Soft Skills Engineering

<p>In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:</p> <ol> <li> <p>I work for a small software company on a team of about 7 or 8 engineers. I like working here. I like the people, the autonomy, the pay, my boss, and the stack among other things. I try to remind myself of this regularly so I don’t take it for granted. I’ve been here for about 2.5 years and would love to continue working here.</p> <p>Our CTO, like many, has become a big AI cowboy coder. Every few months, he vibe codes a new project and then decides to interrupt the full workloads that we have a limited number of engineers to do to hand his project off to be cleaned up, worked into the product, and solve all of the problems that remain once actually put into practice. This usually ends up going to a different engineer per project, who is then tied up with the CTO’s whims and is no longer available to do the work planned by product. Our EM knows this and knows the frustration and lost velocity, but what can he do? (rhetorical, not the question)</p> <p>Most recently, I was tasked with implementing some reporting dashboards he did into the product, but he specifically asked me to make it in such a way that he can continue to work on and add to because he can’t be bothered to run the actual product. This is very concerning to several of us. He has no clue what he’s writing or how bad it is. We’ve talked about perhaps making him do PRs, but a) who can make him, he’s the CTO, and b) he’ll have no clue what to do with PR pushback given that he has no clue what he wrote. And again, who can make him actually fix it if he asks us to rubber stamp it? (rhetorical, not the question)</p> <p>I’ve been listening to the show for years and I’ve talked to friends at other companies, so I know this is everywhere. Is it as everywhere as it seems? Is it worth finding a new place to work where the CTO isn’t running so rampant? As I stated before, I’d rather not leave, but if I talked about that as a concern, I don’t want it to sound like an ultimatum, even if maybe it is at some level. Is this just the new reality for us, or is there something that can be done?</p> </li> <li> <p>I am a senior software engineer at a big tech company. I live in central Europe but my team is in the US and I’m 9 hours ahead. I have 7:30 pm meetings and sometimes take an hour before and/or after this meeting to prep or follow up. Previously I slept in later and started later to deal with these meetings. However, now my daughter is starting kindergarten and I wake up early (5-6AM) to be with her, drop her off, etc. Now in the evening meetings my brain is fried and I can’t even articulate myself well. The next day I think about so many things I wish I had said in those meetings.</p> <p>I can’t quit as I make 160K right now and I would only be making 60-80K tops in my country and have some financial commitments. Relocation to the US is also not an option because I have kids and don’t want them to move.</p> <p>So far I have been skipping meetings and my manager has not expressed concern but I feel so detached from my team. I don’t even know what most of my peers are working on.</p> <p>It feels like I am out of ideas to make this better. Please share your space wisdom with me :)</p> </li> </ol>

<p>This is a rerun of episode 331.</p> <p>In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:</p> <ol> <li> <p>Listener ninjamonkey says,</p> <p>I am a new grad who is half a year into the role now at a very large company. Recently, a senior engineer on my team asked me to create a ticket for an infra team for a problem with a service. I provided logs and steps to reproduce the issue and did a health check before submitting.</p> <p>Right after, the manager of the team put me into a group chat with their team, asked why I created the ticket and told me to start doing my job and they can’t debug for me.</p> <p>From these interactions and comments on the ticket, it feels the infra team will likely not work on the tickets I report or de-prioritize them. This has left me discouraged and hesitant.</p> <p>I will have to do lots of this kind of infrastructure work in the future. Additionally, one of the goals my manager set for me is to work with more external teams for the upcoming year.</p> <p>What do I do here? Do I tell my manager about these interactions? Do I tell my team lead, staff/seniors to swap out for different kind of story?</p> </li> <li> <p>I work for a small startup. I was the first employee other than the 2 founders.</p> <p>Being the first developer hired, naturally means I have the most knowledge about our application. I also have good organisational skills, which has led to me becoming and being referred to as the “Lead Developer”.</p> <p>I have recruited 2 of the 3 new developers, and have trained both of them and got them up to speed.</p> <p>At first I was pleased with the progression and was keen to grow into the position, and told the founders so.</p> <p>Since then, I have changed my mind, I don’t want to be the lead - due to the following:</p> <ul> <li>The communication is absolutely pitiful. Any questions we ask of the founders we get about a 30% reply rate no matter the form of communication.</li> <li>We get poorly defined tasks and requirements</li> <li>The CTO will just blast through some of our features over the weekend and say here I fixed it for you</li> </ul> <p>I don’t want to quit my job (just yet… its a comin though).</p> <p>I have actually discussed the above points with them, but I know these 2 founders will never change their ways.</p> <p>How do I tell them I just want to go back to being an Individual Contributor like my Employment contract states?</p> </li> </ol>

<p>In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:</p> <ol> <li> <p>I stayed too long at my first company and now my career is ruined?</p> <p>Hi both, long time listener. (Since I graduated university 4 years ago actually and felt I could never find a job but listening to you guys made me feel not like such an outcast in our field.)</p> <p>I graduated in 2022. Didn’t really apply around much and almost immediately accepted the full time offer from the company I did my internship with during my degree. And fast forward to middle of 2026… I am still here.</p> <p>I’ve long stopped growing as an engineer and have actually been stuck on a simple CLI tool for almost 4 years now with little to no cloud/backend/etcetera experience to show in my 5 year career. I don’t feel I am desirable in the job market at all due to this and waited way too long to look for a job because I was comfortable and happy. I feel paralyzed (no need to put on your space therapist hats BUT some career advice would be wonderful!)</p> <p>(Also did I mention I am in Canada and want to move to Europe and live the rest of my life there but visa sponsorship with my level of experience is impossible? Maybe that’ll be for my next question…)</p> <p>Thanks for all you do, cheers!</p> </li> <li> <p>I have a non-CS engineering degree, and am looking to transition into Software Engineering. I have the option of pursuing a degree with Tuition Reimbursement from my job, but am in a bit of a strange situation deciding which degree. Basically, I’ve figured that with my current Engineering background I could pursue either a second Bachelor’s degree through Universities offering a “Post-Baccalaureate” program in Computer Science, or a Master’s degree, with maybe only a slightly longer program to get the Master’s as opposed to the Bachelor’s. Otherwise the total length/cost of the programs would be roughly the same.</p> <p>I have heard though that it might not be a great idea to go into a Master’s program unless you know what specifically you want to study.</p> <p>I am curious what you think would be more “hire-able” between the two options for someone pursuing the career change into Software Engineering?</p> </li> </ol>

<p>In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:</p> <ol> <li> <p>Dwill Ainghell asks,</p> <p>During the golden era of software development, it was commonly stated that you should always negotiate job offers. The argument was that the company has invested significant time and resources into you as a candidate and there is always some wiggle room for negotiations. A popular article / podcast by Patrick McKenzie likened it to doing something slightly uncomfortable like “reciting poetry while simultaneously standing on one foot” with almost no downside. (<a href="https://www.complexsystemspodcast.com/episodes/how-to-negotiate-your-salary-package/" title="‌">https://www.complexsystemspodcast.com/episodes/how-to-negotiate-your-salary-package/</a>)</p> <p>Does this still hold true in today’s environment? I’m a SWE with 10 years of experience and I’ve been unemployed for close to a year. I’m expecting an offer from a large company and I fear that I will look like a fool trying to negotiate in my current position and the current job market dynamics. Even worse, I fear that they might retract the offer and give it to someone else. That being said, I don’t want to leave money on the table.</p> <p>What’s the correct course of action in today’s environment?</p> </li> <li> <p>Listener Stu says,</p> <p>In episode 500, you said something to the effect of “working hard and doing a great job with the work you’ve been assigned is not the promotion track”. I’d love to hear you discuss what it does take to get promoted and how to do that.</p> <p>In my job, we have a jira queue and engineers are tasked with taking from the top of the queue and executing work. There’s also an expectation to lead pre-defined projects (define the scope, write the tickets, and shepherd it along).</p> <p>All of these projects have deadlines, so how do you recommend people get the defined work done, lead projects, and still find time to do whatever it is to get promoted?</p> <p>Why is doing an excellent job not enough?</p> </li> </ol>

<p>In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:</p> <ol> <li> <p>Hey Dave &amp; Jamison,</p> <p>Long time listener. Love the podcast.</p> <p>I recently rejoined a remote team that I worked with in the past. I was super stoked to rejoin this team because they were collectively one of the most competent and technically excellent teams I’ve ever worked with. And they’re all genuinely nice people as well.</p> <p>I left the team before AI coding had really caught on, but coming back to the team has been a huge shock to me. Almost everyone now exclusively writes code with AI. PR descriptions are all AI generated, and code review has become copy-pasting AI-generated comments into GitHub.</p> <p>Being a remote team it was already hard to connect, but now it feels like almost all interactions are their AI assistant talking to my AI assistant.</p> <p>I’m not anti-AI, and I get that writing code with AI can be much quicker. But I’m struggling with the loss of what made the team feel good to work on, specifically the craftsmanship, level of engagement, and the learning from eachother. The product itself is still high quality (even if the codebase is less-so), but the process itself is a lot less enjoyable now.</p> <p>I don’t want to be the person who shows up after being away and immediately makes it everyone else’s problem that I miss the old way of doing things. But I’m having doubts if I want to be a part of this team.</p> <p>Is this just what software engineering looks like in remote organisations now? And should I expect most teams are now operating like this?</p> </li> <li> <p>Hi Jamison and Dave,</p> <p>Love your podcast.</p> <p>I was recently hired as a mid-level full-stack developer with the promise of leading a new squad. On day one, I discovered management scrapped the squad idea and promoted an existing developer to sole lead instead.</p> <p>The team consists of this new lead, two 20-year VB6 veterans, and me. The codebase is lawless: direct DB access, fat controllers, 1-2K+ LOC classes everywhere (copy/pasted boilerplate) and severe Broken Access Control (OWASP #1) where authenticated users can extract anyone’s PII (full name, home address, phone number) via a simple email query string.</p> <p>My coworkers rely heavily on generative AI but do not review the output. They constantly commit “AI slop” that barely functions and introduces endless bugs. I used to clean it up, but I recently realized they care so little about the codebase that no one even notices if I stop. Add in a “Senior Product Manager” whose entire UX background is a three-month internship, who invents customer requirements to defend her inconsistent designs.</p> <p>I am already applying elsewhere.</p> <p>My questions:</p> <p>How do you handle a bait-and-switch of this magnitude?</p> <p>When the team cares so little that no one notices if you stop cleaning up their AI-generated bugs, how do you stay sane and professionally sharp while riding out the clock?</p> </li> </ol> <h2 id="show-notes">Show Notes</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://tombedor.dev/human-attention-and-human-effort/" title="smartCard-inline">https://tombedor.dev/human-attention-and-human-effort/</a></li> </ul>

<p>In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:</p> <ol> <li> <p>Hi D&amp;J! Question from Sweden!</p> <p>I’m a senior dev that have seen a lot of orgs without tech lead and/or staff engineer roles. I know some companies have them, but mostly newer more techy companies. Bigger older less techy companies usually have non-coding “architects”. Though that’s one title I have no good experience of, just neutral ones or worse :)</p> <p>In particular I’ve been in many teams without a tech lead (all developers are equal, no tiebreaker vote). It’s often successful due to a leader and/or consensus emerging organically and peacefully. I loathe the failure modes however: consensus abuse through veto (we can’t move discussion forward because someone explicitly actively disagrees, a “keeping the meeting hostage” situation), disagreement on technical priorities and choices (lowest common denominator it is…) or that the team is bickering and bikeshedding during technical discussions.</p> <p>Is this just a regional/cultural thing, or is it more about the type of org? Also would you say it’s to the detriment of these orgs to not have these “technical leadership hierarchies”?</p> <p>Thanks!</p> </li> <li> <p>Hey Dave and Jameson, love the show. I’m a Software Engineer at a major tech company. The org is non technical. I consider myself pretty well rounded. I consistently hit my sprint goals, crush my story points, and even put in weekend commits when needed as well as talk but I dont look for conversations into work im too far away involved in. My direct manager thinks my output is good. He told me to work on communication, but the work and my drive is good.</p> <p>I have a relaxed demeanor in a high stress environment. Recently, I learned there are concerns that my “vibe” seems lazy and unengaged, and those concerns may have been shared with my skip-level manager. When my friend literally pulled up my raw metrics and story points to defend me, the friend had no answer, but just reiterated that it’s a “vibe thing.”</p> <p>It feels like a political target has been placed on my back by business people who don’t understand my work but hold corporate influence. I told my manager and he says im doing fine, and people will say what they say. Everyone talks, etc, and just to focus on his feedback.</p> <p>My question is: How do I fight a “vibe” complaint when the data says I’m crushing it? Should I cave and alter my lifestyle to play the corporate theater game, or do I double down on my metrics, lean on my manager, or dare them to try and figure out how valuable I am?</p> <p>Thanks, An Engineer Who Refuses to Look Bored</p> </li> </ol>

<p>In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:</p> <ol> <li> <p>I have been at a small startup company for 5 years now. It’s a very small technical team, 4 devs and a tech lead that contributes code &amp; architecture. I am getting a small raise this week for my 5 years but it’s a smaller raise than I was expecting. We’re an all remote team across the globe but I had a dev co worker in the same city as me just leave the company. This has put more pressure on me as I’m the only dev in the primary time zone we operate in, everyone else is east coast or opposite side of the world. With the added pressure and some forward comments from me in one on ones with my tech lead I expected much more that I’m being offered.</p> <p>I think I’m supposed to quit my job but I’m terrified of that idea. This is my first job in the field and I love the work. The full stack startup experience is fun and I’ve learned so much, and I like my team a lot. I’ve never even applied to another position in tech yet, I got this one with the first application I sent out. That’s not even considering the current state of the field rapidly changing with AI and the general lack of jobs I am constantly hearing about in tech.</p> <p>Is there a world where I should tell my boss I’m thinking about leaving? I’ve become an integral part of the team I think that would result in movement upwards, but that sounds so risky if I haven’t even put in an application anywhere else. Should I take the old quit your job advice even when the field is so shaky?</p> <p>Thanks guys! And you reading the patreon names is the best part of my week too.</p> </li> <li> <p>Hi there, I’m about 4 years into my career. I’m at my second job after leaving university. The first was at a firm under 50 employees and the current is at a firm with a global footprint and several thousand employees. Both are in Europe.</p> <p>I moved to Europe on a work visa as a pathway to citizenship. I’ve never felt like either my past or current employer has taken advantage of my situation, but it’s important that I keep my job.</p> <p>At both employers, I generally work one weekend day a week to meet expectations and keep on the promotion train. I’m not the only one; several of my colleagues do the same.</p> <p>For now I have the time to work late, as my significant other is back home. Soon they’ll be moving over, however, and they have made clear they will not be okay with me going into work every Saturday.</p> <p>Maybe I’m paranoid. Maybe the expectations at work aren’t clear. Maybe this is part of software. But basically, how do I get to a point where I can checkout on weekends and not feel guilty or like I’m falling behind?</p> <p>Do I need to work longer weekdays? Do I need to sacrifice promotions? Do I need to get better at saying no?</p> </li> </ol>

<p>In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:</p> <ol> <li> <p>Hey guys. This question comes all the way from New Zealand. Recently discovered your podcast about a month ago, and have been catching up with older episodes on morning walks ever since - you guys are awesome. Anyway - the question: Is it more beneficial to work for a company where the software itself is the product (SaaS etc) or does it no longer matter given the rise of the robots anyway? For context - I’ve been working for a telco/internet company for just over five year. Initially when I joined there was a huge roadmap of software to develop internally - things like customer facing portals, diagnostic tools, and of course internal tooling. However over the past couple of years, it has just been cost cutting and downsizing. Given that the company is not in the business of selling software, our department has been stripped to skeletal level just to ‘keep the lights on’. So, I’ve started applying for jobs at SaaS companies on the basis that even with AI, there will at least be a continuous roadmap to work on. Or, is this a case of ‘snakes in the greener grass’… or whatever the idiom is. Keen to hear your thoughts!</p> </li> <li> <p>I’m an EM about 7 months into a role at a larger private software company. When I joined, the explicit expectation was 1 team (~8 direct reports). I’m happy to say my team has crushed it: award-winning product launch, clear monetization path, company IPO positioning. I made some bold headcount decisions, reduced spend, built the team’s trust back up, and things are now actually quite great. I’m generally a cynical person and so I don’t say that lightly :)</p> <p>Last week my boss told me I’m taking on a second team, bringing me to 16 direct reports. When I asked if this was a promotion track, he said no. Apparently the expectation is now ALL EMs manage 2+ teams.</p> <p>Problem: the internal HR leveling rubric still says 2+ teams is a Sr. EM expectation, which I didn’t apply for… precisely because I didn’t want it. When I pointed this out, he said “that’s out of date, and you’re behind your peers because you only have been running one team”. I did the job I was hired to do, did it well, and the goalposts moved without anyone telling me.</p> <p>The kicker: the team I’m absorbing used to be run by a Sr. EM, who now has just one team!!</p> <p>So a Sr. EM is shrinking scope while I’m handed their struggling team and told I’m behind. It wasn’t framed as a vote of confidence. It felt like a quiet reassignment.</p> <p>Three questions: Am I being oversensitive to just poor communication (it’s possible the senior EM is being managed out and I shouldn’t use that as a benchmark)? Should I push for a comp increase since I’m now doing 2x the scope I was hired for? And how hard do I push back?</p> <p>One constraint: I’m a couple months from planned medical leave and can’t afford to leave before then, so I have limited leverage.</p> </li> </ol>

<p>In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:</p> <ol> <li> <p>My company follows scrum, with daily standups. We got a new scrum master. He is very formal and procedural and I struggle with our daily meetings.</p> <p>He goes through a long list of assigned tickets, asking each ticket owner about status and info on progress. We are all engineers with many years of experience but it feels like we are in the kindergarten. We don’t have deep expertise about each others work. It is important to know what each of us is doing more or less, but going deep in these issues makes me disconnect, and I think these meetings are above all very good to signal blocking points and ask for help. A recitation of tickets and work being done is not their purpose. On top of that, most days it takes 25-30 mins to go through all the issues.</p> <p>Am I being difficult complaining about this? I tried to be polite when I raised the issue but I was told more or less that this way is better for the company. Is it common in the industry to go through dailys like this?</p> <p>Thanks a lot, guys, you do great work and I look forward to the SW/industry podcast that makes me laugh the most!</p> </li> <li> <p>Hi! Long-time listener here, I remember Jamison mentioning this podcast on JS Jabber and I’ve been listening ever since. Best part of my week!</p> <p>In my current organisation I have a tech lead role on a small, internal platform team. Our “customers” are mainly other engineers. Due to several re-orgs, I have over the years worked with a number of Product Managers and Engineering Managers who have all had one thing in common: they don’t understand the technical domain we work in very well. You could say we have “Product Managers” who do not understand the “Product”.</p> <p>At the same time, these people are expected to interact with stakeholders, set the platform vision, manage the roadmap and backlog, prioritise risks, write documentation, do demos, etc. In the end, a lot of this work falls through to me. I do the work, but have also received negative feedback from my skip level that I need to do a better job keeping the product manager and engineering manager in the loop.</p> <p>I just got a new EM and am heading into our first expectations setting meeting. How can best express that my expectation is that the roadmap for a technical platform team should be managed by someone technical? Do you think product managers have a role on internal platform teams?</p> </li> </ol>

<p>In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:</p> <ol> <li> <p>Hi from a long-time listener and first-time caller. I need some advice on a toxic workplace situation.</p> <p>I’m currently unhappy with my job due to a difficult dynamic with a colleague. My manager put us on the same team, meaning we share responsibility for our output. Although this colleague is technically a level below me, they act as though they have seniority. This creates significant friction: they’re resistant to advice, insist they’re always right, and refuse to accept reality even when they can’t deliver what’s required. They’re incredibly stubborn, and arguing with them about what’s feasible takes an excessive amount of effort.</p> <p>The situation is particularly frustrating because I’m held accountable for the shared results. If I weren’t responsible for the final outcome, I could probably just ignore their behaviour. Instead, they frequently talk a big game while contributing very little actual work. People unfamiliar with our domain are easily misled by their confidence, even though they are incompetent. Consequently, I’m forced to clean up their mess; otherwise, I’d be the one bearing the blame for the failure.</p> <p>I tried discussing this with my manager, but unfortunately, it made me look bad rather than resolving the issue. If I were the manager, I’d fire this person immediately, but my manager is clearly one of those people who get fooled by their smooth talk. I’m very close to handing in my notice, and let the manager know how incompetent this person is. But I’m furious that I feel I have to give up a role I enjoy just because of someone who makes my life miserable.</p> <p>My question is: Should I stick it out and try to navigate this politics-heavy environment, or is walking away the only option left? How do I leave without burning bridges or letting them win?</p> </li> <li> <p>Hello gentlemen, long time listener of the show and finally getting around to asking my first question (how exciting!)</p> <p>I’m going to be joining a new company in a few months and am wondering how to best handle the transition in order to make an excellent first impression and maybe set myself up for career growth… while not biting off more than I can chew.</p> <p>For context: I’m joining a company that builds QUANTUM COMPUTERS 🤯 after a background in working in completely different, non-scientific fields. To be fair I’m just joining as a Senior Software Engineer on the Cloud team, I won’t be building the actual computers.</p> <p>I have some experience in leadership, but not nearly as much as I wish I had, this is something I’d love to try and get into a little bit more (and couldn’t at my last company which was too small). I’m also a little intimidated at the idea of stepping into the “big leagues”, but want to use this opportunity to show that, I too, can ball.</p> <p>However, I am worried that everyone is going to be waaay smarter than me and that I’ve actually been playing in the ball pit for years.</p> <p>I’m a little scared of attempting to ball too hard and fumbling, causing dissapointment on their end, and impostor syndrome on mine.</p> <p>How would you go about joining a new company with the excitement of a new start and the drive to be the best I can be, while also remaining humble and grounded in reality?</p> <p>Should I “fake it t’ill I make it” and be super confident? Or take a more reserved approach?</p> <p>In France we call this a “rich person problem”, everything is great because I have a cool new job, but I don’t want to mess it up! HELP!</p> </li> </ol>

<p>In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:</p> <ol> <li> <p>My parent organization has trust issues: we registered on a recent survey as one of the lowest across the bigger software org (thousands of employees).</p> <p>There are two groups: functional, trustworthy people who get stuff done, and people who are behind, stuck, or just not working. Those struggling say they need better emotional support, but there is consistent, documented evidence that they cannot keep up.</p> <p>I’m perpetually frustrated that there are only two or three people in an org of 30 who can effectively complete tasks and manage the insane workload. I am biased: those in whom I have no trust have repeatedly demonstrated that they cannot be trusted. I believe that the organization would be able to go faster without them.</p> <p>Whats the right answer here? Should I start my own company to abandon this mess? Do we cut scope super aggressively to allow underperformers to be reasonable contributors?</p> <p>One example: one of these contributors was walked through the process, given written documentation of the process, verbally confirmed an understanding of the process, and committed to starting that day. And then two days later identified they hadn’t started for those two days because they were blocked by something that was explicitly captured in the document and discussed in the recorded meeting. They do not raise this until they were asked for their progress multiple days beyond the critical start date.</p> </li> <li> <p>Hi Dave and Jamison,</p> <p>First, thank you for the podcast. As someone on the spectrum, it really helps me analyze social situations I struggle with.</p> <p>My question: I work at a software company where management is pushing the use of LLMs for coding, and my team recently started using Spec-Driven Development. SDD often requires strong upfront planning, which has quietly split my small team between developers who plan well and those who get lost in “vibe-coding” loops.</p> <p>One of those people is a close coworker I consider a friend (we hang out after work and have honest chats about everything). He’s not strong at planning, so I end up explaining each ticket to him in detail. But he’s really great in other ways: communicative, asks a lot of questions in refinement sessions that set a good example for others, does thorough handoffs with the QA team, always responsive in chat, always trying to help. He’s also one of the rare people who actually pay attention to alerts.</p> <p>Since we started using SDD, the gap in our speed and output quality has become very visible. One of our tech directors noticed and asked me to teach him planning. We spent several days drawing schemas and working through small features together, and it was clearly painful for him. The TD also had his own sessions with him, but eventually gave up because my friend seemed so discouraged, and the TD decided to “stop the torture” and leave him alone. The hard part is that after all these teaching sessions, he actually seems even slower than before and also more discouraged and down.</p> <p>Since then, our friendship has changed. He stopped talking to me outside work, and I think he now feels jealous or bothered by the difference in our performance. I’m okay with continuing to explain tickets and outlining detailed execution plans for him, but I worry that I’m keeping him in his comfort zone and not really helping his career. And I also miss how things used to be between us 💔</p> <p>What should I do?</p> <p>P.S. I’m not an LLM fan or enthusiast, I take a practical approach to using them. But I hate how they’re taking jobs away from devs who really love coding but are weak at planning or not interested in it. It doesn’t feel fair.</p> </li> </ol>

<p>In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:</p> <ol> <li> <p>How long until I am ethically obligated to let my company know I’m doing no work? There was a big re-org at the company I recently joined. It’s a huge financial company, so there’s a lot of bureaucracy. Somehow in this mess I was kicked off the first team I joined so that I was pending re-assignment. It’s been a month and I haven’t been re-assigned. Instead of being in between jobs not working, I am currently in between teams, but still getting paid! This feels unintentional on the part of the company as no one has followed up with me. I’ve been happily using the time to catch up on hobbies, but I’m starting to get concerned about what will happen when the other shoe drops. At what point do I start to venture into irreversible reputational harm? For some added context, teams at this company are about 6 people and the manager handles several teams, so I’ve never talked to my manager since I joined. I got the message about the re-org from a screenshot of an email that my scrum master shared in my last stand-up.</p> </li> <li> <p>AI changes how software is build. Actual coding is mostly done by LLMs now (I hate it, but it is what it is). What do you think should I focus on learning now to not become obsolete in 1-2 years? I am a senior dev with 13yoe, and loved coding, but now I find it hard what my role will be in the next years (still have 30+ before retirement). I do not want to go to the EM track, at least not in the near future. So is it more architecture knowledge, security, AI internals, …? What do you think?</p> </li> </ol>

<p>In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:</p> <ol> <li> <p>Should I declare my struggle with this AI world we live in here? Nah. I mean, I’d like the hype to die down, a lot, but we keep getting new tools and I get to experiment, so here we are.</p> <p>My real struggle, and this podcast is implicated in it, is around non-technical people contributing to production systems. Why are we so obsessed with this idea?</p> <p>COBOL tried it. Low-code and no-code tried it. BDD and Gherkin aspire to it. Yet time and again the field demonstrates that you need people who know their stuff.</p> <p>To “democratize” software engineering implies that all people have the desire and ability to become software engineers. That premise is false. You democratize access to education or financial systems, the stock market say. You don’t democratize skill. Skills are earned. We would never, I hope, democratize bridge engineering or piloting an aircraft. Software engineers are just as critical as either. When our software breaks, money goes missing, electrical grids fail, information stops flowing.</p> <p>What I do think is great: now more than ever, as long as tokens stay cheap, people have more ability to build useful tools for themselves. But here is how I think about it. We have done tremendous work on literacy, and most people can read, but not everyone is an author. The same applies to code.</p> </li> <li> <p>anon e mouse asks,</p> <p>Should I share my tools?</p> <p>I keep building small local software tools to better test and debug the application I’m working on. The problem is that whenever I go “above and beyond” the assigned and expected work and try and responsible check it into version control and share it with the rest of the team, it gets bogged down in code reviews because it doesn’t meet the team lead’s vision because it wasn’t part of the vision! Once I go through that process though, it’s mostly appreciated, but the team lead is under a lot of business pressure and often mentions that we need to focus.</p> <p>Maybe I’m not focused enough, but many of these little tools are things that making verification and delivery much smoother! Like local testing utilities to verify and sample api endpoints that otherwise could only be called after prod deployments due to a lack of test data. Our partners like when we’re able to show the output before deployment, and the rest of the team usually struggles with that.</p> <p>I feel a pressure to hide my tools, but then I feel sloppy for having a bunch of useful tools outside of version control. These are things like formatting output, running experiments, testing data for variations. Am I unfocused or just bad at articulating the value of these tools?</p> </li> </ol>

<p>In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:</p> <ol> <li> <p>I’m approaching 15 years of experience with the last 7 years at fang. About a year ago I was promoted to staff engineer (thanks to the podcast) and switched to an adjacent team under the same director. I have never actively pursued a management role but I’ve been starting to think about it more.</p> <p>A colleague of mine just announced they need to take extended medical leave (1-2 months) and I was asked to fill in as a temporary manager while they are out. How do I go about managing a team if everyone knows it’s short lived? Should I just try to keep the team alive or aim higher? Is 1-2 months enough for me to get a sense of whether I’d enjoy management? I feel like I’ve dived into the deep end and it’s scary but also exciting.</p> <p>I love the podcast, I’ve listened to every episode! I’ll take whatever comedy or advice you have to offer.</p> </li> <li> <p>Bobby Drop Tables asks,</p> <p>Recently came out of a salary negotiation where HR blocked a payrise because they said I was already the highest paid non-management position dev. While I’m getting paid well for the market, I wouldn’t say it’s a ridiculous amount. HR said they wanted a fairly flat salary range across the organisation, with pay differences being dealt with via performance bonuses.</p> <p>On paper this sounds good for most departments (sales, engineering etc), but I’m really struggling to figure out what metrics management could use to assess the software team. It feels like any metric that could be dreamt up could/would be gamed and would likely have negative consequences.</p> <p>Have you ever come across any decent metrics or methods for assessing software performance when it comes to performance bonuses? Especially when the team lead might not have a say in who gets what or how much?</p> </li> </ol>

<p>In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:</p> <ol> <li> <p>I work at a large remote company. We meet up once or twice a year. I don’t really know much about my engineering coworkers aside from the 5 people on my team, so the in person meet ups seem like a good place for me to get to know people from the other teams.</p> <p>I am a career switcher, and am currently a mid level IC (borderline junior) in my late 30s and a youthful appearance. At these meetups, my position and appearance (and honestly, possibly my demeanour) makes me feel like I am expected to socialize with other ICs in their 20s. Although they are nice people I find it hard to relate to them when talking about non work related topics since I am much older and in a different stage in life than all of them, (married with a mortgage and kids).</p> <p>I want to socialize with coworkers closer to my age and stage in life but most of them are team leads or manager. I feel like socializizing with them would be seen as brown nosing. I’ve also heard that once someone is a manager, it is very hard for them to befriend ICs because they are now their boss, and that they mostly befriend other managers. My previous career had little management/corporate politics type stuff, so I don’t know if this is true. Would I be hurting myself by doing this?</p> <p>Am I over thinking this? Would I be fine socializing with whomever I want? Do you have any words or advice regarding my situation? Thanks!</p> </li> <li> <p>Hi Dave and Jamison,</p> <p>Before you tell me to quit my job, hear me out. I have worked in technology for about 30 years. I’ve been at the same company for the past 20 years, but I’ve changed roles many times to keep work interesting. I have enjoyed learning new technologies while working in development, architecture, system administration, management, vendor relations, and more. This has been very beneficial to my career, and I appreciate all the opportunities to grow. I’ve earned a good reputation and am well respected by my peers. I’ve proven my worth to leadership many times over by reducing expenses by many millions and creating innovative solutions to improve efficiencies. I work for corporate America in the insurance/finance industry, which is generally considered to be led by cold, heartless, power-hungry mongers, a stereotype that probably has a few exceptions but is generally not incorrect. I’ve never appreciated this industry’s business practices, but I’ve had to make a living over the years, so here I am.</p> <p>I am finally at my breaking point and am absolutely fed up with how employees, customers, and communities are treated by my industry. Because of this, I just cannot find value in my work. I’ve been beaten down over the years and am tired of being exploited by management. I no longer volunteer to take on big projects, and instead of being someone who outshines others, I have decided to settle for mediocrity. I’m planning to retire in a few years and honestly don’t have the energy or desire to search for another, potentially more meaningful, industry to work in, especially in the current job market.</p> <p>I genuinely care about many of the people I work with. Very few of them are in it to climb the corporate ladder. Most are just trying to earn enough money to pay the mortgage, feed their children, care for aging parents, and hope to have enough leftover for their own retirement.</p> <p>How do I not leave a wake of malaise for my peers when I leave but also not help feed the beast until then?</p> </li> </ol>

<p>In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:</p> <ol> <li> <p>I am a senior software engineer at big tech and need a career change. With the rise of AI, I no longer enjoy this profession and panic everyday just waiting for a huge round of layoffs. At this point I feel like I am on some assembly line hitting enter like a monkey. Therefore I have been thinking of changing lanes and would like to get into engineering management. On the one hand I have enjoyed mentoring, strategic planning and coordinating projects across vendors and across teams, but besides that I don’t have clear evidence that this profession would fit me. In my current job there is no immediate opportunity to step up and manage a cross team project at the moment, so I am not sure how I can figure out if engineering management is the right choice for me. How do I figure this out without doing the job and how does one transition into it, probably as an external hire or transfer hire?</p> </li> <li> <p>Paolo asks,</p> <p>I’ve stepped into a senior role recently. I’m no longer the primary driver on projects. I’m supposed to create space for junior developers to lead, make decisions, and own outcomes. My job is to mentor and support, not to take the wheel.</p> <p>But I’m seeing projects drag because of passivity. Sometimes the solutions are inefficient. Other times it feels like the core problem isn’t fully understood before execution starts. In a few cases, momentum just stalls, and weeks go by without real progress because no one is pushing the work forward. It’s worth mentioning that I check in multiple times to offer help yet these problems keep happening.</p> <p>I believe people grow by struggling, so I don’t want to jump in at the first sign of friction. But if a project slips or fails, that responsibility ultimately rolls up to me.</p> <p>So how do you strike the balance? How do you give someone real ownership, not just symbolic ownership, while still maintaining standards and accountability? And how do you avoid becoming either the micromanager who swoops in too quickly or the absentee leader who lets things drift?</p> </li> </ol>

<p>In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:</p> <ol> <li> <p>How can I get our company to follow the law and stop sending SPAM without being regarded as negative?</p> <p>We’re sending out emails that don’t comply with CAN-SPAM, and I think we should comply due to the risks, but I don’t want to risk any blowback! People want the emails to look more ‘human’ sent, and putting your mailing address at the end of an email is not very human, so we’re not doing that… It’s a medium startup (500 people), but I’m close enough to the marketing work that they might know it was me! Should I send an email to our general consul? How can I raise concerns and do the right thing without being regarded as not a team player??</p> </li> <li> <p>How do I stay motivated on a team that’s always sick?</p> <p>I’m on a team of 3 ICs and one manager. The other two ICs are plagued by health issues. I am trying to be empathetic, but this has been going on for the at least a year. One of them regularly takes sick days, often turning into sick weeks. The other has a long term issue and regularly does half days. This affects our ability to produce results, but we don’t have a PM and don’t really have deadlines given the nature of our work, so it’s not really noticed. I feel like we are moving a lot slower than we could be, and when we do check-ins on our goals at the end of each quarter, we maybe only hit like 50% of our goals.</p> <p>To me it’s quite obvious why we don’t hit our goals, but everyone else seems to be surprised by it. My manager can’t manage with enough rigor to produce results. I’ve brought this up to them before (our goal misses, not teammates being sick), but nothing seems to change. As the only seemingly-healthy member of the team, there’s no incentive to work more than the bare minimum. I feel like I should be taking more sick days! This is very demotivating and I feel like I’m stagnating. How would you all approach this situation? Should I also suddenly have health issues? Is this actually a blessing in disguise and I should make the most of it?</p> </li> </ol> <h2 id="show-notes">Show Notes</h2> <p><a href="https://overcast.fm/+ABLmzfhZxak" title="smartCard-inline">https://overcast.fm/+ABLmzfhZxak</a></p>

<p>In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:</p> <ol> <li> <p>Hey there, I started a new job in August at a large European retailer. There were ups &amp; downs, but long story short, my weekly one-on-ones with my manager was either positive or neutral. This was my second job after graduating, so the firm factored in, I’d like to think, when setting expectations this was my first time switching codebases and tech stacks.</p> <p>On January 3rd, I was fired in the last month of my 6 month probation. This was a total surprise. My tech lead told me I required too much assistance from others to finish my tasks.</p> <p>Some part of me doubted the sincerity of my boss, since I asked for example pull requests or tickets where this was the case and he was unable to provide a single example, but obviously, like every dev, technical insecurities are a big part of my life.</p> <p>I’ll be starting a new job at a prestigious newspaper in May, so here’s my question. In a remote first environment, how do I determine if I’m meeting expectations? How do I gauge my standing in my team? How do I avoid a repeat? How do I effectively integrate myself into a codebase?</p> <p>Disclaimer: At the end of January, everyone in my department was hauled into a meeting and was told the retailer hired 11 external, Portuguese developers to ‘finish the job’ since management wasn’t happy with the output of the 9 internal developers (aka nearshoring) and no internal would get a pay increase this year. My tech’s boss was also fired/forced out/quit before he could be fired.</p> </li> <li> <p>Trevor asks,</p> <p>How do I balance depth with breadth? At my current job, I am moved around projects/code bases all the time and I am exposed to a variety of technologies and subareas. That’s cool but I feel like I only manage to face the consequences of our choices for a couple months until I am moved again. I think I need more time to really become an expert in any one area. At the same time, I dread getting stuck in maintenance work. It seems like most people around me (at my company or outside) find it boring and soul-sucking, and are only excited about major projects from scratch. Does a job that has a good balance of both exist and if so, how do I find it?</p> </li> </ol>

<p>In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:</p> <ol> <li> <p>Hi Djavison,</p> <p>I’ve heard y’all say something along the lines of “this is the most exciting time to build software” in a few recent episodes.</p> <p>I’m glad that has been your experience and seems to be the experience of many others.</p> <p>But for me as someone 5 years into the career who is, thankfully, employed—I can’t help mourning a job that no longer exists. Obviously, there are still lots of us with the job title “software engineer” that create software. But, what I originally fell in love with doesn’t really seem like a thing you can get paid to do anymore.</p> <p>I now spend most of my development time reviewing code and making sure things work. Which feels way less rewarding and way more soul-sucking.</p> <p>Maybe I’m just nostalgic for being a more junior developer, but it’s obvious that our jobs have changed forever and will continue to evolve.</p> <p>So, my question is: How can I get excited and feel passionate about this new way of doing things?</p> </li> <li> <p>I am a senior team lead with 10+ years of experience. This is the first time I’ve had a team mate that clearly disrespects me.</p> <p>I have a Middle+ teammate who is technically perfectionistic and openly says I’m doing a poor job and that basically he doesn’t see me as an authority. He says I am not as devoted to technical excellency and improving the project as he is, and that I ignore his opinions, which is his term for not having the same opinion about tech stuff as he does.</p> <p>He doesn’t see the big picture and thinks he’s the only person on the team trying to make the code better. But the worst part is he never admits he’s wrong. I had to scramble to fix a bug he created when we caught it right before release, and he accused ME of introducing it!</p> <p>My manager know what’s going on, but I feel terrible about it. I have many different projects and responsibilities. I can not be as devoted to the codebase as he wants. Plus, I am not the architect and nor should I be. I see that it demotivates him (like the person in the 499th episode), only in this question I am the senior.</p> <p>I know my weaknesses and I am working on them, I don’t think I can address his feedback. More than that, I’ve always tried to maintain a good relationship with him and always gave him the freedom to work on tech stuff and develop his skills. But what to do when your child has grown and is now unthankful? 😂</p> <p>Thanks for your advice!</p> </li> </ol>

<p>In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:</p> <ol> <li> <p>I’m a senior software engineer at a remote company (~500–700 people), and over the last year a new HR org replaced our old people team. They’ve spent six months building a new goals/leveling framework. During a public meeting I asked in slack: “We’ve had goals before and then stopped using them. How will these be different?” Nobody answered directly.</p> <p>The next day I was pulled into a meeting. The new VP of HR had screenshotted my question and sent it up my management chain. My manager told me they were on my side but leadership didn’t appreciate it. Days later I was pulled in again and told the problem was my “tone.” I didn’t argue because we were at an impasse. It felt like tone policing and like being sent to the principal’s office. I didn’t feel like they were treating me like an adult. In yet another 1:1, my manager said leadership wanted it raised again and that they don’t want questions like that in public. I told him the meeting should’ve been an email and that would’ve avoided this problem.</p> <p>Is this normal? What should I do? It’s upsetting enough that every time this gets brought up, it wrecks the rest of my workday. I’ve already been passively job searching for about three years because of broader issues, and now I feel like leadership might be pushing me out. This also follows being labeled a “dissident” by our product director after I raised roadmap concerns in another all-hands. Most of the leaders involved are newer (2 years or less), while I’ve been here 4+ years, so I’m wondering if the culture is changing right in front of me. Thanks for the show! Y’all have helped my career a lot.</p> </li> <li> <p>Hi Softskillets! Love the show, thanks for making me laugh every walk break I take!</p> <p>I’m in an org where the Frontend Platform Team has adopted a fairly rigid rule—forcing all domain logic into pure functions—to prevent “bad code.” I see value in for the big picture, but the rule is enforced at every level, even within my own team modules. It feels incredibly unnatural and cumbersome. I see our team is often leaking logic into our UI layer to avoid boilerplate that usually come “out of the box.” (in this React(ive) framework).</p> <p>I’ve tried to address this a few times, but I always get shut down with “theoretically correct” answers that don’t actually acknowledge the pain we feel on the ground. Most of the feature engineers have tried to bring this up, felt unheard, and eventually just stopped trying.</p> <p>Recently, I used AI to help me synthesize these conversations and better understand the bottleneck. I wrote a long markdown file to validate with my teammates if they felt the same. The Platform Team got wind of it, and I shared it. This triggered a lot of frustration (understandably they felt it was AI slop sent their way).</p> <p>I eventually got a meeting with one of the platform engineers. I tried to stay focused purely on the problems, knowing my solution (allowing state management in the domain layer) would be pushed away. The meeting went poorly. I didn’t feel like the weight of our frustration was understood, and when I mentioned potentially allowing some optionality for senior engineers, I was literally laughed at.</p> <p>It feels like this rule is now followed like a religion. How do I rebuild this relationship and actually be taken seriously? How can I change a culture where the “builders” feel like the “gatekeepers” are limiting them instead of helping them?</p> </li> </ol>

<p>In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:</p> <ol> <li> <p>Hi Jamison and Dave. Eight years into my software engineering career, all of it at Series B and C startups, I’ve been craving two things: a recognizable brand name on my resume and the chance to work on real scale problems. After a long search, I finally got both. The catch? I got them in the wrong order.</p> <p>I accepted an offer at one of the hottest and fastest-growing AI companies in the application layer space. Exciting work, smart people, real momentum, but not quite a household name yet, and not quite facing the kind of scaling challenges that come with a billion users yet either. Two weeks later, I finally heard that I cleared the interviews from a big brand name tech company. I’ll be honest: it wasn’t my first choice brand name. I bombed interviews at a few others and this was basically my consolation prize.</p> <p>Here’s the thing about this mega tech company right now: the culture has … shifted. It feels less like a tech company and more like a social experiment with a $1.5 trillion market cap.</p> <p>So now I’m torn and the clock is ticking. My start date at the AI company is in a few weeks and I’m currently in team matching at the mega tech co. Do I renege before I even badge in? Do I start, survive team matching, and then quit? Or do I just honor my commitment and forget about the brand name for now?</p> <p>More broadly: under what circumstances is it ever okay to renege or quit shortly after starting? Have either of you been in this situation or been on the receiving end? I need stories, I need wisdom, and honestly I need someone to just tell me what to do.</p> </li> <li> <p>I’ve changed from a java developer role to OIC integration on oracle cloud. I’m not sure if that was a good move as it doesn’t feel like I’m doing much coding but lots of clicking. I was thinking that having cloud experience would benefit me but now I’m not sure. I’m not sure if I should run back to a java developer job or give it a chance and how much time would be a fair chance?</p> </li> </ol>

<p>In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:</p> <ol> <li> <p>I’m a software developer with about 15 years in the industry, and I am soon starting as the CTO of a robotics company with about 50 employees.</p> <p>Though I have years of experience and an academic background within the field of robotics, I have always been focused on the software side of things. In my new role, I am ultimately responsible for the hardware team as well.</p> <p>How do I go about earning the respect, and becoming an effective leader, of my new colleagues working in a field in which I am not an expert myself?</p> </li> <li> <p>Hi, I’m meowmeow, and I’ve enjoyed your podcast for a long time.</p> <p>I’m working at a small engineering company which don’t have lots of profit.</p> <p>Recently, the PMs at my company(including the CEO) have started “vibe coding” directly on our product. They’ve even added PMs to the project planning list as contributors.</p> <p>Whenever they open a PR, the code is AI-generated and reflects their personal working style. The code quality is fairly low and engineers end up spending a lot of time reviewing and fixing it, even though we’re already under a heavy workload.</p> <p>Our CEO comes from a product management background. He believes PMs should write code and deploy their own implementations, and that engineers are not fast enough and should simply move faster.</p> <p>I’ve already been feeling stressed due to the workload, and this situation seems to be making it worse. Engineering leadership doesn’t seem able to push back effectively.</p> <p>What should I do?</p> </li> </ol>

<p>In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:</p> <ol> <li> <p>Hi, thank you for the podcast, I am long time listener, first time asker. Something weird is going on at my company. A colleague of my always wanted to get promoted to management, he got the opportunity, but after multiple preparatory meeting for this new promotion, HE QUIT! He did not tell what happened there, only that “it was time for something new”. Now several months later my skip level declared that he wants to be a developer again. Another manager was offered his position, which is a significant promotion (basically head of engineering), which he accepted, but after being included into high level meetings he declared that he is also QUITTING! We now have an interim Head of engineering, who declared that he is only doing this until a replacement is found. Why does no one wants to be in the management? What is happening at these meetings that people leave? Btw. the financial state of the company is not great, but not horrible, the CEO even declared that there won’t be layoffs this year. So what’s going on? I really like working at this company, but I can’t shake the feeling after these events that I am up for a big surprise soon.</p> </li> <li> <p>Hi,</p> <p>I’m a senior dev at a megacorp. I’m struggling with AI. We’ve got a lot of initiatives around it and are expected to be using it with our work. The problem is every time I try to use it I get really frustrated. It feels like working with a junior dev who doesn’t know the codebase well but knows lots of language/framework trivia. I also feel displeasure in my work turning into just reviewing some generated code and fixing it up. Especially, when you have to be very thorough because we all know that a single line of code can cause an outage. I just find no joy in this kind of work and am starting to have an aversion to it even when I just try to learn more about it.</p> <p>I’m also having a hard time teasing apart the hype from the reality. I’m either hearing that “the models are so great, this is the future, coding isn’t a career anymore” or “this is hype, the bubble will burst soon and ruin everything.” Both of these outcomes seem kinda catastrophic but I have no idea which one to believe in (or maybe there’s a 3rd option?).</p> <p>So, how do I overcome this aversion? How do I make sense of the hype vs. reality? How do I learn to stop worrying and love the slop?</p> <p>Thanks, Dr. Strangecode</p> </li> </ol>

<p>In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:</p> <ol> <li> <p>A listener named Derek asks,</p> <p>I am the CTO and cofounder of a startup. Now that vibecoding is a thing, our CEO has kind of gone rogue, and and he’s vibecoding a bunch of random stuff, one of which he bought a domain for and has pushed a potential customer to pay for, without talking to our team. I feel like this is fragmenting our focus, but I don’t want to ban our CEO from vibecoding and being creative. how should I handle this without damaging relationships?</p> </li> <li> <p>AdmiralFox asks,</p> <p>Hi Dave and Jamison!</p> <p>Longtime listener, first-time question asker here.</p> <p>After 14 years at a consultancy firm, I’m moving to a major retailer to become their Java Learning and Community Lead. Instead of shipping code, my new role will be shipping knowledge. I will be managing learning paths, organizing internal knowledge sharing events, and help managers screen candidates. Basically, I’m moving from a ‘Maker’ role to a ‘Multiplier’ role.</p> <p>I have 13 weeks of notice period (Standard European “I’m not leaving yet after 14 years” protocol) and I want to use my free evenings to prepare.</p> <p>My questions for you:</p> <p>How do I transition from “the guy with the technical answers” to “the guy who helps everyone else find the answers”?</p> <p>How can I use the remaining time of my notice period to prepare for the people side of this role?</p> <p>Love the show! Keep up the ‘quit-your-job’ advice coming (although I’ve already taken it!)</p> </li> </ol>

<p>In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:</p> <ol> <li> <p>I have been with my current organization for 5+ years. I like the company and have generally had a good experience working here. However, the last several years I have not really gotten a raise except for the standard “merit raise”, which does not cover inflation, so effectively the last several years I have made less money than the year before. I brought this up to my EM who said there is no chance of the company increasing the merit raises to meet inflation, unless I get a promotion. However, my EM also said there are no promotions available.</p> <p>I don’t know if this means the company knows the job market is tough and they don’t have to pay us as much, or if the company is in dire financial straits and unable to keep salaries up with inflation.</p> <p>This job market is tough and I don’t know how long it would take me to find a new job, but certainly I will look. My question is basically, how can I go about getting my manager to help me level up to make myself a more attractive candidate for a future job without necessarily tipping my hand that I am job searching.</p> <p>On one hand I assume he knows that I might be looking. On the other hand if the company is in a bad position and we have another round of layoffs (we have had several over the past few years), I don’t want to be first on the chopping block because it looks like I have my foot out the door.</p> <p>I’m just wondering how much I should make it clear what my goals are to have my EM work with me, or play it close to the vest.</p> </li> <li> <p>I am a Software Engineering Manager with about 12 years of experience. I am a few months into a new role at a medium sized private company. The day I joined I found out that all ICs under Staff-level are international contractors! Surprise!</p> <p>My team is mostly contracted “Senior developers”. Nobody is anywhere near what I consider “Senior”. The company has a culture of aggressive performance reviews. However, I’m seeing ICs and other Managers around me who are all seriously below the bar compared to other places I’ve worked in the tech industry. I get a lot of vague pressure from the Director/CTO level to “raise the bar” and quickly exit people who aren’t meeting it. I already fired one person for performance and behavior issues, but I feel like I’m between a rock and a hard place.</p> <p>If I’m truly going to hold my team accountable to my and the company’s own published performance metrics, I should fire the whole team. That’s probably not good. Alternately, I can pad performance evaluations to convince my boss that everyone is meeting expectations. This also isn’t good, but feels like what everyone else is doing.</p> <p>Also, I’m a little queasy doing aggressive firing and performance reviews for contractors. The company treats them as full time employees (after hours on call expectations, etc) and I’m not sure how Earth lawyers would look at this situation.</p> <p>Help!</p> <p>Final wrinkle - my last two jobs I’ve lasted less than a year. I wasn’t fired but just haven’t been able to find a good fit for a little while. I’m worried that if I just leave this job 6 months in, it’ll start to look suspicious on my resume.</p> </li> </ol>

<p>In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:</p> <ol> <li> <p>I’m a new listener to the podcast and work as the sole developer for a sports team, which is the only company I’ve worked for since graduating from university 8 years ago. I listened to episode 493 while clenching my teeth as you told a listener to absolutely not take the job with the European football club as a solo developer. Yikes! While I feel I have continued to grow my skillset in my role, I’m now feeling vulnerable about having no professional experience working alongside other developers or on large-scale applications.</p> <p>I feel very conflicted about leaving my current company. I have a respectable developer salary for the (non-American) low cost of living area I’m in, have a great manager, and have built up a ton of good will and trust within the organization. I get all the freedom I could ask for to make design decisions, implement devops practices, try out new technologies, and make mistakes. I also find the work interesting and there’s always something else to do! I’m a little scared of the horror stories that I hear about the real dev world and don’t want to take my current situation for granted.</p> <p>I would really appreciate guidance on what you think I should do. I have clear skill deficits in certain areas, but would have to give up a lot of liberties with a role change.</p> </li> <li> <p>Listener Brian asks,</p> <p>My job is mostly okay, but could be better because of the people in it. I joined a greenfield project a few years ago as my first software engineer role after transitioning from other data work. I grew up with the project and improved my engineering skills. A year ago we hired two new people. They had relevant experience and seemed to know what they were talking about in the interview, and had five &amp; ten years of experience (aka, more than me).</p> <p>Onboarding the first few months was whatever, BUT they’ve never really improved afterwards. They turn in work that has clearly not been tested or does not meet the ticket’s requirements, barely review PRs and have never (!) left any comments/feedback, and despite their level (senior+). I don’t really trust them to work on anything more than the smallest, simplest stories.</p> <p>I’ve provided specific feedback in PRs and in performance reviews (sometimes very low-level and specific, and sometimes very high-level about guiding questions or principles), but nothing’s changed. I’ve felt frustrated, drained, and confused - why is it such a struggle to get someone with an entire decade of development experience to turn in a straightforward PR? One other teammate has admitted (privately) that some work was sloppily done, which is consoling but otherwise I’m not sure if it’s bothering others as much as it does me.</p> <p>They’re offshore so maybe it’s just a communication thing? The rest of the team has been on the project since the beginning so maybe we’re poorly set up for new devs. I have high standards for myself and others and I’ve always been the most junior developer on the team and am new to the senior role.</p> <p>Am I just being a perfectionistic jerk? Is that a bad match for (essentially) junior teammates? Should I just reset my expectations and accept that their level and years of experience don’t translate into high performance? Thanks for any insights.</p> </li> </ol>

<p>In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:</p> <ol> <li> <p>‌</p> <p>Hi Dave and Jamison,</p> <p>Internal dev asker from the second half of Episode 441 checking back in. Your “ask what scared the previous dev” advice in particular has paid off handsomely; I now carry around a little book of eldritch warnings and, somehow, people keep bringing me their unknowable monsters to interpret. It’s almost as though the previous dev knew these sorts of things would happen! I didn’t set out to acquire Lovecraftian knowledge, but here we are, still in one piece.</p> <p>Today’s puzzle: getting busy humans to test our stuff early, while feedback can still make it into production. We’re trying to build a culture where people will poke at a rough prototype now, instead of filing a Very Concerned Ticket three hours before release. How do we get people to test and provide feedback earlier? Do we stay disarmingly warm, promise tiny time boxes, and make a public show of “you said / we changed” until participation feels like the default? Or do we wave our terminal windows around threateningly on a screen share and promise doom (and minor annoyances) until they comply?</p> <p>Thanks for lending sanity to the abyss, —An increasingly arcane internal apps dev</p> </li> <li> <p>I have been listening to your podcast regularly and am inspired by how the podcast and the community have grown.</p> <p>I am a developer with over 10 years of experience and have moved to Sweden from a country outside Europe, with the ambition to build my long-term life and career here.</p> <p>For several years, I have tried to take that step myself, but often encounter the same obstacle: I am told I need experience as an engineering manager — but without the role, I can’t get the experience, and without the experience, I can’t get the role.</p> <p>I have invested a lot of time and energy in developing myself: learning about leadership, coaching, communication, and team dynamics.</p> <p>Despite this, I find it difficult to see a clear path forward. With everything happening in tech right now, I sometimes feel stuck and uncertain how to break this cycle.</p> <p>My question is: how did you take your first step? How can one realistically enter an engineering manager role when the door seems closed without prior experience?</p> <p>Thank you for creating such an honest and inspiring podcast. It already means a lot to me — and to many others, I am sure.</p> </li> </ol>

<p>In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:</p> <ol> <li> <p>I’m a relatively new people manager and I really struggle when it comes time for performance reviews, or even regular praise or critical feedback in one-on-ones, because I can’t help feeling like an adult “talking down” to another adult, regardless of whether the feedback is generally positive or critical and instructive. Something about it all seems so patronizing to me. How can I approach this stuff with a different mindset?</p> </li> <li> <p>Hello D &amp; J! Quick one from your biggest fan!! This week (Tuesday 6th Jan 2k26) I was promoted to Tech Lead of our team. In my new role, I have done no work *cries*, I’ve spent all my time assisting team members, unblocking QA, dealing with ad hoc requests from product/stakeholders…. I asked the previous tech lead is this what they did? They did! And they said spent their personal time to complete stories assigned to them.</p> <p>Is this really what a tech lead does?!?!! Helpppp</p> </li> </ol>

<p>In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:</p> <ol> <li> <p>Listener Tom says,</p> <p>I’m a software developer with six years experience, mostly at small startups with engineering teams anywhere between 2 and 10 developers.</p> <p>Because these startups have been small, most of the interviews were really casual. I’d speak to either the CEO, or CTO about my past experience, and we would talk about the direction the company was heading, and whether I’d be interested in joining. They felt less like interviews, and more like free-flowing conversations.</p> <p>I’m now back on the market, and I’m looking at larger, more established tech companies. I can get past the tech interviews just fine, but I’m struggling with the soft-skills interviews. Compared to what I’m used to they’re a lot more structured and it feels like they’re looking for answers that fit a certain criteria and format.</p> <p>What advice would you give to someone used to interviewing at small startups, but now interviewing at larger companies?</p> </li> <li> <p>I took an unpaid full stack internship role at a new non-profit, and it turned out to be a team completely made of other interns. There isn’t a single experienced engineer on the team. I have gone way deeper than originally intended and am now functionally a founding engineer where the founder pretends I’m a lead engineer and calls me an intern. The founder is also hellbent on having the highest development velocity, and sometimes will contribute their own AI-generated code, often bypassing the review process especially for things I’m not comfortable signing off on like an AI-generated TOS and user agreement.</p> <p>I recently learned that the founder is not viewed highly in their local area after a scandal where they were accused of scamming a large sum of money, which is likely why they are doing their free community projects they started now in order to save face. This has backfired, and now people are calling their projects “AI generated schemes” despite the services being completely free.</p> <p>I’m not sure if I should continue contributing to these projects anymore. Since the founder rushes things to get done, walks through legal areas with their AI “lawyer,” and has a bad image, I’m worried about whether my resume will be taken seriously by potential future employers.</p> <p>Should I continue working for this person or is the experience not worth it?</p> </li> </ol>

<p>In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:</p> <ol> <li> <p>Hello gentlemen, long-time listener here, and I’d love your take on something that’s been keeping me up at night.</p> <p>The high powered boss that I report to is someone I genuinely like and respect.This manager is smart, kind, honest, and overall great to work with. We have a solid relationship. I also come from big tech, so I sometimes feel I have better experience around managing projects and keeping teams organized. However she recently shared in confidence that there’s a chance of resigning in the next few months. and when I asked what keeps her up at night, the headache did not seem so big of a deal to me.</p> <p>But ever since hearing this news, I’ve been catastrophizing the next few months. I’m not ready to job-hunt. At the same time, if this manager does leave, it could be a really good opportunity for me to step up.</p> <p>So here’s what I’m struggling with: 1.How do I position myself for a potential promotion without making it seem like I’m going behind my manager’s back or trying to undermine them? 2.Should I quietly start looking for an job anyways, just in case? 3.And how do I stay sane when this might all be for nothing and the manager might actually stay?</p> <p>Would really appreciate your wisdom on how to navigate this without losing more sleep.</p> <p>Thanks for everything you do!</p> </li> <li> <p>I’ve worked as an engineering manager in a few big companies in Berlin, but after too much corporate politics bs, I flipped the fingers and quit. In the 2025 economy, that wasn’t the smartest move — finding a new job has been harder than ever.</p> <p>I’ve been focusing on smaller companies, ideally under 100 people. Ideally less politics, more autonomy. But now I’ve got an offer from Google in Bucharest — nearly double the compensation what I could get in Germany. The catch? I’d have to leave my strong circle of friends in Berlin and start over in a new city, new country.</p> <p>What would you do in my place? Brainstorm with me please 🥺</p> </li> </ol>