisions.

   I tried to bring this up in a casual way with them, and they seemed to get a bit touchy and defensive about it and they also seem to have a difficult time in making honest conversations about issues. So I never brought this up again. This situation of them not being able to carry out their expected responsibilities is taxing me a lot as I have to pick up the things they mess up in addition to my job.

   If this was from a person at a much junior level, that would be understandable. But this doesn’t make any sense to me.

   I am not very comfortable with the idea of ratting them out to the manager and seeming like a non-team player, but I am also afraid that I cannot put up with them for long while also still maintaining my sanity.

   If you were in my situation, may I know what would you do differently and how would you deal with this person? Thanking you!

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I wanted to know if listing past offers (as a brand name signal) on your resume will help or hurt you during the resume screening and interview stages?

2. I am an SQA engineer at one of the FAANGS, and I feel inadequate in my position; I get the gist QAs are not valued much. Essentially I got into this domain early in my career, and I find moving out of this role difficult. My long-term goal is to get into a PM role. Is that even possible, or should I first switch to the Dev role to build a better foundation? Help me. I am lost.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Hey guys, a long time listener here, I love the show.

   I’ve recently joined an early-stage startup with a tiny engineering team. It’s like most startups at this stage, there’s some chaos and a lot to figure out. It’s exactly what I like about startups.

   In the past years, I’ve been working on the very same kind of software we’re building now. I have a ready answer for many questions we might have, I’ve seen some things go badly and others work great. I’m eager to help the team deliver.

   But I also don’t want to be seen as the know-it-all jerk that tells everyone how to do their job. I have respect for my team and want to contribute. How do I use my experience without annoying my colleagues?

   Thanks for sharing your wisdom (I hope for 101% of it).

2. Listener Andy asks,

   I moved to company A and it’s been 6 months I am constantly getting interview requests, Gave an interview and got a 30% rise moved to Company B, Now within 6 months the same thing happened, Gave an interview at Company C and got the job with 30% raise. what should I do? will it affect my long term career growth

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I am working at my first job as a software engineer for 2 1/2 years now. I really enjoy working as a programmer and I’m super excited about the tech industry in general.

   However, sometimes I feel like I’m too excited about everything. I spent a lot of time reading blog posts, watching tutorials or taking online courses. I think about what books to read and what languages to learn all the time. Not everything but a big part of it happens during my working hours. While I know that “loving to learn” in general is considered a positive trait, I feel like I might take it a bit too far and I should focus more on the actual tasks I have - especially, because I think my coworkers spend much less time keeping up to date with everything.

   What is a reasonable amount of time to spent on these things during working hours and beyond? How do I know I spend too much time not working on my actual tasks? How can I make sure I learn the right things that are useful to my career?

   Love the show and wish you the best. Thanks for your advice!

2. I landed a new job that nearly tripled my salary realative to the job I’m about to leave (yes, I was horribly underpaid)! The stories and tips from this podcast really helped me out but I also landed this job through Hired.com (the podcast sponsor).

   Any good tips regarding leaving a job when you know your boss will be furious that you’re leaving? Also, should I tell my boss which company I’m going to when he asks (he definitely will)?

Show Notes

• Tom7, the most amazing YouTuber of all time: https://www.youtube.com/c/suckerpinch
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTBAW-Eh0tM - anagraphs

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Listener Sara asks,

   How can I deal with favoritism towards informal leaders in a group? The group is losing group intelligence because the informal leader’s reasoning and direction is favored. Example: when member A propose an argument is dismissed, but when the informal leader proposes the same argument it is cherished.

2. How do I react to the question “why didn’t you do it this way” for features already in production? I am frustrated by being asked that. I got scolded for an idea that turned out to be bad after I implemented it (in production), although I asked the Lead for his opinion ahead of time. As soon as trouble came up a.k.a performance issue in production, he pointed the finger at me. Lost all kinds of respect for him.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I keep hearing about Web3, DAOs and Smart Contracts. Part of me wants to get excited about these and other shiny things but I just don’t seem to care all that much any more.

   How long into your careers did y’all stop getting excited about shiny stuff and how do you keep learning when it is not all that exciting to you any more?

   Maybe it is time to be a manager? 😛

2. Every work day seems to start the same way. I check slack, then procrastinate for about 2 hours before feeling so guilty about getting nothing done that i actually start doing some work. Once i get started i don’t have any issues concentrating.

   I want to work, i like my job but i also can’t crack this habit. I am assuming this is not normal…any ideas that could help me out?

   PS: I think (might not be true) i use to be better at getting started before the WFH was the norm

Show Notes

Article by Dave on how to make your standups awesome: https://blog.standuply.com/are-your-standups-awesome-91fb124033be

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I started working at a new company last month. I’m just under senior level (I-II-III-Sr) and I am working on a project with someone slightly more junior, who started there a few months earlier, to help them complete a project on time.

   Despite my best efforts, I can’t get on the same page with them. They ignore half of my suggestions, don’t give me straight answers to my questions, take forever to review pull requests, and are making very little progress each day without reaching out for help. I am not certain what to do, but I’m worried I’ll leave a bad impression with my new manager (who is actually pretty reasonable, I’m just paranoid) by missing the deadline, which is in checks watch 1 week.

   Any suggestions? Should I quit my job? (leave that option off the table for now)

2. I hate my current job and cannot see myself working here for more than a few months. Is it better to find a new job before quitting? If I quit tomorrow with no offers from other companies, how does this affect salary negotiation for a new job while I’m currently unemployed? Finance-wise, I’m stable enough to not be working for months to a year but I am worried about not having current employment putting me at a disadvantage in my job search. Not working would definitely free up my time and energy (which is being steadily drained each day) to prepare for interviews.

   I recently got a raise and promotion to a senior role too. Does quitting shortly after look bad on a resume? I could coast for the next few months in my current job while I search for a new one but I feel like this would be in bad faith. It takes a long time to actually fire someone at my company for performance, even if I barely do any work.

   Thanks for reading my question. Love the show.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. In the past couple of years I transitioned from a freelancer, to a full-time software engineer, to a product owner, to a manager of a small product development team. Due to the relatively rapid changes, I feel I have not had enough time to go particularly deep in my knowledge and experience with any of these roles.

   I’m currently focusing on developing the soft skills needed to be a better manager. I have this nagging feeling though that I should still be developing my technical skills. But in the grand scheme of things, is it still useful for a manager to continue to develop technically in order to provide useful input/guidance on technical decisions? Or would it be better to leave the technical decision-making to the team and instead focus purely on building up the team, supporting members in reaching their career goals, and improving processes? Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

2. Hi! Love the show and recommend it to everyone, even if they’re just asked for directions…

   I’m the Front End Lead at a fast growing startup. I really want to start delegating more, so I decided I’m going to appoint a front end tech lead on each of our teams. I already have my tech leads picked out, but…..

   My problem is with one of the teams. The person most fitting for the job is a very talented, yet very junior developer. This team also includes a very senior developer, which I believe is not fit for the job at all. But the senior developer is looking for a promotion.

   I’ve consulted with my managers and they think passing over the senior dev is basically forcing them out of the company (or at the least, making them a very disgruntled employee).

   Right now i’m holding back my decision just because of this. Please help me!

   Thanks :-)

Show Notes

• https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/paperclip-maximizer
• https://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/
• https://charity.wtf/2019/01/04/engineering-management-the-pendulum-or-the-ladder/
• https://charity.wtf/2017/05/11/the-engineer-manager-pendulum/

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Jealousy - as bad as it is, it still happens. I was the first employed programmer at a startup. Within the first year of my work there an colleague from my previous company I worked for asked me if it’s okay with me if he comes work for the same start-up as me. Since I strive to be a good person and friend I answered “yes”, but deep down I knew it is a bad idea and what I was thinking will happen, happened. So few years passed in the same company and my friend got promoted higher than me and into a position I wanted to move to eventually. The company is kind of small and there is no room for more positions like his (Tech Lead). So now I live with Jealousy. Each time I see his title I’m reminded of it and I don’t know what to do. I’m even thinking about just leaving the company and never work with friends again.

2. I have been doing software development for around 7 years now and in recent times I have lost the enthusiasm to write code at work. I mostly feel bored and tired. I have no other marketable skill and talking to people usually exhaust me, so moving into a management path is not an option. Honestly, I feel like, these days I am at work just for the money; I love the money, no complaints about it, and I want to make more of it. How can I still be relevant and valuable even if I am completely bored and waking up to work feels like a work in itself, these days? P.S: I have already tried quitting my job and that didn’t help. Now I am at my new job. Six months in and I feel bored already.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Listener Rafael asks,

   If you’ve already been working at a company for several months, how do you set boundaries with your employer as to when, time during the day, it’s acceptable for them to contact you? What can you say to your employer or colleagues if they expect you to respond to correspondence at all times, with a 30-min turn around? Can you adjust expectations after you’ve been working the role for several months, or is it too late?

2. Hi, Do you see any benefits to being a junior developer? Any advice you would give to a junior, like “Hey, do this while you’re still a junior, once you’re a senior+ it might be harder to do or find time for it”?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. Zach asks,

   A few weeks ago, I interviewed and recommended we hire a contractor candidate, who I will call “Bob”. We hired “Bob”. Today was the first time I saw “Bob” since the interview, only “Bob” was not the person I interviewed. It seems “Bob” had someone else pretend to be him to pass the interview. What should I do?

2. Thank you for doing this show, it’s amazing and I look forward to listen to it every week. I’m a software engineer with 3.5 years of experience and in those years I’ve worked at 5 different companies consecutively, increasing my salary by around 50~70% every time I change jobs. At this point I’m afraid that it looks really bad in my resume since the longest that I’ve been at one company is 1 year and 3 months but at the same time it is really tempting to keep growing my salary and benefits that easily. Does changing jobs every ~1 year have a negative effect on my employability in the long run?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. Starting to work on a team that is split across time zones. With a majority of the company based in one time zone and a handful spread in others. I want to emphasis the importance of asynchronous communication. I have found Slack to begin to feel like I need to respond ASAP instead of when it is convenient.

   If we were to say slack is used for asynchronous communication, is asking the team to use signal or even text appropriate for a quicker response?

   What is a good way to reach out to team members in cases where a response is needed more immediately?

2. After about 1 year at my developer job, I was moved to work for a client company helping them launch a new product. This other client had different plans, it turns out, and now I’m just testing their API for them. That’s fine but I never get questions answered and I hate my job with my client and hate my job with this company that sells me like a cheap piece of meat. I want to quit, I will quit, but I have a lot to say about why I’m quitting. How can I NOT be nice about quitting and the reasons I’m quitting, and still feel comfortable showing my face in the industry again?

   I haven’t quit a job before, and this is my first job in the tech industry. Searching how to quit a job always comes with “remain light and positive.

This is a rerun of episode 220.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. Hello,

   I know you said you don’t read the compliments on air most of the time but this podcast is great. I just found it a few weeks ago and I love the positive fun approach to question answering. It has really made me think about software engineering outside of the ““make code do thing”” box.

   Anyway, the question: I have been at the same company for 4 years. It is my first job out of college. I have ended up working in so many different languages and frameworks I don’t remember them all. I guess that’s just how things go. Recently I have been selected to take on a scrum master role and I feel I am quickly being groomed for management.

   That was never really my goal. I wanted to build a depth of knowledge and always have my hands on code.

   Will taking on these kind of roles hurt my chances at future technical roles? Am I dooming myself to managing spreadsheets and Jira tickets until I retire? Will I only communicate in Dilbert references?

2. My teammate frequently gives status updates or fields follow up questions about work that was mostly done by someone else. I am pretty sure they do this to be helpful not to claim credit for all the work. I just wish I could speak up about the work I contributed primarily to before they do so on my behalf. I wish it didn’t bother me since we are one team and I would rather focus on the progress of the team rather than receiving credit.

   How should I respond to these situations in a way that allows me to not get bothered emotionally and also do what’s best for the team?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. Many engineers want to go into product management, but I’m the reverse - a product manager who wants to move into engineering.

   What advice would you give to someone pursuing this path? How would you recommend I spend my time while jobfinding? What type of job should I be looking for?

   I have a computer science degree but I’ve worked as a PM for 10 years, so… it’s been a while. I’ve pursued various side projects over the years and have a basic working knowledge of lots of things (e.g. android, ios, react, python, computer vision, firebase/serverless functions, databases, algorithms/data structures) but not much depth in any area.

   I know one option is to convert at the company you’re already at. Take that off the table for a moment and say it has to be at a new company.

2. I recently just quit my first tech job for higher pay at another company. Upon turning in my two weeks notice, my boss coxed me into agreeing to work as a contractor to finish a project I’ve been working on.

   His argument is that no one else on the team has been involved in my project, is familiar with the tech stack, and has any time to help anyway. I’m finding I don’t have time after the 40 hours I’m putting in at the new job but don’t quite know how to sever ties. I feel like I’m the bad guy. Family and friends all say that It’s not my problem and I should move on… being familiar with the project and company, I can’t help but feel differently.

   How can I sever ties and get over the feeling of being the bad guy, especially after kind of leading on my employer about contract work the last two weeks, or how can I convince family and friends that this is something I should do to avoid burning a professional bridge.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. My company recently had a kerfuffle where some teams felt that reviewing a PR in less than 3 weeks was an unreasonable ask.

   As such, the company is trying to come up with guidelines for cross-team asks. The current proposal is for work of 1-2 hours they will commit to an SLA of 6 months. I feel this is a polite way of saying no to any request.

   Are there any ways we could come a more reasonable agreement on this?

2. Hi, my laptop has died after upgrading to MacOS Monterrey and I’ve been given a 2017 Macbook with poor specs as a replacement due to no fault of my own.

   I’m at a startup of around 100 employees and I don’t think we’ve got a mature set up in terms of getting replacement machines.

   I’m a Senior Engineer and need a speedy laptop for my intense role. It’d be faster for me to use my personal MacBook than using the replacement, but I don’t think that would be allowed.

   How would you suggest I go about requesting a replacement MacBook with specs that fit my role? Do companies have budgets set aside for these expenses?

   Thanks

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. Hi guys, I’ve been listening for a few months now and am dissatisfied with my current work, where I’ve been for a year. I come from a research background, and now doing an engineering job at a B2B SaaS company is leaving me wanting a change. Moving between teams is not an option, so I plan to move companies early next year. My problem is that I don’t know whether to look for another large or mid-size company (I’m finishing final rounds at Facebook and Palantir), or go to a startup where it is likely to be more interesting (I have an offer to be the lead engineer at a very small startup, where there are already 5 developers). I have one year of industry experience. If I go to the startup, will it negatively impact my career in the future if/when I want to move elsewhere? Would it be easier to move elsewhere, and get a better offer or a higher position, if I work at Facebook or Palantir instead of this startup? Also, while I prefer research, I’m not in the position to go back to grad school and finish my PhD (I finished my MS and left to work) for monetary reasons, so I need to move to another engineering position.

2. I’ve often heard of senior employees “negotiating their exit” instead of resigning/quitting, with rumors of large negotiated payouts. I assume that’s just a select group of people who can, but I’ve never seen much written on that. What is the situation where you can do this? How do you set yourself up for being able to get a payout like this?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. I’m a developer responsible for hiring other developers for my company. I’m comfortable interviewing and I feel like I can get a good grasp on whether the interviewee is technically competent.

   My boss wants us to give a take-home technical test to people after the first interview if we’re happy with how they interviewed and want to proceed further.

   The current technical test is time-boxed and is designed to represent the work they would do at our company. I worry that we ask for too many requirements within the current time constraint of 2 hours, but asking for more time will put people off completely.

   What can we do to make sure the technical test is fair and a good experience for candidates?

2. Hello Dave and Jamison,

   I am a team lead at a rapidly expanding company. We have been trying to fill open head counts (>4) for over a year now, and our team is also handed some very important and promising projects, and because of that, even more open reqs for our team. Recently in our 1:1, I was pressing my manager to fill the openings ASAP but he told me our company recruiters are so busy that our team don’t have any dedicated recruiters, and my manager have been sourcing candidates himself for almost a year now.

   I was surprised by that and offered to help. I had read some materials from the recruiting team, got the tools set up and ready to cold email people I found on LinkedIn. My question is, how do I approach them in an authentic manner? I am proud of my company and our products, but how do I reach out to them without letting them know my primary motivation is get more team members to do the work so I can get more sleep? On the other side of the table, I feel those recruiting emails are cold and a waste of my time. So looking at the funnel I built, I don’t know if I can bring myself to start spamming others’ inbox.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. I’m a technical lead and I’m planning to take the usual advice and quit my job. The catch is, I have a not-yet-vested interest in staying until the new year. My manager mentioned in passing that he’s doing resource planning for my team for next year. Should I indicate that I’ll be looking for work in the new year?

   I feel like I have a guarded relationship with my manager, so I don’t feel like it’s a safe space to say just anything. But I know it would be helpful for him to know that I’m leaving.

2. I work at a consulting company and I’ve been outsourced to one of the biggest banks to work on their iOS application. My problem is every time I propose a solution, it bounces back and is never accepted. In my opinion our way of doing things is wrong and I lost motivation and enthusiasm to work on the project. I shared my concerns and thoughts and always got the pat on my back but never found a solution. In these kind of situations, how do you motivate yourself to keep going? Should I look at it as improving my people management skills or should I quit? Thank you both of you. I don’t feel alone when I listen your podcast and I’m simply thankful your existence.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. Listener Anonomomonous asks,

   How do you influence people and change minds?

   I work on a team where things often happen by inertia. I have a lot of ideas about how to improve our process, scope our work better, collaborate more effectively etc. I’m comfortable with sharing my concerns and suggestions with my manager and the rest of the team but the opinion of any single developer is usually politely noted and ignored.

   As an individual contributor, what’s the best way to influence the rest of your team and your manager without being the overly critical toxic person who tries to shut down every idea?

2. For those who work in a “flat” hierarchy structure, is it unreasonable to ask for a 30~35% pay raise? Normally that would sound like an absurd ask. However, given the fact that everyone is considered an “engineer”, the higher compensation that comes with a promotion isn’t available any other way than explicitly asking for it (as far as I know).

   Not looking to jab an employer for more money, especially since I like my current one, but since what I’m doing on a daily basis sounds an awful lot like the senior engineer positions I hear about, I naturally would like my pay to reflect what I do.

   What do you suggest?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. A few years ago my team chose a niche SPA framework (Aurelia) for the front-end of a large multi-year new product development.

   The team started a new product in the same family. I chose to continue using Aurelia. However, some of the developers on the team have suggested using React - newer framework, easier to hire/retain for, etc.

   I personally feel that focusing on solid foundational css/html/javascript skills is more important than the actual front-end framework used, but perhaps they have a good point when it comes to retention and hiring. What do you think?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. Listener Lisa asks,

   Hi Dave and Jamison! How do you answer the statement “You’re very quiet. Like really quiet”? Me? I tend to give a small smile or recently, I said “I know.”

   I’m a software developer in a large defense company and I’m on my third and final year of my rotational program. I just rotated back to the same area as my first rotation, so I know a couple of folks. However, I’m not SUPER close to these people. My team is fairly new, but most of the members started at the same time, unlike me, who started just three weeks ago. I want to try to know people and get close to them, but at the same time I know my energy lowers after a couple interactions. I have always been known to be quiet, but I don’t want to be known as the odd developer out on my team. The team seems to already know and like each other. I still talk, but only when I have things to say. I tend to stick to doing actually work, while others walk around and talk to people. Especially in the environment I work in, I assumed that we should limit ourselves to mostly chargeable time because we would have to make up the time we spent talking about unrelated work topics. It also doesn’t help that most of my team sit around each other, while I’m in a separate area. I think it would just be awkward for me to stand over their area just to talk, then having to make up that time later on.

   Should I just accept that I’m mostly an introvert even though I want to belong/to be part of the team? I feel like I want to talk to everyone, but at the same time I sometimes can’t relate to what they’re talking about or I’m just not interested in some of their topics.

   Aside: I feel like there’s a lot of extroverted developers here and it’s different from what I’m used to.

2. Hiya! I haven’t listened too all your episodes, but out of the ones I’ve heard, it seems like you both suggest quitting our jobs. How many jobs have you quit? My dad had told me a couple years ago (when I was looking for a job) is that if you quit too many times, potential employers would think that you aren’t committed or are only looking to get more money. Is this the case? Will companies think that if I quit multiple times?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. What should I expect from a junior develop, and how can I help them grow?

   A junior developer joined my team of 4 a few months ago. He has learned things at a reasonable speed but it is still hard for him to implement new features without any help or existing code to copy.

   In past jobs, I usually gave juniors simple, easy tasks, but we don’t have that simple tasks in my current job because we’re working on complicated internal systems.

   Also other junior developers spent lots of their private time learning. I don’t think this junior has spent any time learning in his private time.

   I don’t want to ask them to learn in their private time, but I just can’t help feel annoyed about the fact that he still cannot pick up a well-defined task in our backlog and complete it by himself. I think he really needs to take some time learning some basics like networking and some skills like keyboard shortcuts of text editors. I know there is lots to learn. However, sometimes I lose my patience when I have to repeat myself.

   In addition to lack of knowledge and skills, I feel that he always waits somebody to tell him what to do and explain everything to him. I tried to tell him the whole picture of the project before explain a specific task, but I couldn’t see any improvement.

   What could I do to help him (or make myself feel better)?

2. I’ve worked with 3 managers in the past 2 years at my first company and all of them seem to have trouble producing results from team meetings and one on ones. More specifically, my managers have mentioned things/events/changes they would plan to do with the team or me and several weeks/months go by and the idea is never mentioned again. At times it felt like maybe it was me that was unable to produce the outcomes of said ideas or that maybe I was some sort of a lost cause. However, my most recent manager doubled the ratio of ideas:results, so I don’t think it’s just me. For my one on ones, we have a long running list of things we talk about and even the trail there doesn’t seem to amount to anything.

   How do I hold my manager accountable for things they say or plan to do? How do I bring up these conversation on one-on-ones without making it seem like I’m the one managing them?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. How should I deal with the product I am building being called “the worst tool in the domain I’ve ever used”? The product I’m working on is quite old, has many customers, but by no means is a product everyone loves or even talks about. Most of the public feedback I see is negative, with very little praise or even good words about it. Lately, it’s been straining me and affecting my motivation to work on this product, even though otherwise I like working on it, with the great team, good tech stack and so on. Thanks!

2. Hi! I miss going to the gym (because of lockdown) and listening to your podcast while I do cardio! My question: I’m a freelance developer working remotely in a team of other freelancers. This is my first full remote and freelance job setup. Recently, I’ve been feeling like the other developers are “just letting the meter run”, as it takes them a long time to complete tasks (without writing unit tests or documentation), the tickets they work on don’t pass initial QA, they log in late in the day and disappear in the afternoon usually without leaving a slack message or status. Is it understandable to think so negatively about them all the time should I just mind my own business and just manage my feelings? Help appreciated - I have been thinking of leaving this project because of them, which is unfortunate because the company and their product are interesting. Thanks!

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. I have a question about ‘title inflation’, where you get promoted faster than your experience would normally suggest for that specific title. If I’ve been a ‘Senior Software Engineer’ for all of a year, and am now getting recruiting offers for Director and VP of Engineering jobs, is it worth interviewing and seeing where it goes? I don’t really see myself at that level, but I… might be able to level up to it quickly!

2. Should I take a remote work offer or find a new job in a new place? I am moving to another country with my husband in 2 months. I am the only frontend developer in the team and my company has been having difficulty hiring people, so my boss asked me if I could work for the company as a remote employee. I am reluctant to the offer because my plan has always been to find a new job so that I can blend in with the local community. Not to mention the 12-hour time difference and lack of new challenges. Sadly, I find it difficult to reject him and leave my colleagues behind. What is a better action to take?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. I work for an all-remote company and I’m about to get promoted. The company says they target a salary increase of 5-10%. Assuming they come to me with an offer on the low-end (5-6%), what’s the best way to go about negotiating a higher raise during promotion? I want to stay at the company and also want the shiny new SENIOR job title, so I feel like I don’t have much leverage in this situation. Any advice is appreciated!

2. Rachel asks,

   Live coding makes me choke. As soon as someone else is watching, my brain immediately goes to mush and I’m like a chicken with my head cut off. Actually recently I learned it’s not just live coding – it extends to live spreadsheet-making and live cooking as well! I guess I’m not into performing? Anyway, this has come up because it’s impacting my career in real ways. For interviews I offer to do takehomes, which I’m great at, but sometimes I’m told live coding is the standard they apply to all applicants. What’s a non-live coder to do?

Show Notes

Consumer price index: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm

@Channel Twitter account: https://twitter.com/Channel

https://interviewing.io/

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. Should I change tech stacks every few years in order to not get pigeonholed?

   Is it a good idea to stick with a tech stack for as long as I can or should I follow the market trend and try to learn another promising tech and then try switching into that?

   Would you advise me to be more of a specialist or a generalist early in my career, and what about later when I’m more experienced? I’m a full-stack web developer who’s just starting out my first job (if that matters)

2. I love this show so much, I’m even trying your goto advice - quitting my job! But not untill I’ve got another lined up so shhh about it already. In the mean time, I work for a huge agency as a senior(ish) developer and have recently started work with a new team. However, they have issues: no one turns on their camera for video calls, which I’m ok with, but it makes the next bit worse somehow - most say the absolute minimum in response to any questions and offer no opionions / thoughts / ideas. It makes things like sprint retro meetings very awkward. We have a scrum master running our meetings who is clearly struggling to engage the team, I try to hold off to let any of the others answer questions but I always seem to end up picking up the slack. I’ve even started timing how long I’ll let the slience endure before jumping in to answer, I’m now waiting 15 seconds. Have you come accross this before? How can I get people to engage more?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. I have a weekly one-on-one with my manager. What should I talk about in them? Things like feedback and career goals become old and repetitive real soon, and I end up discussing current work items. I understand that a one-on-one is my time to ask questions and don’t want it to be a longer daily-standup.

2. My front-end team mates are in a power struggle with my back-end team mates and my design team mates. They’re intentionally making technical decisions that artificially constrain the choices of other teams.

   For example, design wants a certain interaction for a new feature, and my team says “nope, it can’t work that way, cause the components we built don’t allow that”. Or, they make tickets for the back-end team as in “endpoints have to work this or that way, because our components assume that structure”. This often seems detrimental and confusing to other teams.

   When I push back against my team they are angry. When I defend my team other people are angry. When I try to strike a compromise I feel gross because I usually think my team is wrong. I’ve tried talking with other teams and managers about the problem. I feel gross about that too because I don’t want to point fingers or throw my team mates under the bus. Where should I even start?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. Hi Mr.Smith and Mr.Dance,

   I’m a software engineer at a big software company. I recently learned to self-evaluate and found that I’m really bad at being finger pointed. I am normally an easy-going team player with an open mind. I accept that I can be flawed sometimes, and I would never blame anyone. But whenever someone points their finger at me and says “this bug is caused by YOU!” or more commonly “this bug is caused by YOUR systems!” (sometimes with facepalm emojis or this emoji 🤷), I suddenly become super defensive and frantically try to find counter evidence to prove that it is indeed THEIR system that is at fault, or at least some OTHER systems that is at fault, but definitely NOT MINE. After I cool down for a few days, I regain my composure and realize that what I have done was wrong and not useful to the discussion. This is specifically in the context of informal issue debugging between teams, not strictly a blameless postmortem meeting.

   I think blaming others is not a good behavior and makes the workplace toxic and unproductive. I would like to improve myself (and others). Any suggestions and recommendations?

2. First of all I have to say a big THANK YOU to the work you’ve been developing, it’s helping me a lot to set my expectations and pave my career path. So, to the question…

   I’m currently working for a large Brazilian fintech and I’m starting to get a little bit annoyed by the lack of acknowledgement. I’ve already made it clear to my managers a couple of times and I always received great feedbacks and always performed “above the expectations” for my level. But in the last 1:1 we had I was a little bit more insistent about it and the explanation they gave me was “we know that our developers are above the average, we know that a Junior here can easily get Mid-level or even Senior in other companies, but we want to be a tech reference in the country and we don’t want to spoil the devs by promoting them a couple of times in the same year”. I understand this ambition but it got me a little bit frustrated. Of course I don’t want to be a mercenary nor a mediocre developer, but if this is the objective they’re aiming they should at least pay a competitive salary. This conversation really demotivated me, it seems to me they just want a high specialized work-force for a cheap price. I really appreciate everything I’m able to learn inside the company, for sure everyone is above average and being there is like being in school and it’s been really cool. But I’m starting to question if this “trade-off” of low pay and high learning makes sense once you’re already in the Mid-level corporate world. I’m pretty sure I can double my salary in the next month if I wanted to - a couple o recruiters contacted me in linkedin and I also made some interviews -, but this “tech reference and always learning” thing keeps bothering me and I wonder how much of it really makes a difference in the long run.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. I’m feeling bored and disengaged with my job lately, but I’m pretty sure it’s one of the best jobs I can find: my manager and teammate are great, my compensation is very high for my area, worklife balance/benefits etc are excellent, and the mission and product the company make are awesome and help the world! On top of all that I think the work is technically interesting! But still I’m bored and disengaged :(

   I can’t tell if I’m just burned out from the pandemic and this is how it’s manifesting, or if I just have a serious case of “the grass is always greener” and now that I’ve been on this team for 2 years I’m ready just for a change of scenery. I want to fall back in love with this job, but how can I do that? Do you have any advice? Changing teams isn’t a great fit as this is a small office for the company in a ““satellite”” site, with only one other team that I’m not super interested in.

   I could of course take the patented advice and find a new job that might be equally great, but what else can I do?

2. Listener Very Verbose asks,

   Love the show! I’m rapidly working my way through the backlog and dread the day that I reach the end and have to wait a whole week for the next one! :)

   Whenever I write a message to a coworker I tend to start with a huge wall of text, then revise it down to something smaller and hit send. I do this with emails, slack messages, code review feedback, you name it. Even this question I’ve re-written a few times!

   I feel like I’m over-thinking things, and trying to make sure there is no misunderstanding in what I’ve written. For example, a relatively small piece of feedback for a code review might be re-written many times, because I’m concerned that I will come across as overly negative or condescending if I just send through my first draft.

   Often, the feedback is positive and they agree with the points that I’ve raised. But they’re only seeing 2 points, when I probably started with 10 and deleted 8 of them that I later deemed to be ‘too nitpicky’ before sending it through!

   Naturally, all of this takes time and I’m often wasting more than 20 mins, only to end up sending 2-3 sentences at the end of it. Do you have any tips for helping me get to the point, so that I can be more productive and move on with other work? Do I just need to care less about what they think of me? Should I just skim over the code, say “LGTM”, and suppress the fear that I may have just approved a critical bug to go to production?

   Appreciate any advice you can give. Unfortunately, I don’t think inventing a time machine to go back 18 minutes after spending 20 minutes writing a message is a reasonable option :) It would take me several decades to be happy with the time machine before I turn it on!

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. Hello!! This is maybe the opposite of a problem, but I’ve found myself stuck - how do you navigate too much interest from outside parties? I work in a pretty niche subsection of software dev, so I field a lot of job offers/recruitment when people start to put together a new team. These are usually coming from managers/people I would be working with directly (and admire!) rather than recruiters. Generally the opportunities are something I could see myself doing one day, but I’m perfectly content in my role as-is for the time being. Where’s the line between expressing interest in future opportunities (emphasis on future) without stringing people along? How many “catch up” conversations are reasonable before it shifts from maintaining a relationship to active recruiting? Apologies if this comes across as a humble brag but I’m getting overwhelmed. Love the show, you rock 🤘

2. I recently started a new position at a startup after being recruited by one of their senior leaders. Being a startup the company has had its ups and downs, including some layoffs within the last year. I am really loving the company so far, the people, the culture. They really seem to care about correcting past mistakes and listening to feedback from everyone. There is still a good amount of turnover among engineers and engineering managers. I’m sure some turnover is normal especially at startup. But at what point does it really become something I need to be concerned about? What questions should/can I ask to help me get a better picture of what is going on? Is there anything specific I should look out for that might be my cue to start creating a backup plan?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. Hello, I have been working as a software developer for 10+ years now and recently took a job at a non-technical company.

   I was recruited to craft a web app for this company and thought they had an idea of what it means and the changes it may require.

   I am the only developer on the project. I feel like, either I’m not communicating well/at all, or they just simply don’t care about the work they recruited me for. I don’t have a good work/life balance since I’m always anxious when I receive an email from the company fearing someone will complain about the quality of my software. I feel isolated and unable to show how my work positively impacts the company

   Since I know my work is not perfect, I feel like I should not complain at all and just make my software bug-free. I’m doubting my abilities and starting to think I actually don’t know anything about Software Engineering.

   Because the company is non-technical, do I have the right to say that my work is that essential? What should I do so I don’t feel like crap every morning before going to work?

2. In your last episode, you brought up a listener question about a developer of eight years accepting a senior developer position. I’m in a similar boat, but with far less experience. How much less? Well I’ve worked as a developer only for THREE. This is by no means a flex, but I’m kind of worried that I’m in over my head. There was little due diligence on my new supervisor’s side, so my trepidation is that I’ll be two/three months into my new job and they’ll look at my perf and see “this kid is not a senior at all”. I know, the classic imposter syndrome. I’ve been straight forward with my new supervisor about my experience level—or lack thereof—and they seemed not too worried about it. Do you guys have any advice for me going into this? What can I do to maximise this opportunity I’ve been given this early in my career? Love the show!

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. Hey guys! I’m a long-time listener and like many of your other listeners have listened to each episode!

   Until now I didn’t have anything to ask, however, I have a story to tell and I was hoping for your opinions on this. Someone I know is a somewhat junior dev, they left their first job for a new job that had better pay. They were pretty good at negotiating a good salary, while still being transparent about their work history. But a few months ago management said they were underperforming compared to other coworkers and their pay would have to be cut. At first, they said at most it would be 10%. However, it ended up being 23%, which way less than even their prior job. Needless to say, they’re taking the softskills option and looking for a new job. My question is how commonly does this happen, and what are some telltale signs that this could potentially happen? Thanks for your time and a have great week!

2. I’m 8 years into a career in software engineering and I just accepted a senior engineering position at a well respected tech company in Silicon Valley. While I believe I am qualified for the position, it will be a big step up for me in terms of the caliber of engineers I’ll be working with as well as the overall scale of the system compared to my previous jobs. The standards of engineering and general productivity will likely be higher than I am used to, though I’m excited to level up. I’m not looking for advice about my specific situation, but I’m curious: what are your guys’ priorities during your first days, weeks or months at a new but senior-level job, to ensure you hit the ground running and set yourself up for a successful tenure at the company? Anything you used to do that you don’t anymore? Any common mistakes you see engineers make when they join new teams?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. This question came with a delightful ASCII-art diagram that I will now dictate as follows: “pipe space space space space” JK

   TLDR: I want to move up the ranks but I’m not sure what might await me… except meetings. What should I expect? And how do I get there?

   Too Small, Want MOAR! I work in a big enterprise as a Tech Lead in an ““agile team””. So day-to-day I focus on getting our team to build the current feature we’re meant to be building (eg by helping other devs, attending meetings, and sometimes writing code). The next step for my career would be what we call an “Engineering Lead” but I’m having a hard time figuring out what that role actually is and our “EL” is so slammed with meetings I’m afraid to take any of their time to ask… SO - Dave & Jamison, can you enlighten me? What might the goals and life be of someone at that level and how would someone who still codes every day(ish) start figuring out what to do to get there?

   P.S. It’s taken me about 4 years but I’ve finally managed to listen to every single SSE episode! (I have a kid, binging podcasts isn’t possible for me). P.P.S. In an interview recently I was asked ““What’s the most valuable piece of advice you were ever given?”” to which I replied ““To negotiate for better benefits in job interviews, got it from a podcast called ‘Soft Skills Engineering’””. The interviewer thought that was cool, subscribed to your podcast during the interview then REFUSED TO NEGOTIATE ON ANYTHING! >:(

2. Living in a small town my options as a software engineer have been limited to working for one company straight out of uni for 7 years. Wanting to develop in my career, and knowing you have advised others in the past to move on from their first job out of uni. What is your opinion of seeking out and switching jobs into remote work? Will this provide the same development value found in a traditional job switch, especially after the impact COVID has had on the way companies see remote work.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. Listener “Scrolly McScroll-Face” asks,

   Hi Team! Love the show. Keep up the great work and congrats on 256 episodes!

   I think I’m addicted to my phone? Every time my code goes to build, or something I know I need to wait on, I open my phone and start scrolling. 40 seconds later when the build is done, I’m still scrolling. In between thoughts, I also open youtube in new tab fairly regularly.

   It’s definitely gotten worse while working at home during these times. I’m surely not alone in this slipping of discipline….

   I’ve tried to put my phone in the next room and that has some success, but I don’t always remember to do that. Do you have any tips? Anything you’ve seen while managing folks?

   I love my job and I love the work, so I dont think I’m not engaged enough, and I struggle to see how a different job would engage me more.

2. Hi I am the under-leveled engineer from episode 240, and I want to provide an update and ask a follow up question.

   I was promoted in this cycle, and because of my shyness I used Jamison’s favorite problem solving technique of doing nothing prior to my review, my compensation in the new level is also underwhelming. Or is it?

   Comparing my pay with some data point on levels.fyi, my salary is slightly below average. As part of my promotion, I have another equity award, and that is also slightly below average compared to the data points on the site. However, I already have an existing equity award granted to me when I started at my previous level. It is unclear to me if the data points on the site have taken into account for an internal promotion vs an offer extended to an external candidate. If I add in the previous equity awards and my compensation in this new level, then my total seems too be way out of band, on the good side.

   Digging into it more, there are other sites and blog posts that talk about things like refreshers and bonuses. These are brand new concepts to me since my previous jobs only pay salary, event the tech jobs in middle America. Could you talk about how compensation is structured in the big leagues?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. I’m currently in my first job as a software engineer. Before working full time, I worked at the company as an intern, and during the last few weeks of my internship the engineering manager asked ““We want to bring you on full time. What are your salary expectations?”” Naive me, not wanting to cause any trouble, responded with a very moderate number. They give an offer that was 10% less, but with ““really good benefits,”” so I accepted.

   Just over one year later, I feel like I’ve proven my value to be substantially more than what I asked for, and I know I’m making 10-30% less than my peers. A couple weeks ago, I had my salary review, and rather than the management being open to negotiation (which is what I had expected going in) they just told me ““You’ll be making 4% more this year.””

   After the meeting, I mentioned to my manager that I felt that the raise wasn’t representative of the value that I would be giving the company. He responded that they pay ““Within expected ranges for my job title and experience.”” I was a little hurt by this, because I want to be paid based on the value that I provide, not based on my title or experience. I don’t think I should quit the job, because I get along well with the team, enjoy my work, and they are paying for my master’s tuition on the side. What should I do?

2. Hear ye hear ye, Gods of podcasts, I have a question for thees! I think my salary is ok, £60k (UK) and I’ve brought up the subject of raises a couple of times with my boss (2 years ago and 1 year ago) - both times I was told I’m doing pretty well but they’ll look into it. So far no sign of a raise but I’m not annoyed, I really like my job and the people I work with are great.

   I’m now on paternity leave and have taken the time to do some interviewing to see what’s out there and keep my skills sharp. Turns out I could earn a lot more! Who knew!? I’m now caught between going back to my boss with these other offers to say ““actually no, turns out I’m not doing great, gimmi more money”” or quitting my job for more money but a potentially worse job… help! How do I say ““more money please or I leave”” but nicely?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. Hiya, thank you for the show. It’s very insightful and both of you are pretty charismatic. Without getting too much into details I had a number of difficulties when I was younger which caused me to never finish my computer science degree. I took a job as a Business Intelligence analyst because I needed to move out. Fast forward a few years and I am now an Engineering Manager for one of the biggest companies in the UK - nearly 2000 engineers and around 100.000 employees overall.

   I consider myself incredibly successful for my age, just turned 30. I manage two teams(11 and 4 ppl) that are seen as the top performers in the Data Engineering department, and that is credited to my leadership.

   I’ve always been very self conscious of the degree situation. I’ve tried to finish it online a couple times but I simply can’t find how. I am now being asked to apply to my boss’ position as Senior Engineering Manager, which could mean being responsible of 6 teams of around 10 people average and a sizeable budget.

   I live in constant anxiety from the possibility of hitting a ceiling or being confronted about the degree situation. While I didn’t hide it on the interview process It’s not something I advertise at all but I got to a point where I just don’t know what to do about it. And so that would be my question: What would you advice for someone in my position?

2. I’m working at a small company where we used to have 2 developers. Both of us had at least 10 years of professional experience and both of us are around 28 years old. A few months ago, our bosses decided to hire 3 new FE devs and all of them come from bootcamp.

   That wouldn’t be so unusual, but all of them are 35+ years old and have families and basically just 6 months of experience. This causes a lot of friction in our team. We’re trying to “mentor” them in best practices and experience we’ve gained over time, but sometimes they don’t accept it, because we’re just too young for them (in one case 10 years younger).

   Do you have any tips how to approach “mentorship” when it comes from younger to older dev? And how to overcome the 10 year barrier?

Show Notes

https://www.simscale.com/blog/2017/12/nasa-mars-climate-orbiter-metric/

https://money.cnn.com/2012/05/13/technology/yahoo-ceo-out/index.htm

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. Hey there! Thank you so much for the amazing podcast.

   In my current job I work with an incredible (and very strong technically) team, and I like working with my manager a lot. BUT, during all 1:1s, and annual reviews the feedback is always that I am doing a great job and there is never a negative nor constructive criticism. However, I have been waiting for a promotion for more than a year, I never get assigned to the shinier and more challenging tasks/projects, and for the merit review I was put in the “good” bucket (not great, not the best).

   So, if I am always doing a great job, what else can I do to get this promotion and be trust worthy of shining projects?

2. Jon asks,

   I’m having a hard time at work. There is so much to do my team can barely spare the time to collaborate on anything. Even when I ask for help, the overwhelming stress usually results in a snarky response.

   I’ve been working here for a year under these conditions and I’ve learned a lot but we never talk to each other…I feel like I still don’t have the whole picture because I’ve basically never been onboarded. I want to collaborate with my team but either the organizational structure or sheer amount of work is keeping us in silos. Trying to break them down usually lands me in the dog house.

   What the heck do I do now? I feel like if I stay I’ll only ever get year 1 dev experience, but I also feel like I’ll be totally useless to any real development team.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. Hi I just listened to your most recent podcast and you mentioned having gone to hand therapy for what I assume is something like repetitive strain injury. It would be great if you could talk about this, I assume lots of engineers have issues with aching arms and hands. Or, to phrase it as a question “my hands often ache after coding for hours. I can no longer work in bed on a laptop or my hands ache for a few days. what did you find out at hand therapy?”

   Cheers!

2. I am at a large (non FAANG) tech company. We have salary levels/bands. My entire team was laid off, and I was offered a job that is three bands higher with another team. They said usually they would not hire someone of my level, but since they had worked with me before and I was a heavy individual contributor they were willing to interview me for this senior position. By the end of the process they decided I was the most qualified candidate and offered me the job. They don’t want to increase my level at all. This is displeasing to me. I was the most qualified candidate, why not offer me the higher level as well? If an external candidate was the most qualified, they would have offered that person the higher level. Unfortunately, I believe that since I did not negotiate on my initial offer when entering the company my perceived worth is tied to my compensation and low seniority level. How do I broach that I think this is unfair (or that they should increase my salary)?

   As additional information, I was given a raise by the previous team’s manager of 20k in January as I found out I was the least compensated on the team by 30k and I got upset at my boss because only about half the team had ever made a commit to any repo and most have no understanding of OOP. Perhaps this is why the team was cut. I feel my company might find it weird to see my salary increase twice in one year and reject for that reason.

   I feel you’re going to tell me to quit and find another job, but I have worked with the new team and can attest that they are kind, smart, have good engineering practices, and are given a lot of attention because they do AI, so it’s not an opportunity I want to miss out on.

   Thanks, love your show, it’s like car talk for the 21st century.

Show Notes

Voice Driven Development: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKuRkGkf5HU

Patrick McKenzie’s article on salary negotiation: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. Thanks for the show, I absolutely love getting awkward glances from people when I LOL randomly in public places.

   I’ve been at my first job for 2 years, including an internship. The work I got to do as an intern was absolutely brilliant and I learned new things almost every day. Then I joined as a full-time employee, and things were good at first.

   For the past year, things have gone downhill.

   I barely get to write code and spend most of my time reviewing and writing documents in excel and word.

   I find this unsatisfying and can barely get the work assigned to me done due to lack of motivation and interest.

   However, I am fairly convinced that the compensation and other perks I get here, as well as the coworkers and management here are some of the best I could find.

   Should I follow the soft skills advice and quit, or should I stick around because of the other favourable conditions I mentioned? In other words, how should I decide between satisfying work vs the favourable conditions?

2. Hi, I am a data scientist. I work on a team of about 30 other data scientists. It’s a new team and I have determined after talking to everyone for a few weeks, that about 1/3 of the team does not know Python, 2 even admitting to me privately they lied in the interview, and probably 50-60% have no idea what git is. I feel like they hired a bunch of excel, tableau, business-y people and assumed any experience with data qualified you to do data science. You may say “quit your job” but this is my first job out of college and I don’t think I could find another easily. Do I tell my manager about this? How do I teach them these things? I’ve already had to pick up a lot of slack on the team, luckily since I have no kids, no girlfriend, a ton of free time, and have been coding since middle school it’s been manageable, but I’m concerned about how to handle this going forward.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. How do I incentivize people to maintain documentation?

   Getting anything done at this large enterprise company is a massive challenge because documentation is constantly out of date and people only have half the information needed. So much time gets wasted because people have contradicting knowledge about the status of projects, systems, or requirements.

   Should I just quit my job or can this be fixed?

2. Greetings! First off, great show - thanks for the countless episodes, most of which result in me getting weird looks as I chuckle to myself while running and listening. I have a passion for technology which lead me to a career in development. I am very often researching new languages and software that will help us do our jobs and/or lives better in my free time. I get excited about these things I find and want to share them with my co-workers but often get rebuffed by them, asking me why I spend my free time “working”. I know I can’t expect everyone to share my enthusiasm and passion for this stuff, but I am finding it discouraging being on a team where this curiosity is not celebrated/encouraged. I love the company I work for and don’t want to leave, but I find myself becoming more and more disconnected from my team because of this. Any suggestions on how I can share my passion with my co-workers is a way that is mutually beneficial to me and them? Thanks, keep up the great work!

Show notes

Gary Bernhardt’s WAT video from 2012: https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/wat

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. I’m not a developer, and have never worked with developers. I have four years of systems/IT experience (ansible, bash, python, windows, etc). I got hired in a devops role at a company with many developers. How can I make sure I’ll have meaningful discussions (and a good learing experience) with software developers in my upcoming devops role at a new company? Will they notice that I don’t know what an enterprise communication bus is if just don’t ask but instead scribble something in my notebook?

2. I just watched “How to crash an airplane” by Nickolas Means. It is about how the flight crew of an airplane crashed in 1989 yet saved 189 lives. The learning is that there are no heroes and teams can succeed only with inputs from all members in the team. All opinions need to be heard. And he also emphasizes that the captain used “we” in all his speeches.

   When it comes to interviews, the expectation is to talk about your personal experience. Using “we” during interviews would look like negative, right? Especially in leadership interviews, this is difficult since leaders are successful only with their team.

   Can you give us some strategies to balance this the best?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. I’m a Tech Lead at a decent sized corporation. If I want to grow towards a promotion my options are a more people management track towards Engineering Lead (basically a TL who also manages 1-2 other TLs) or a more technical track towards Staff TL. Where I’m struggling is I don’t know how I would actually work towards the Staff level, seeing as most of my time is spent wrapped up in mentoring, coaching, planning meetings, and just generally large blocks of time spent on Zoom. Have you ever seen someone move down that path? I worry I would be letting my other responsibilities slip through the cracks by focusing on my own technical advancement. How should I balance what my team needs from me vs. what I need to focus on to get to a role like that? Is the best way to get there 1 step back (to being an individual contributor again) and then two steps forward (working towards Staff Engineer then Staff TL)?

2. Hello soft skills! Love the show and your great banter, keep the laughs coming.

   Do you have any tips for ‘active listening’? My manager is very, very chatty and our catch ups over zoom often last two hours or more. I find myself drifting in and out while he talks and then need to snap out of it when I hear something that might be useful.

   How do I keep focused in extra long meetings where we are one on one and the content is not particularly interesting?

   Thanks!

Show Notes

https://mediocre.dev/it-takes-more

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. I recently took over to manage development at a small company that has been around for a few decades. We just wrapped up a four year effort to move to a more modern web stack.

   The development style before my new position is best described as ‘Wild West’. My direct boss’s philosophy can be illustrated with the following phrases:

   • “We are going to have to rewrite it, so just get it out fast.”
   • “Just hardcode the sh*!@ out of it”
   • “It just has to look like it works, but it doesn’t really have to work.”

   My boss is the co-founder of the company and ran development before me. I have made a concerted effort with my current team to introduce best practices, Unit Testing, PSR standards, APIs and so forth but engagement is really low. I’ve tried every way I know how to get them to care about quality code, tests, standards, etc but they just don’t respond. They are more concerned about getting things out fast which is nice but not my top priority. I’d rather have clean, predictable code that doesn’t break in production.

   How do I get my team to buy off on these principles?

2. Hi Dave and Jamison

   How do I communicate all of the self-study that I’ve done to potential employers?

   I transitioned from a bachelor’s degree in the health sciences to the software industry and I have now worked as a data scientist for a couple of years. I spent a lot of time and effort taking free online classes in mathematics and computer science through Stanford and MIT. Over 3 years I’ve probably done the equivalent of half of a math degree and about a third of a full CS curriculum. And even though I’m employed now, I still keep working on more advanced classes in my spare time.

   How can I communicate this to potential employers considering that I’m not getting any academic credits for my effort? Should I just leave this off my resume? Is it okay to mention that I have audited those classes? Any other ideas?

   Thanks for the lovely podcast.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. Our engineering manager keeps sneaking/creeping on our private slack channels. As an admin of the workspace he can join any private slack channel without being invited.

   I feel like this is an unacceptable behavior. What should I do? Should I just reach out to him and ask him not to abuse his admin privileges? Should I setup a discord server for me and my fellow developers? Or should I take the soft skills engineering advice and quit my job?

2. Thank you guys for your awesome podcast.

   I have recently begun my foray into management with the reception of my first subordinate. I selected him due to his illustrious undergraduate project presentation and his ability to expound on the intricacies of said projects. But, I’m having a hard time managing my expectations. He is unable to complete the simplest of tasks, often going off on tangents that, despite being given the answer, result in spending hours in unrelated rabbit holes. Additionally, he asked for a high salary and was promised an increase scheduled ahead of review.

   As a first-time manager, I worry that I am inflicting unrealistic expectations especially since software is my passion. I enjoy learning learning new languages and technologies.

   What is the best way to let him know that he is not meeting expectations? How can I say this without my typical brashness which will ultimately result in me blurting out something to the tune of “you aren’t nearly as capable as you made yourself out to be”?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. What is your opinion about estimates. Is it a good practice? Are they helpful or just a guess? Should we estimate in story points or hours? How can we improve our estimation skills to be more accurate? I really don’t like estimating. I don’t think it is a good practice because we almost never get it right. The teams that I have worked also almost always made wrong estimates, causing us to miss our sprints commitments frequently. Is it a problem with this practice, or there is a way to improve it? I heard about the Kanban method, that don’t use estimations, but metrics, to give predictability. What do you think?

2. Hello Soft Skills Audio :) Love the show and the great advice, I look forward to the show every week.

   I just joined a company that embraces hotdesking and I’m having trouble feeling like I am part of the team. All the engineers report into the head of engineering but we work on different projects. I work with one other engineer who works remotely from another state, and take direction from the product owner who works from another.

   The culture of hotdesking across five floors of a multistory building means each morning I end up circling around hunting for a place to sit. Because anyone can sit anywhere, I could be sitting next to someone new from sales, marketing, finance, or engineering everyday. Everyone always looks hard at work with headphones on and our organization chart doesn’t feature profile photos.

   I’ve tried introducing myself to the people I find myself next to but it’s just small talk and I never see them again as everyone shuffles around. I’m sick of sitting alone at lunch and missing out on “watercooler” conversations. How do I make friends and figure out how I fit in with an office environment like this?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. I listen to the show while I’m working out and wanted you to know I’ve almost dropped the weight on myself multiple times when one of you cracks a funny joke (which is often, I’m learning to be more careful)😂.

   I work for a growing startup as a dev manager. Hiring has proven to be one of our most difficult challenges. We had one candidate in particular that would qualify as a potentially “Risky” since they lacked experience in our industry. We ended up hiring them because their salary requirements were so low, they were half of what we pay other junior engineers. They quickly proved be miles above the Junior engineer position. They have strong technical skills, are proactive with resolving problems, and have raised the bar for the entire dev organization. They currently meet all the criteria for what we would qualify as a Senior engineer at our company.

   I’ve started feeling uncomfortable about how little we are paying this person. I’ve brought this concern up with management, but their take is that if they asked for the little amount that they did, then we should leave them at that for as long as they are comfortable there. The part that takes this to a whole new level of humanitarian concern for me is that, in passing, I found out that this person is trying to get approval for adoption and that is why they had to leave their consulting background and settle for a salary job. I’m familiar with the adoption process and if we were paying them what they were actually worth (or even 25% closer to what that number is) the entire process would be different for them. I want to take care of the company, but I also believe that we should pay people what they are worth. What should I do?

2. I’ve recently joined a new company (hoorah!) and even more exciting, I’m engaged (double hoorah)! Previously, I’ve focused heavily on my career progression and decided what a good job for me was based on my selfish reasons (more pay). Now, my priorities are shifting towards family first and I’ve been looking into any parental benefits the company may offer (unfortunately none).

   Is it worth looking around for a company that will provide better parental leave benefits and child-care days?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. Hello soft skills audio, love the show and your great advice.

   My question is how do I stop sweating the small stuff.

   I have one colleague who either can’t spell, or types so fast the words make no sense and doesn’t correct the mistakes. Emails, comments in code, comments in PRs, presentations to management, everything is a garbled mess and makes us look bad as a team.

   Another colleague just can’t stop talking in ‘business speak’. Every conversation is twice as long as it should be because they need to ‘touch base on what’s happening in this space and will circle back’

   These are by no means ‘quit your job’ problems. How do I avoid eye rolling and getting frustrated over something so minor?

2. I’ve been working at a software company for almost 10 years now. It’s an amazing company, 5 minutes from where I live, with a really good culture. I have an awesome role as a senior developer working with interesting new technologies, a lot of flexibility, responsibilities and a valued opinion on both technological and company-wide matters. However, this is still my first job.

   I’ve invested a lot of time and effort on career growth the last few years but I feel like there are only a few developers at my company who share the same level of enthusiasm and the need to grow as I do. I’ve been able to bring in new tech, introduce modern practices and share knowledge with my colleagues, but it feels like I’m the only one who’s actively pushing for this.

   Since this is my first job, I don’t know if this is the case in other places as well. I’ve done some freelance projects on the side to learn more about how things work somewhere else but mostly I’m the only senior dev on these projects.

   On the one hand I have a job that I love, on the other hand I don’t really know what’s out there. I feel like I might regret it later if I don’t try something else but based on other people’s experiences, I know it’s hard to find a company with such a good culture and understanding as where I am right now. Switching jobs would also give me a significant salary increase, but will require a longer commute. There are only a few software companies in my area.

   Can you help me figure out if I should take the blue pill or the red pill?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. My coworker Alice reached out to me in confidence to say that another coworker, Blake, is leaving in about a month. Blake told Alice in confidence that they intend to put in their two-weeks notice next week. Making things better, Blake is our entire ops team (<3 bus factor of 1) and our startup was not planning on hiring anyone else into that team for three more months!

   Do I have an obligation to respect their twice-removed confidentiality? Or do I have an obligation to the company (and my remaining coworkers) to push to start hiring their replacement sooner? I’m concerned that if I do nothing, it’s a risk to the company because Blake plays such a critical role and we did not setup Blake in an HA configuration, but I’m also wary of doing something that seems like an ethical gray area.

   I’m not in management, so I have no ability to directly start hiring. But I’m a senior IC and pretty heavily vested in the success of this company. And bummed about my dear departing friend/colleague! And bummed that my workload is about to go up as all of us learn to be ops engineers, too!

   Help! I don’t want to have to take the soft skills patented advice of quitting my job when the startup crumbles under the ops team’s departure, so what do I do instead?

2. Someone I worked closely with on a previous job has reached out to me, asking for a referral and recommendation to my current company. The problem is, I really didn’t enjoy working with this person. The experience was so bad it prompted me to leave that job for another one. I didn’t want to burn bridges, so when I left the job, I cited personal reasons and did not mention the real reason was that I hated the interpersonal dynamics there.

   It could be the case that their toxic behavior was partly due to the toxic organization we were in. It’s also possible that over the years they’ve matured, but I don’t know. On the other hand, each time I’ve asked someone for a referral, they’ve always done it, so I assume that there’s an expectation to refer previous coworkers?

   I can’t in good conscience recommend this person to my current company. If I provide my true opinions, I suppose they’d eventually find out. Can this person sue me for defamation if they don’t get hired?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. Quite often my manager writes me in the morning: hey, can you help the team with this thing? And sometimes it happens so that I know no more than “the team” about the thing, and actually there’s no way in the world I can help them, but everyone assumes that I am some kind of expert in it. Where did they get that impression? This is so irritating!

   I absolutely love to be asked for help when what I’m asked for is kind of “my thing”.

   But in some cases, I can’t just say “hey, this is not really my specialty, I will be more of a burden here”, because everyone would think that I’m just lazy or unwilling to help. And then I sit and struggle through the process of everyone asking me questions I obviously don’t know answers to, and I try to guess or figure out these answers, and I suffer because I don’t meet everyone else’s expectations, and everyone else suffers because no one knows what to do, and it goes on and on and on… I don’t know about you - do you find yourself in such situations and what do you do if you do?

2. My company just asked me if I’m interested in going to a conference that’s about a month away, but I’m currently in the process of job hunting and don’t know if I’m going to be around for much longer than a month. What do I do? It feels dishonest to go and then leave the company shortly after. But it also feels dishonest to say “Nope! Not interested!” because I actually would like to go. There’s also the benefit that people often are recruiting at conferences so it might be a great place to be for that.

It’s one more re-run before we are back with new stuff! Enjoy this episode from November 2018, back when Tiger King didn’t yet exist.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. I sit in a desk with 3 other people. One of those people does a great job of personal hygiene…the other two not so much. I have dropped a couple of hints about it (I mentioned it is a good idea not to wear the same pair shoes/trainers every day so you’re feet don’t start to smell). Some days, my stomach will churn from the smells that inevitably waft over. What should I do - I am worried if I tell my boss to talk to them, he will mark me as a troublemaker/overly sensitive.

   To make things worse, one of them sits opposite and puts his feet under my desk, so the, let’s be frank, absolutely awful stench is right under my nose! :?

   It’s not just feet by the way, we are talking the full BO experience.

2. I was at a interview recently. When being asked for expected salary. I mentioned a number lot more than what the company was expecting. It’s already been a week and I haven’t received a response from them. I really really love the company and the project they are working on. I would love to to contact the HR personal and tell that I am interested in the position even if it means less money. How do I approach the situation? I don’t want to mess it up more than I already have. 🙁

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. How do you quit when you’re indispensable to the team?

   I am the lead developer at a startup. I have a small team of 3 developers under me. I am essentially the “person who wrote all the code”. I have an offer from another startup for more money and more percentages of the company and they want me over there asap.

   I’m afraid to quit this startup as I fear that it’s not yet at a place where it could survive without me. I realize that sounds super egotistical but unfortunately I don’t have a successor ATM and none of the other developers are at a level where I could potentially train them to be my successor in the time frame I have with the other offer.

   The other sticky thing is that the current startup probably doesn’t have enough money to hire someone at my level for what they’d actually be worth. I, and the rest of the team, are severely underpaid, as this is a bootstrapped startup. Love your show, would love to hear your guys’ take on this.

2. I recently interned at a local factory to help clean up some broken 20 year old databases. After remaking them, I quickly became a rising star and word spread fast of my aptitude. I was offered a full time salary position, in which I was able to negotiate for some special privileges and a cool title: software engineer.

   I am having an awesome time building little tools for various departments while learning different languages. I’ve been very fulfilled with the projects and recognition I’ve been getting, there’s just one problem: the IT department absolutely despises me. They see my sole existence as an affront to their entire structure. I am a part of the engineering team and work very closely with product and process engineers, which is apparently hurtful to their ego.

   Lately, IT has been actively obstructing every project I work on and refusing many requests, sometimes with obviously false excuses. I do not have admin privileges, I have limited internet access, I’m not even allowed to have my email password. It’s at a point where I start getting serious anxiety when I need to see IT (e.g. to install a framework or IDE extension).

   How can I navigate these awful encounters without letting it harm my view on the rest of the job? I am feeling like I need to wage war but I want to retain my golden boy status.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. I became a software engineer 4 years ago after graduating from a bootcamp. I then worked a few software jobs in middle America. About a year and a half ago, I got a job in a well know tech start up and moved to a big city with heavy software/tech presence.

   Before I moved, I suspected I was good at software engineering, and after working in this tech startup “in the big leagues”, I confirmed my suspicion by quickly becoming the go to engineer for the team. I just finished a project that delivered a major tech component of our core system, and received lots of kudos.

   Because of this I suspect I was mis-hired for my current level; this is the first job that I can compare myself with more than 10 software engineer peers, and evidently I am above average. I used to tell myself I was not that good because I didn’t work at a “real tech company.” I am pretty certain I will get promoted in the next cycle, but how can I land my compensation to be above average in the pay band as well? Should I share my feeling that I was mis-hired in my current position?

2. How do I push back the work I do not really want to do while still being a team player? My manager assigned me a project that I do not really want to work on and when I try to push back, he said he finds me the best person that suits this. I ended up doing it since I want to be a team player, but I don’t believe it will benefit me in the long term in the team. How can I push back to my manager in other occasion in the future? Thanks for your podcast, it has been very amazing.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. Really love the podcast. Keep it up! I’m in a senior role at a software company and have been here over 5 years. I have come up with a SaaS product idea after finding a problem in my company’s engineering process and started working on it. It solves a niche problem in general software development so it isn’t related to my company product. I would like to use this product at my current company both to help me manage the technical issues at my current company and to help validate and grow the idea.

   Should I have any concerns with what I’m doing? Can my company claim my idea as it’s own? What should I be doing now to protect myself? Any other things I should consider? Does it make sense to validate a new side hustle idea at a company while working full time at said company?

2. Please help soft skills wizards:

   Junior eng at a huge conglomerate, quit mid-patent process (OK I HAD A PRODUCTIVE TUESDAY A MONTH AGO and I’m pretty good with mermaid.js).

   If they come back with a job offer post-departure, since I am the sole inventor on this patent, how do I properly handle this one?

   My manager was…. extremely toxic and every attempt that was made to move was botched either by CoViD-19 or my chain of command. I don’t think I could feasibly have a positive interaction with my former manager and working under him has had a significant impact on my mental health.

   But…. I loved my work. I loved some of the people I worked with. Sometimes it being a huge conglomerate had its upsides as well: I was able to bend the rules as long as the bureaucracy had prevented someone from implementing the visibility that would have demonstrated the rules were bent.

   If they give me an offer to return as a junior architect I would be very tempted to do so, but would be afraid of being anywhere near my former manager, director or VP.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. A few years ago, my current company did a big no-no which turned into a scandal that made national headlines. When I was considering joining, I said it was important for me to feel ethically aligned with my work, and asked about how things had changed since The Incident. They told me they stopped doing bad things, and I accepted the offer. Well, during my time at the company, it has slowly been dawning on me that my team is THE TEAM in question. I finally gathered the courage to ask a coworker, and he confirmed that this was true, and that there’s more designs coming down the pipeline that he and other devs are uncomfortable building. He brought it up with our manager and he was basically told “business is business”. As devs, we don’t make the decisions. And our golden handcuffs are really shiny. Should I leave, stay and try to influence change from the inside, or stay and maybe be a whistleblower one day if need be?

2. I think I made a horrible mistake. I gave up an undesirable job for a fairly large tech company, and joined a Drupal agency. These two weeks have been the longest year of my life. I haven’t written one line of code, and the Drupal admin is incomprehensible. Since it’s only been a (relatively) short time here, how do I get back in the job market without looking like a chump? Do I remove it from my resume? Do I own it like a hideous tattoo? What do I tell hiring managers; whether its a gap in my resume, or that I want to leave after only 2 weeks? Any and all help is appreciated. Thank you!

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. I am REALLY into music. I mostly get paid to listen to Spotify. With this in mind I decided to apply for a new job at a “globally leading audio technology company”.

   The job would be paying a lot more. About 30% more minimum based on the advertised salary range.

   However, I hate the stack being used! I have been given a homework assignment to complete, but it has not been an enjoyable experience.

   I enjoy my current job, however the company doesn’t seem as stable, and their are complications with tax/benefits which i won’t get into.

   So to summarize, should I take the classic SoftSkills engineering advice and quit my job for a sweet pay check and an interesting industry, to suffer the stack?

   Maybe I will learn to love it?

   Any advice?

2. I’m at my first developer job at an ad agency, and on a regular basis I and my co-workers are working well in excess of the 40-50 hours a week (closer to 60+). On many occasions we work the weekends as well. I’ve worked on websites, a couple of apps within a proprietary system, banner ads, and html emails. I’ve learned as much as I’m going to at this job. There are no code reviews, no training, and no on-boarding. I no longer want to work at the agency, but I can’t afford to just quit my job. Given the perceivable lack of transferable skills(recruiters have said this to me, ie no product experience), what are some of my options? Mind you, I also don’t have a fancy CS or CS-related degree that I can leverage.

Show Notes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knuth%27s_up-arrow_notation http://boston.conman.org/2003/12/02.3

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. Can you talk about making mistakes at work? How do you handle it, how do you frame it when you talk about it, do you try to minimize or be honest about it, how soon is it to pretend nothing went wrong and you’re doing great, etc. Thanks!

2. Hello there, Huge fan of the show here, I often laugh hysterically listening to it on long commutes and people think I am on drugs.

   I just finished grad school in a foreign country and i am in the middle of negotiating a job offer with a company whose field of expertise is my passion. All seem to be going well and i have a feeling that the company is hugely interested in me. HOWEVER when we arrived at the salary subject i found that WAN… WAN… they want to pay me a fresh graduate salary even though i have 3 years of part-time and 1 year of full-time development experience abroad; i know their decision is not based on my skills as i did not even have to do a technical test (we mainly talked about the tools i used in the past and the work i did related to that field and it was convincing enough).

   As i see the situation, I have 2 options of either take their offer and use it as a learning experience before switching to a well paying company or say No and go on Vettery?

   Let me know what you would do in my case. Merci

Show Notes

Patrick McKenzie’s article on salary negotiation: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. I work as an IC in a team which owns 3 very different and large parts of the system. Our team is 4 experienced engineers and 1 intern. Historically each person was assigned to a single part and, as you might expect, we have a bus factor problem. With this layout we’re making as much progress as possible and it helps us to compete on the market but creates a dangerous situation if someone would decide to leave (spoiler: I will).

   What would you do if you were IC, team lead or a manager in such a team? We’re already exceeding headcount so it’s not an option.

2. I am a developer with 1.5 years of experience, and was put on a greenfield project to rapidly develop a new application. We have a contractor that came onboard to help with the process. On the very first day of meeting this person I noticed their propensity to not allow anyone else to talk and interrupt.

   Fast forward several months and this person has really become a micromanager, they’re requesting the source files from our UI contractor, they got another person kicked off the project because they didn’t like the changes they were making interfering in their development process, they have constantly hoarded all the real dev work and work frequently until 9pm.

   I have voiced my concerns to the PM, mainly about the bus-factor, since layoffs are likely coming and this person likely won’t be converted.

   At this point I am just tuning out on this project. I do the scrap issues the contractor basically doesn’t want, but I am seeking learning opportunities elsewhere within the company and have nearly zero interest in the project which I see as a ticking time bomb.

   What would you recommend? I could potentially escalate the issue to the manager of our team but I basically see working with this individual as toxic and the PM as autopiloting to the finish line.

Show Notes

https://www.computerworld.com/article/2534312/the–640k–quote-won-t-go-away—-but-did-gates-really-say-it-.html - apparently the bill gates quote is apocryphal

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. How can I stay at a job for a long period of time?

   I’m on my second job after graduating and as I’m approaching my first year at this company I’m already thinking of moving somewhere else. A similar thing happened at my previous job where I stayed for around 15 months.

   I feel that by switching companies so often I’m hurting both my personal development and future employability. At the same time the easiest way to get a better role or a raise is to switch jobs.

   What should I do? Have I just not been lucky enough to find a company that offers better career progression which would give me a reason to stay? Is the problem with me? How did you deal with this in your own careers? How about when you’re making hiring decisions - are you wary of hiring frequent job switchers?

   Great podcast btw, keep it up

2. Is firing the new counteroffer?

   A junior dev on my team confronted us with an offer he got from another company. He is already paid at the limit of his range, his upcoming performance review is “not great, not horrible”. The amount offered to him would put him in our lower senior range and there is no justification for that at all.

   He made it clear he is in a complicated financial situation (got his bank account emptied and credits maxed out).

   I don’t see a path to him getting close to the salary he got offered in the next year or even longer. We are not a company that fires people if they do not grow at a certain rate, but given his situation he is probably not going to stick around for long.

   He also made it clear he would like to stay if not for the salary, but now I am thinking it might be the best for the company to fire him, maybe even for him. Is that cruel, which other options am I missing?

   Given your eternal backlog of questions your advice is probably coming late, I would still be interested in it.

   Thanks for all the other advice, it’s both entertaining and very helpful.

   Best from Colombia

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. My (very large) company has an alternative definition of “unit testing”. Unit testing at this company refers to when a developer manually tests their code in whatever interface the code is associated with after they write it. An example usage would be a standup status update such as “I finished writing the code for ticket x I am just doing unit testing to make sure my code works”. My concern is that there is very little real unit testing at this company and the I think the misuse of this term makes it harder for real unit testing to become more prevalent. Is this worth speaking up about?

2. Feeling Isolated and demotivated while working from home. With COVID 19 pandemic we have been working from for more than six months and looks like it will be another six months at least before we get back to work. We are already a geographically distributed team and with work from home the interactions within team have become harder. We do have once week team meeting but there are more than 20 people and it is usually a tech talk. Sometimes I go days without interacting with the team outside of slack/email. I have realized this tends to make me more distracted or demotivated. Interacting with team members and seniors within team gives big picture information, ongoing projects etc. that helps keep me motivated. I have tried proposing virtual happy hours or even meetings within small groups who working closely once a week or so. Understandably not everyone is enthused about virtual happy hours. Do you guys have any other suggestions?

Show Notes

https://www.martinfowler.com/bliki/UnitTest.html

https://www.amazon.com/Art-Gathering-How-Meet-Matters/dp/1594634920

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1304143989939949568.html

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. First I want to say thank you and I really love the show and all your helpful advice. I think it has made be become a better developer.

   I am a current junior in high school and the lead developer (intern) of the small non profit with approximately 10 college and graduate interns on it. School has recently started to push me away from the project (not enough time in the day) but I still want to be a source of help. I wrote a very significant portion of the code for the current application, however the founder wanted this to be shipped as quickly as possible and this led in a sense to a bit of a cobbled together mess of microservices and no documentation. My main problem is that although I feel I have the technical skills to lead the team, I really do not have much experience in terms of team management, especially in the case of leading a development team. During the main development of the application, it mainly consisted of me and this other developer writing the code. However now that they are gone, I am the only person (along with someone else who kind of has an understanding) with knowledge and familiarity of the code base. Sorry this is long, but I guess what I am asking is how can I (i) create a team structure that will not only prepare interns for real world development as well as making sure that the application remains after I move on and (ii) help build processes and structure that will allow people to meaningfully contribute to the code base.

   Also, just for more information, I have not yet added unit tests or code reviews. Most of this just usually became just as me.

2. I work in AI startup and planning to change my job. My contract is full of NDAs about pretty much everything. How do I talk with companies and recruiters about things I do when I’m not allowed to disclose project details like technologies or libraries used, algorithms for data manipulation, or even where we take data from, bought or downloaded. I can’t say anything more than “I work on AI and we do music manipulation in a programming language”. What do I say?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. Hey Dave & Jamison,

   I have a problem with a more senior engineer in my project, I cannot really predict or follow his thought process.

   They introduced best practices about organizing code, Git branching, software versioning, etc. to the project. Which is great, because I like well-defined processes. And I followed those processes happily.

   Now, there are some occasions where the senior engineer violates one of the processes.

   When they do that I ask why, then they give me the reason and I nod because I think that make sense.

   Fast forward a little, and I also choose to violate the process the same way, for the same reasons. During the code review, the senior engineer rejects my approach because it “does not make sense”. SurprisedPikachu.jpg

   I tried a few times to challenge them in these situations but more often than not they either stood their ground or gave the “agree-to-disagree” nod which demoralizes me. So now, I’m inclined to just follow what they say if this situation happens.

   I understand that there is some nuance for a certain thing to go a certain way, but when this happens I am always left puzzled and spend time re-calibrating the idea/approach.

   What is the best way(s) to deal with these kind of people?

   Anyway, love the show and keep up with the good work!

2. Do you think that a job that helps you constantly grow is more important than a job that promises titles?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. Taylor asks,

   Is it frowned upon to not want to be promoted and get more responsibility? I want to keep a good work-life balance but feel that saying so will have my manager think less of me.

2. Hi Dave and Jamison, love your show! The time has come to quit my job and I am wondering if I should keep a copy of the scripts I wrote for the project?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. I have been working at a large tech company for two years now, after I graduated college. My job title is ““Software Engineer””, but I have barely written any code on my job in the past two years. I’m on a product team that doesn’t own any infrastructure, and when the product managers want us to build something, we find out which teams in the company own the infrastructure and stitch a product together. We often get push backs because usually the infrastructure we need to build a product belong to some entirely different team who do not have stakes in the product we’re building.

   I am worried that my coding skills are deteriorating, since most of my time at work are not spent on coding. For example, meetings where people hash out how to do something in a system none of us are familiar with, chasing down people in other teams to ask them to squeeze out time from their busy schedule to help my team, and completing process paperwork. On the rare occasions when I do make code changes, it’s been copy-and-pasting another section of the code/config and changing a few parameters.

   It seems to me that success on this job depends mostly on knowledge of the different internal systems, as well as the social capital of knowing people on different teams. Is this normal? Is this what software engineering is about?

2. Hi there! Love the show and your fun but useful answers.

   I have a career question and would love to hear what you think.

   I’ve been an Engineer for several years now and was recently asked if I’d like to move into Product Management. At first this sounded great. I’d get to set the direction of the product, get involved with strategic planning and roadmap meetings, and generally have more input into my squads work.

   The thing is … that isn’t what it is at all. Most of the time I am fielding requests from marketing and sales people for sales collateral, sitting on customer calls, and digging through dashboards to find enough ‘evidence’ to prove why we should prioritize the backlog the way I have in mind, and I have even become the ‘bad guy’ when the squads ideas don’t line up with the Product team.

   Have I made a terrible mistake? Is Product Management really a good move for Engineers?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. I’m a team lead right now, but I’m leaving the company. When I discussed with my manager, I recommended a team member to take over my position and suggested raising his salary. In the end, the manager asked that team member to take over as team lead, but refused to raise his salary or even give him the title.

   He said he needs to prove that he can take responsibility as a team lead. Then he will get the title and raise. But I feel they just want to procrastinate and save the money.

   What can I do to help my team member fight for the title and raise?

2. Hi Dave and Jamison. You have a great show and I really enjoy listening. I am currently a software engineer at a small/medium sized tech company in the healthcare industry. I was recently asked to interview for a similar role at a pretty large hedge fund. I am wondering if there would be a big culture shift if I were to end up making that change. I am under the (possibly inaccurate) impression that for bankers something like an 80+ hour work week is common. I’m wondering if this impression is accurate, if it extends to the finance industry as a whole, and how much it extends to developers rather than bankers/traders if so. I also remember you guys mentioning in a previous episode that video game developers also typically work long hours. Are there other industries where this culture is typical?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. What should I expect from a junior develop, and how can I help them grow?

   A junior developer joined my team of 4 a few months ago. He has learned things at a reasonable speed but it is still hard for him to implement new features without any help or existing code to copy.

   In past jobs, I usually gave juniors simple, easy tasks, but we don’t have that simple tasks in my current job because we’re working on complicated internal systems.

   Also other junior developers spent lots of their private time learning. I don’t think this junior has spent any time learning in his private time.

   I don’t want to ask them to learn in their private time, but I just can’t help feel annoyed about the fact that he still cannot pick up a well-defined task in our backlog and complete it by himself. I think he really needs to take some time learning some basics like networking and some skills like keyboard shortcuts of text editors. I know there is lots to learn. However, sometimes I lose my patience when I have to repeat myself.

   In addition to lack of knowledge and skills, I feel that he always waits somebody to tell him what to do and explain everything to him. I tried to tell him the whole picture of the project before explain a specific task, but I couldn’t see any improvement.

   What could I do to help him (or make myself feel better)?

2. I’ve worked with 3 managers in the past 2 years at my first company and all of them seem to have trouble producing results from team meetings and one on ones. More specifically, my managers have mentioned things/events/changes they would plan to do with the team or me and several weeks/months go by and the idea is never mentioned again. At times it felt like maybe it was me that was unable to produce the outcomes of said ideas or that maybe I was some sort of a lost cause. However, my most recent manager doubled the ratio of ideas:results, so I don’t think it’s just me. For my one on ones, we have a long running list of things we talk about and even the trail there doesn’t seem to amount to anything.

   How do I hold my manager accountable for things they say or plan to do? How do I bring up these conversation on one-on-ones without making it seem like I’m the one managing them?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. How do you politely decline job offers that you never intended to accept in the first place? I’ve been trying to interview more often recently to keep my interviewing skills sharp and check how employable I am. I always struggle declining the offers politely. What usually happens is that I set high salary expectations hoping that the company refuses me, but sometimes they do match it and I end up in an even worst spot. Any tips? Should I come clear earlier in the process?

2. I was recently hired as a Staff Engineer at a large tech company. After joining the company I was told I was the first outside Staff Engineer ever hired into the organization and the expectations for me were very high. After the first month I noticed that coworkers were acting strange around me and less responsive to my ideas. During a 1:1 one of my coworkers specifically stated that he and several others have been at the company for 5 years and were passed up for the promotion I got and were upset that an outsider was hired. Based on this they would be watching me closely. I’ve talked to management about the conversations and their feedback has been to try to “make friends”. I am the most Sr Engineer in a group of 15 engineers who work across 5 different teams. The situation is turning very toxic where the other engineers are trying to “one-up” me in effort to obtain the promotion for the next cycle. What do I do?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. I have noticed the majority of the managers get stuck at a mid-management level and never move to C level. And, there are a few who experience astronomical growth. For example, I know a C-suite executive who has moved to his current role from a Web Developer role within 9 years and changed job only thrice. One more C-suite guy I know has gone to that position within 8 years in the same company. Unfortunately, I don’t have the rapport to ask either of these folks what I’m going to ask you, so here it goes. What makes some managers move very quickly up the management ladder, whereas the majority remain stuck in mid-management? Also, at the mid-management level, how detrimental is job-hopping to quick growth. Looking at my small sample size of 2, both have not hopped around much.

2. Hi, love the show. I have a history of working as a Voice Engineer but since I got my last job I have migrated towards more Sysadmin/Devops type job. This was on purpose as I absolutely HATE the voice stuff. The problem is that I still have a bunch of people coming up and asking me to help with Voice related issues or projects. I have tried to very subtly express I am not interested but it doesn’t seem to work. I am probably also guilty because I am a yes man and want to be the nice guy so I don’t say no to these requests.

   So the question is, how do I get away from my past and stop people from coming up to me with questions about a domain I dread/hate?

Show Notes

https://lethain.com/career-narratives/

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. Hi Dave and Jamison, I’m in my mid twenties working at a large company with 1,000+ devs. My direct manager (let’s call him Bob) is probably in his late forties, is from a different country, and has a wife and two children who live in his home country. He currently manages ~20 devs in multiple scrums.

   Last month, I had my mid-year performance review with Bob. I am pretty sure that I’ve done a great job during the first half of the year. I made a few performance improvements, designed and partly implemented a few new systems, and even saved the company from a potential lawsuit. I think that I’m already delivering much more than the typical junior would already. Bob seems to disagree. He only gave me a mediocre review. When I pushed him for his reasoning, he seems to avoid the question and just told me to focus on the whole year review instead.

   Last week, I just came to know that Bob is filing a divorce. I would think that he is probably feeling quite depressed. Nonetheless, it bothers me to feel that my review score is somehow related to his personal affairs. He rushed all of his reviews on the last deadline though. I get the feeling that he is dispirited and didn’t focus on giving his team a thorough and honest review.

   I don’t want to bring this up to Bob’s manager as it would probably make him even more miserable. I also don’t think I can give him divorce advice. What would you do?

2. Hi there. I just graduated from undergrad and will be starting my career in just a few days. A big question on my mind going in is whether software development is the right career for me. I landed here because my parents saw me tinkering with HTML as a kid and pushed me into a CS major and this job. Me personally, I had wildly varying attitudes towards programming in college. Some days I was so hungry that I threw myself into hackathons and side projects; other days I was ready to drop my CS major. All this left me unsure of where I really stand. I’m grateful to have ended up on this path, but as I think more long-term, I question whether I’m really here for the long haul. What signs could I look for to gauge my compatibility with the tech industry or help me decide whether this career is really for me?

   Either way, thanks so much for making this podcast - it’s been a great window into the world that I’m about to join.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. Hello. Thanks for hosting such a great podcast. I recently finished binging all the previous episodes.

   I’ve recently noticed in conversations with my team, whether synchronous or asynchronous, after I propose an idea or stake out a position, I easily get defensive if a teammate tries to give feedback on my idea.

   I don’t mean to get angry, but I sometimes don’t notice until it’s too late.

   I think it has gotten to the point where my teammates might have caught on, and I don’t want this to lead to a state where they never disagree with me.

   Have you ever dealt with this, in yourself or others? How have you dealt with changing this mindset?

2. My first software developer job lasted two years. I didn’t learn much.

   • We deployed legacy Java apps with SCP
   • We had no tests
   • We didn’t have CI/CD
   • We were using a beta version of an old framework which we never upgraded
   • Our repos were not in sync with our production code
   • A lot of commented out code, dead code over the place
   • Using multiple languages across the board. We were using Java for something, Node for some, PHP for web/api, JS for client side. Basically the devs were cowboy coding to get the stuff out.

   I am three years into my current role & have already learned so much more than in my first role. I feel like my first job set me back. How do I overcome this?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. Hey, long time fan of the show!

   Our current CTO came in as the result of a merger. For most of his life, he was a solo developer and owned his own company.

   The struggles we are facing now are:

   • He is not responsive at all, neither via chat, nor email, nor any other communication tool.
   • He often says “I’ll do it” but then takes weeks to finish
   • He has thousands of unread emails in his inbox
   • When he writes tickets, the details are unclear for others
   • He codes way too much for a CTO, in my opinion, and his code is a bit messy compared to the other developers

   Since he is a really nice person, we all want to give him feedback that makes him understand his role better, and to avoid being a bottleneck.

   I know that changing another person is hard, but at the same time I know that he is motivated to become a good CTO.

   How do I help him?”

2. Hi. I’ve only recently discovered your podcast this quarantine, and it’s been really helpful at work already. So when I was faced with this problem, I immediately thought of you!

   I have been a professional software developer for just over a year and have received great feedback from my manager and team. During my performance review, I asked what I would need to qualify for promotion. I got the news that I had already been recommended for a promotion!

   Meanwhile, a friend still in university got an entry-level job offer from my company that pays more than I would make if my promotion went through. Where I come from, there are no negotiations when companies recruit at universities, so it’s not a matter of them negotiating a better deal.

   If the promotion does not come through I have no qualms trying to negotiate. If the promotion does comes through, would I come off as ungrateful if I bring this up? Am I asking for too much by wanting to be paid more at a higher position than what a new grad would be paid at entry level? I know it’s not an ideal world and I feel greedy as I type this, but I just want to be compensated for what I think I’m worth. I also think that it also comes down to my ego at some point. SEND HALP

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. I’m in the process of quitting my job. I’ve been a developer here for a few years and made amazing friends. I love the people here but I am looking for a new challenge and a pay increase.

   I was discussing my references for the new role with my partner and she said I should ask my current manager. I stopped hard in my tracks and said “absolutely not.” She works in healthcare and said she wouldn’t get a job unless her old manager gave a good reference. I dismissed this as not applying to software engineering. But the thought has stayed with me.

   Would use your current manager as a reference? Am I wrong to not do this? At what point do you tell your current manager your looking to leave?

   My manager does not know anything yet and I thought it would be “mean” to tell him I’m leaving and also ask for a reference. I do believe he would give a good reference though.

   What are your thoughts?

2. Hey guys,

   Should I stay at a job where I get paid to do nothing?

   I took a new job as a data scientist a few months ago and since COVID-19 blew up I have had absolutely nothing to do at my job. I’m supposed to be working remotely but our team doesn’t get a lot of business and we’re mostly keeping a facade of being busy with “internal projects” and “training”. This was nice for the first few weeks but at this point I’m concerned about my career development.

   Also, the job is more business-oriented than I expected while I would rather focus on building things. I would like my next job to be a machine learning engineer or a software developer role in some other domain. I’m worried that my “hard” engineering skills are deteriorating with every passing week.

   All of this is made more difficult by the disturbed job market at the moment and the fact that if I stay at my role for another 7 months, I will receive a sizeable retention payment.

   What should I do?

   I love the podcast. Keep up the great work.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. Hello,

   I know you said you don’t read the compliments on air most of the time but this podcast is great. I just found it a few weeks ago and I love the positive fun approach to question answering. It has really made me think about software engineering outside of the ““make code do thing”” box.

   Anyway, the question: I have been at the same company for 4 years. It is my first job out of college. I have ended up working in so many different languages and frameworks I don’t remember them all. I guess that’s just how things go. Recently I have been selected to take on a scrum master role and I feel I am quickly being groomed for management.

   That was never really my goal. I wanted to build a depth of knowledge and always have my hands on code.

   Will taking on these kind of roles hurt my chances at future technical roles? Am I dooming myself to managing spreadsheets and Jira tickets until I retire? Will I only communicate in Dilbert references?

2. My teammate frequently gives status updates or fields follow up questions about work that was mostly done by someone else. I am pretty sure they do this to be helpful not to claim credit for all the work. I just wish I could speak up about the work I contributed primarily to before they do so on my behalf. I wish it didn’t bother me since we are one team and I would rather focus on the progress of the team rather than receiving credit.

   How should I respond to these situations in a way that allows me to not get bothered emotionally and also do what’s best for the team?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. I took the cult’s advice and quit my job at a start-up!! Now I’m at a big company and the pace of work is REAL different.

   In my previous life, if I asked a question, I would get an answer within the minute, or at the most, within the hour.

   At my new gig, the response time on Slack can be 6 hours, and pull request comments so far are never – after a day has passed, I just send a Slack to ask for a response to the PR comment. I’ve noticed that if I schedule a Zoom call I have the best chance of getting a hold of them, but a video call sometimes feels like overkill.

   I realize it’s due to my coworkers/manager being super busy, so I try to make my questions short, sweet and infrequent.

   Still, I’m now missing deadlines because I can’t get an answer. How can I get my coworkers’ attention so I can do my work and meet my deadlines?

2. Engineering Managers support growth of their direct reports. Once you become a manager, it’s expected to own your own career development. How much should you expect your manager to support you in that?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. Hey Dave and Jamison, really wish I found your podcast sooner as it has been a great insight into some of the challenges at work.

   Last year, a fairly close friend reached out asking for a referral for an entry level position to my work. Trying to help him out, I figured absolutely! What could go wrong? (Foreshadowing intensifies)

   About 3 months into his employment, my boss informally mentioned at a dinner how behind said friend was at a technical level. I brushed this off, and reassured him that he’ll catch up.

   6 months into his employment said friend was written up a few times for a few different reasons: tardiness , performance (avoids taking tickets and calls), using phone too often during work hours, fell asleep at his desk.

   7 months in brought in our yearly reviews, which he was denied a raise due to his performance history. He asked me if I thought this was correct, and I was brutally honest with him and agreed with that decision. He didn’t take this well, and resulted in an argument between us. At this point I was pretty frustrated with his performance, and it was definitely straining the relationship.

   1 Year in (today), he was caught working on side-projects (paid) at work….. which resulted being put on a PIP / Final Warning. I got pulled aside by my boss and HR asking if I knew about it, I said I knew he had side work, but I wasn’t aware it was being done on company time. He’s on the verge of losing his job, but I can’t help but feel somewhat responsible for referring him.

   All of above events have really hurt the friendship, to the point where I don’t think I would call him a friend. I’ve pulled him aside more than a handful of times asking what’s going on, or if I can help him in anyway but either resulted in a small improvement or a stubborn response that he’s fine at work.

   Am I holding him to too high of a standard? I don’t think the friendship will heal anytime soon, which I am fine with, but am I responsible for referring them?

   Thanks for your time guys, love the podcast and advice!

2. I’m currently a manager and applied for a manager role at another company. I heard back from the recruiter that the manager role was filled, but they were still hiring for tech leads.

   I really want to work at this company, so I asked to interview for a tech lead role. But I really want to be a manager. I’m tempted to ask if they’d be willing to then interview me as if I were a candidate for the manager position I originally applied for.

   Should I try to show them my readiness for a manager role (even though they no longer have a manager role available) just so I can be top of mind when a manager role opens up? Or should I just be happy falling back into the tech lead ranks and try to prove myself over time?

   I really don’t mind starting out in the tech lead role and moving back up to management when I’m settled in at the company and an opportunity presents itself, but I can’t help but wonder if I could have passed the bar for the manager role I originally applied for.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. Hi

   Over time I have heard many different terms that all seem to equate to “I no longer have a job”. Some examples are quit, fired, laid off and terminated. What is the difference between these (and others) and what is best (both from benefits and emotionally) for the employee and the employer?

   Note I am not planning to quit my job or fire someone, but I am curious to hear your views.

2. Hey guys, I love your podcast and find it super helpful for me as I start my career in tech. I am in a conundrum. I am a student and I took the opportunity Covid presented me to take up two internships instead of one. Both are at top companies. My question is I am feeling like I am drowning in work, how do I navigate through this and what are your general thoughts. Thank you in advance!

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. I have a weekly one-on-one with my manager. What should I talk about in them? Things like feedback and career goals become old and repetitive real soon, and I end up discussing current work items. I understand that a one-on-one is my time to ask questions and don’t want it to be a longer daily-standup.

2. My front-end team mates are in a power struggle with my back-end team mates and my design team mates. They’re intentionally making technical decisions that artificially constrain the choices of other teams.

   For example, design wants a certain interaction for a new feature, and my team says “nope, it can’t work that way, cause the components we built don’t allow that”. Or, they make tickets for the back-end team as in “endpoints have to work this or that way, because our components assume that structure”. This often seems detrimental and confusing to other teams.

   When I push back against my team they are angry. When I defend my team other people are angry. When I try to strike a compromise I feel gross because I usually think my team is wrong. I’ve tried talking with other teams and managers about the problem. I feel gross about that too because I don’t want to point fingers or throw my team mates under the bus. Where should I even start?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. Listener Ryan asks,

   I am the only full-time software engineer at a relatively small company. There is also a contractor who has been with the company off and on for about 25 years.

   How do I manage playing multiple roles when the development team is so small? I take the role of software engineer, team lead, software architect, product owner, project manager, designer, QA, etc. Some of those roles are full time jobs. How do I still make progress on development (i.e. coding)?

2. Hey guys, love the show. My question is this.

   I work in a small startup. About a year ago our team documented what our git workflow would look like. We agreed on things like rebasing instead of merging to master, and never squashing our commits into one, that sort of thing.

   One of our developers is now making a fuss about following these rules and constantly does their own thing. After speaking to them about it, they shut me down and said it is up to the individual developer to decide how they use these tools.

   There have been some heated discussion on merge requests with this person telling our senior devs that they don’t want to hear their opinions.

   This person started at the company 6 months before me, and I am only a junior engineer myself so I’m not sure if there is really anything I can do. I have been at the company for 2 years now.

   I have offered to help them learn how to use git the way our team agreed but was told “no thanks, I’ll do it my way”.

   What is the best way to navigate this situation? Is this something I should escalate to my manager, or should I just get over it?

   Thanks for the help, can’t wait to hear you rip this one apart :P

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. We have just today been told that we may or may not have a job in 1 week. I feel lucky because I handed my notice in yesterday for a new job, but my colleagues are not in such a position. The company burned through all it’s money, and its only hope is that someone or some company who wants to buy the business in its current state.

   How would you approach a situation like this? Is it best to just jump ship right away? What would potential new employers think when you told them the situation? What about my co-workers?

2. Long time listener, first time caller asker.

   How do I tell my boss I can’t complete a task?

   I’ve been with my current company for 6 months. In that time I’ve fixed a lot of problems that have blocked our current embedded system project because of my hardware design background. Sometimes I take a bit longer than projected, but I’ve been upfront about that and it’s all fine.

   I was trying to implement a new feature and it was meant to take around 3 days of work to do, but after 3 weeks I just couldn’t quite get it to work. I asked for help and pulled out every trick in my arsenal and just couldn’t figure it out. I ended up having to tell my boss that I was out of ideas and letting him tell me to shelve it, but I could tell this disappointed him.

   What should I do next time?

Show Notes

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4tvZJGNIhM
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnolia

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. My manager has left, so I have the task of interviewing candidates for my future boss’ position. I’m not doing it alone, one more engineering lead joins me for my tech round. After this round, the candidate gets to talk to upper management for the final decision. My question is, what are the lines you should never ever cross in an interview when interviewing your future boss.

2. Our company was purchased by a private equity firm this year. Layoffs began immediately. While the company was gradually carved up, leadership continually violated every promise made. This week, during the most recent round of layoffs, I lost my job. I worked my butt off for years trying to contribute as much as I could to make a positive impact for both users and coworkers. Alas, despite all of my efforts, I was proven expendable. It feels like there was little point in doing as much as I did for this company, especially during the panicked response to COVID.

   How do I find and sustain a sense of security at the next company? How do I ensure that I can safely care about the company—the work done and the people helping to do it—finding that precarious balance between being invaluable and burning myself out?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I’ve been working at a big software company for two years. Since joining, 10 people have left my team, which is more than 50% of my team. Usually it’s the experienced developers who leave either for a different team, a different role or a different company altogether.

   The latest departure of a peer who I’ve been looking up to as a brilliant developer has been affecting my mood quite strongly. On one hand, I should be glad that I’m becoming a more pivotal member of the team, having moved up in the “seniority chain”. On the other hand, I’ve always believed the saying: “If you’re the smartest person in the room, then you’re in the wrong room”.

   Should I be concerned about this turnover rate? Is it considered normal? Why am I feeling different about this last departure than all of the previous ones?

2. I am the tech lead on a team at a large tech company. One of the developers on our team has consistently struggled to meet deadlines and project deliverables. He frequently seems to invent his way into impossibly complex software problems. Additionally, he also seems to lack the ability to focus on a single thread, and tries to tackle diverse kinds of work in parallel. I’ve tried to help mentor and coach him, advising him to stick to one problem at a time and try to raise his hand and has for help before he backs himself into a hermeneutically sealed NP-hard problem — but I haven’t had much success. I wanted to see if you guys had any advice. Thanks a million!!!

Actual study showing actual results that we actually linked in the show notes this episode: https://radford.aon.com/insights/infographics/2017/technology/q1-2017-turnover-rates-hiring-sentiment-by-industry-at-us-technology-companies

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Hi there Dave and Jamison! I am a tech lead in a small team of 5 people. 4 of them start working at 10-11 AM and one of them likes to start working at 1-2 PM. This person is me. Due to my biorhythm I feel I am the most productive at this time, and I also like to do some of the non-work-related stuff in the morning.

   Nobody in my team has any objections but as a team lead I feel guilty because it often happens that I block someone with my work schedule. I’m trying to do as much as I can to unblock everyone - distributing tasks in the evening, making it clear everyone knows what to do - but that’s not always helpful so it usually turns out that I am stopping my morning tasks to have a call and explain something or have a text conversation. Tbh it irritates me very much :D

   Should I feel guilty? As a tech lead, am I responsible for working at the same time everyone does?

2. Hey Dave and Jamison! I love the show, I’ve listened to every episode and your advice has helped me a TON!

   I started a new job in a different city a month ago and because of Covid-19 everyone went remote, so I didn’t physically move to that city then. Now there are talks of going back to the office, and one of the developers on my team is also looking for a place to live so we started talking about rooming together.

   It seemed fine to me but then I realized I’d be spending almost ALL of my time with this person who I have not even met in real life yet.

   Do you think this is a good idea with a lot of convenience or a recipe for disaster? Have you ever lived with a co-worker? Any advice would be great.

   Thanks!

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. My question is regarding studying and learning new material. Before I got my job as a web developer, I was studying at least 2 hours per night, but now that I have the job (been in the job for 2 years), I want to come home and relax. How much time do you spend reading about new technology or working on new projects? Do you do it while at work or at home at your own time? I plan on getting a new job in the future and I feel I need to start studying again. I need to refresh my skills on different algorithm questions. My GitHub is empty because I haven’t worked on new projects since I got the job. Should I worry about that? How much studying should I do for future interviews? Do I need to listen to hard skill engineering podcasts to be up to date on new technology? If I’m not doing any of these already, does that mean I’m not passionate enough and I won’t do well in this career?

2. I just had a 1:1 with a junior engineer I’m mentoring. He mentioned that he has difficulty compartmentalizing work from his personal life (for example, even when he’s not working, he can’t stop thinking about his code and edge cases and possible bugs missed). Got any life hacks to help him care less?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Is a “glue person” valuable on a software team? Someone who isn’t the strongest developer but is liked by teammates and builds a cohesive team dynamic.

2. A while ago I interviewed with a big company. Right after completing a code challenge, covid-19 got out of hand in my country and they sent me an email saying they are putting the process on hold.

   Weeks have passed and I came across a job opportunity posted recently by the company for the position I was applying to. I felt betrayed. I emailed the recruiter asking for follow-up and she said that they are sorry about the situation and that they wanted to schedule a meeting.

   The question is, should I let them know I was displeased by this or is this really a non-issue? Do I risk my chances by doing so? Am I acting like a jealous teenager? Thanks a lot and love the podcast, stay safe!!

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Hi Dave and Jamison, my name is Bob Marley. I am a senior software engineer at a tech company. How do I deal with a chronic toe-stepper-onner?

   I have a coworker named Jimi Hendrix - also a senior software engineer - who has a habit of getting involved in and trying to manage my projects. He joins meetings and slack channels, uninvited, and starts asking people for status updates and questions them why things are done a certain way (and not the other), what’s taking so long on unfinished tasks, etc. Jimi basically feels that my projects are his to oversee and manage.

   So far, my response has only been passive aggressive - e.g. taking discussions to a different slack channel or thread, or meeting the team members offline when he is not around. This is obviously not working out and it is not sustainable so I’m looking for some advice on how to deal with it.

   It’s not hindering the project so I don’t have a strong reason to complain. Other than the fact that it drives me nuts when Jimi gets involved and asks for a status update on a project which I have fully under control.

   Should I just do nothing and wait for the problem to go away due to him getting moved to a different project? But how do I keep my sanity until then? And what if even then he finds a way to step on my toes? Have you guys experienced this kind of situation? Is there a permanent solution to it? And no, I don’t want to quit my job. Please help!

   Yours truly, Bob Marley

2. Hi Dave and Jamison. Love the show. I have been gathering informal peer feedback from my team. I was told I am doing well, and I should be doing “more high leverage work”. I interpret that as coming up with design patterns, best practices, and mentoring other developers. I mentioned that to my manager, and while he agrees, he also said there is no additional head count for the coming year, and knowing that there is a backlog full of features, my concern is that I will be the primary person tasked with writing those features. How could I negotiate/convince my manager to let me do more tech lead work instead?