In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

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!

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:

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!

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:

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 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:

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?

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:

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.

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:

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?

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:

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??

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:

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.

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:

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.

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:

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?

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:

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!

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:

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. 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. 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:

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?

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:

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.

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:

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.

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:

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?

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:

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?

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:

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?

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:

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?

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:

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?

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:

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?

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:

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?

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:

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.

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:

?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??

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:

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?

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:

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?

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:

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?

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:

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.

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:

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?

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:

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

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:

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.

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:

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!!

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:

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.

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:

My employer offered a retention bonus after:

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

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

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:

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 :)

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:

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?

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:

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.

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:

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?

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:

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?

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:

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?

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:

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?

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:

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.

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:

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?

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:

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?

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:

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.

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:

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?

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:

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?

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:

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!

?

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:

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?

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:

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!

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:

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

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:

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?

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?