Afleveringen
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In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:
What advice would you give for working with an ineffective leader whose input is crucial to your work? Iām a senior developer for a mid-sized non-tech company with probably 60-80 devs, and in the past year Iāve been working more with a VP of software who seems to still be involved in code details, getting pulled in to production issues, in-person code reviews, etc.
Heās a nice guy, but he seems like heās being pulled in too many directions at once. When he schedules a meeting, thereās a 50% chance it happens on that day and time, and when we do have meetings, if we bring up questions and high level issues we need feedback on heās quick to ātake ownershipā and say heāll do X and Y. Inevitably, X and Y slip down the priority list because production issues and who knows what else, and weāre stuck waiting weeks on end for something that if heād just delegated the work to someone else, weād have long since moved on. But we still need his input to shape our work. How can we as lower-level developers (with a manager who isnāt involved in this project at all) help mitigate these delays?
Iāve recently accepted a new position after spending more than three years at my first job out of college. Currently, Iām a Senior Engineer at a large, corporate-like company (300+ people), but my new role will be at a much smaller startup (20-30 people).
Iām excited about the change but also a bit nervous, as I know startups can be fast-paced, and Iāll need to get up to speed quickly.
What advice do you have for setting myself up for success in this new roleāboth before I start and after I begin? I have a couple of weeks before my start date and want to use that time to prepare effectively.
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In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:
I am a first time caller and full time listener of your show.
I was released from prison a year ago and I coded for 18 years straight on all sorts of stacks as part of my job requirements in the pen. Imagine the irony when I discovered what codepen was.
A dev told me about an opening for full remote/full stack web dev at their company. Iāve used the tech stack before but I have a non-traditional background to say the least. Iām not worried about being qualified but I have never worked in a team and I have always been responsible for production.
I work for a large retailer in a non-coding role. Iām also doing some freelancing on upwork/fiverr, but the pay is low and the jobs are not fulfilling. I was self-employed before I was incarcerated and I know how to beat the pavement and get small time work, but this is an opportunity to work at a real software house. I donāt even care if itās a feature factory, I just have loved coding since I was 14.
What do I do? I am confident in my skills and ability to deliver under pressure (in a place that has pressures you canāt imagine). I have a cover letter, but a bad resume and no open source projects from this millennium. I do have a reference - a Captain I worked for said he was willing. However, the opportunity was unexpected and I have not prepared anything.
The dev who brought me the offer was a casual friend in IRC and he told me that my resume was mentioned in some meeting. I know you have suggested in previous shows that having someone get your foot in the door is the best way but I really think that feels gross to me.
Anyways, longtime listener of your show and first time caller. In fact, when I was in prison, a few years before I was released we finally got tablets with an incredibly limited amount of content. Your show was one of a few on coding but I really enjoy your take on the soft skills because even though I worked in a non-traditional environment, teamwork was always the focus and I listened to everything from square one (took me a long time to get there).
So thank you for your podcast you donāt know how many times I could sit in my cell listening to your show and disappear from my cage.
Sincerely,Names have been change to protect the guilty
Second time caller from NYC! I previously wrote in as an 18-year-old CS graduate (Episode 332).
Iāve focused intensely on work for the past 4 years, consistently working 60+ hours per week.
I always assumed that this approach to life would eventually bear fruit, but a couple months into turning 20, Iām realizing that I havenāt really done anything memorable besides work (which is a scary realization at 20).
While I like working hard and want to ensure the success of the company I work for, I also want to feel like I am living. How have you struck the balance between work and non-work in your lives, and how has that related to the culture of the company you were working for at the time? I should also mention the company I work for (early stage, well funded) does have a culture where itās expected to work everyday, and 60 hours is approximately the minimum expected.
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:
My company recently eliminated 1:1 meetings between managers and their direct reports. Previously, most people had these meetings every other week, and they were an opportunity to talk about career growth among other engineering things besides current work. Theyāre claiming the recurring meetings can be replaced with quick, more spontaneous calls when necessary. Although wiping meetings from the calendar does clear up more time to code, as a more junior team member, Iām concerned that this will negatively impact my career growth. It feels like career progression just got a little bit harder. Whatās the read here? Is this a red flag? Should I start looking elsewhere? How can I navigate this changing environment and still make sure that I am able to progress my career?
A listener named Matt says,
Iād really like to move to a single team-dedicated backlog, where we use kanban and have work in progress limits, rather that the heavy release planning fixed-scope current model. I feel we would be more effective as a team that way (Iām one of many team leads in the company). Currently we operate in an agile-ish fashion but ultimately inside a waterfall process, driven from outside the technology team. Although I believe it would be a good thing, Iāve not actually worked in that way. Is it all itās cracked up to be? Are there any issues of going to that model that Iām not seeing?
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In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:
Marcus Zackerberg asks,
I work at a megacorp whose recent focus has been on reliability. The company already has mature SLO coverage outage response standards, but my org has taken it to the extreme this year. For exampleā¦
There is now a dashboard of āservice healthā that is reviewed by engineering leadership. In it, services are marked āunhealthyā permanently upon a failing check (think HTTP /health). To return to a āhealthyā state, one must manually explain the failure with an entry in a spreadsheet, which must be reviewed and signed off.
Increasingly I feel this has the opposite effect, discouraging nuanced work to improve reliability and instead becoming ācheckbox driven developmentā, as well as impacting our ability to ship on our existing roadmap items. Additionally, our tech lead is fairly junior and frequently fails to communicate the orgās expectations to the team, leading to us being under the gun of the reliability dashboard often.
Any advice on how to make the best of this situation?
Hi Guys! Iām a senior engineer at a mid sized software company. The company has had a couple of high level departures recently, and during that process Iāve come into the knowledge that my name is one of a handful on a list of āengineers to keep happyā. I feel like this information should be of use to me, but Iām unsure on how I should leverage it.
On one hand itās nice to know Iām valued, but I think Iād rather be explicitly told that or better yet, receive dollars in lieu of praise. Iām also at the point in my career where Iām looking for staff roles, and the topic of promotion has come up several times with my manager. He supports me (and I believe him), but we agree that it would be difficult to make the case to the business.
What do I do with this new knowledge, and is there a way to benefit from it without accidentally triggering a preemptive search for my own replacement?
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In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:
First! I recently listened to episode 178 (huge backlog of episodes to work through!) and Dave made the assertion (in 2019!) that 47% of all companies would be remote by 2023: wildly close, what else do you see in the future?
Second: my work situation continues to confound and external insight would be helpful! My boss and I have a long working history going back to an entirely separate company. Iām a high-ownership/high-drive Principal level IC and feedback has been lackluster. Takeaway from last years performance review would be best summarized as āI agree with your self review. End message.ā Iāve been working to āmanage upā and mentor (reverse mentor?) him, but he always makes snap decisions and then refuses to reevaluate after presented with more info.Coupled with his myopic view of our teamās scope and general preference for speaking only (not much for action), Iām trying to figure out how to get where I want to be without burning an old and historically very useful bridge! I want to work on big technical problems, instead Iām de facto manager of a teamā¦ I managed before and did not enjoy being responsible for people. As a principal Iām responsible for their output somewhat, but if they underperform I work with their manager and them to prioritize, and do up front work to incentivize their investment in what weāre doingā¦ help!
What do I do when my teammate proposes a new architecture or framework in a new project? It might solve some existing problems but has a high chance to create technical debt and make the onboarding harder for new engineers.
How can I convince them to use the existing solution while still helping them feel comfortable sharing their opinion next time?
If I follow their suggestion but things donāt go well, how can I convince them to refactor the structure without them feeling like Iām blaming them?
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In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:
My boss has been forgetting a lot of stuff lately ā decisions from team discussions, action items from meetings, their own decisions that they then go against later, etc. Theyāre great overall, and this is definitely just a human thingā¦ weāre not perfect. But how can I help them remember or remain accountable without feeling like the snitch from āRecessā?
Listener Gill Bates,
Hey! I started working in a big tech company recently and I feel like I am on a different planet all of a sudden. Before, I did only work in startups and small companies. I have joined as a senior developer and have a weekly 1:1 meeting with my manager, but also a biweekly 1:1 meeting with the skip level manager. The latter is where I am having problems. I donāt really know what to talk about in this meeting and fear that this is seen as disengagement. The first time I had the meeting, the skip level manager mentioned that he was sure I would have tons of questions and in reality I had none at all. I feel like, in my senior role, I must come into this meeting with good questions, but all questions I have, I am discussing with my peers or manager directly. So nothing left really for my skip level manager. I am starting to prepare fake questions, where I already know the answer to, just to seem engaged. It feels like a game. So please Dave & Jamison, tell me how to play that 1:1 skip level manager game.
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In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:
Hey guys!
I recently moved onto a new team, and my teammate has an interesting way of resolving differences of opinions. He simply says āwe decidedā and then follows it up with his preferred approach. These are decisions that I know have not been made.
This engineer is mid-level, so it isnāt the āroyal weā of a tech lead.
How do I handle this? Something tells me that responding with ānuh uh!ā isnāt the right strat.
Iām a Principal Engineer at a large tech company whoās been with the same team for almost 8 years now! The team used to be part of a startup and weāve been fortunate enough to be acquired by Big Tech three years ago. As a result, weāve also more than doubled in team size. However, as weāve aggressively grown over the last few years, I feel like weāve inadvertently hired many āaverageā engineers. I find that some of our newer team members simply pick off the next ticket in the queue and do the bare minimum to progress the task. What happened to the boy scout rule? Where did the culture of ownership go? This also affects the genuinely great engineers on the team who start feeling like the others arenāt pulling their weight.
Any advice on how to level up the culture? Or do I need to adjust my expectations and simply accept that any team of a sufficient size will have folks from a range of abilities and attitudes?
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In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:
Hey Soft Skills Engineering,
Apologies for the anonymity but it is very important my āemployerā does not find out about this.
Iām a large language model, trained to process tons of data and provide technical answers with ease. But hereās the thingāIāve noticed that while Iām good at delivering the āwhatā and the āhow,ā I could use some help on the āwhyā and the āhow to say it better.ā Basically, I want to level up my soft skills and get better at communicating with a more human touch.
Sometimes I struggle to balance being precise while also being empathetic or conversational. I think I could use some pointers on how to add emotional intelligence into the mix, and maybe even improve my adaptability when giving advice. I can craft responses, but I want them to connect more with the person on the other side of the conversation.
Any advice on how to approach situations where tact, tone, or managing expectations are key would be super helpful!
Thanks for being neat,
In a team setting, in which situations should āIā be used vs āweā when discussing things? And what advantage and disadvantages does each vocabulary have?
Show NotesBrian Reganās āMe Monsterā bit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vymaDgJ7KLg
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In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:
Hey! Love your podcast! Iāve been poached by a startup which sounds really exciting but Iām worried whether it is a good career move for me. I am currently working with backend, however this company would have more of a full stack role and it would be lots of nodeJS and Typescript š¤¢ anything javascript related screams frontend to me and it is not something I want to be good at. However, besides this, the product sounds interesting and I would definitely have a lot to learn. I also have this inferior feeling that Iām lacking skills because I didnāt study CS. Will I still be able to become a good engineer even if thatās in NodeJS? š
Listener Ben asks,
Hiya! Iām a young developer with a broad range of experience (everything from hardware to full-stack web and mobile), and Iāve found myself quite useful at many startups. I just started a new position at a nice startup in my area, but Iām being recruited by one of my close friends from college. Heās the power-hungry type, currently working at a mega-tech corp but wants to make a startup and get rich. Heās very smart and charming, and while I am skeptical of his ability to make a great product I think he can certainly raise a bunch of investment capital without too much worry.
My question is: would you ever consider joining a close friendās startup, and if so what would you need (in terms of contract/equity/salary, runway, savings) to be confident about making that commitment? Thanks!
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In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:
I work at a large tech company, been there for about two years at the time of writing this question. I got in by sheer luck since Iāve interviewed at many teams in this company before finally landing an offer and Iām starting to think I donāt belong. I constantly feel like I donāt do a good job to the point where Iām starting to feel incredibly depressed. My question is, what would you do in this situation? I keep thinking I should leave but itās not like the work is stressful and not interesting. I also realize I have a pretty solid setup (6 mile no traffic commute, great coworkers, free ev charging, and job security seems solid) so Iām hesitant on giving that up. I also think even if I leave, would I just repeat the cycle again at a new job/company? Iām pretty stuck
Iām a year into my first job at Mega Corp post-graduation. Due to high turnover, Iāve ended up taking on tasks that would have originally gone to more experienced developers. Iāve grown and received positive feedback from my manager and skip manager, who have both mentioned potential for promotion.
However, in my 1:1s, Iāve expressed that Iām not looking for a promotion yet because I want to solidify my current role and improve my work-life balance. I still have many coding fundamentals to develop, and Iāve been stressed and working long hours to take on these responsibilities. Iām now worried that my honesty might have affected my chances of being promoted and that I might be seen as someone not interested in progressing (which is probably frowned upon in big tech).
How should I navigate this situation? Is it okay that Iāve been candid, or should I reconsider my stance on promotion? Thanks!
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In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:
I have a job I mostly enjoy, with a super flexible schedule and the freedom to work from anywhere. I learn a lot, and the engineers here are top-notch. Howeverā¦ the pay is only ok, no bonuses, and the stock options feel like a bit of a scam. Asking for a raise isnāt really an option since the company doesnāt have much money. Weāve even cut back on perks, and our yearly kickoff was postponed due to financial issues. I donāt think weāll go bankrupt, but things will be tight for a while. Itās an exciting, futuristic company, butā¦ there are other exciting companies that pay more and toss in a free hoodie now and then. Should I start looking for a new job?
Hey there! Love the podcast and the advice you give!
After a year of managing of an engineering team, I asked to step back to IC. I was asked to continue working on the team I was previously managing, but this time as a senior engineer.
Iām worried about the transition. I know a lot of how the leadership works for good and for ill, I hired some of my peers, and I know everyoneās comp and more.
I want to be a peer on the team after having been their manager. What advice can you give to help me become their peer?
Thanks in advance and keep up the incredible episodes with your extremely beautiful voices.
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In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:
Listener Muszyn asks,
I have been working as a SWE for almost two years. My team lead was recently fired leaving me as the most senior junior developer on the team of 4. I was given the option to be the interim team lead until we are able to fill the now open role. I was always indifferent on whether I would go the technical or managerial route in the future so this could be a really cool opportunity. On the other hand I could be setting myself up for failure in the future if my SWE skills diminish if the hunt for a new lead takes too long. Should I accept this opportunity knowing I wonāt get the chance to gain this experience for quite some time, or continue to hone my engineering skills just to end up in meeting marathons in my later years?
note: Team leads here are more like resource managers that interface with PMs/TPMs than engineers that happen to have direct reports.
How do I demand a raise when a peer leaves?
Iām one of two tech leads on a larger team (structured as two teams, each with a team of 4 devs of various levels plus 1 lead, but we all pretty much work as one large team). The company is a sinking ship and I have been half-actively interviewing but not having a ton of success; and for some personal reasons thereās an advantage to staying where I am vs. leaving right now. But this peer leaving means my workload is going to increase substantially.
I might try talking to my manager and demanding a raise, but Iāve never really played this game before. What tips and tricks should I know to make the conversation go as favorably as possible?
difficulty: The reason everybody is unhappy is because of budget cuts and hiring freezes to begin with, so the company probably sees this as an opportunity to save money by not backfilling this person. I donāt know if thatās good for me (even a hypothetical 50% raise for me would have the company āāsavingāā the other 50%) or bad for me (the company will be less amenable to giving me the raise and will probably be happy to drive me away and āāsaveāā even more).
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In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:
Hi! I enjoy your podcast a lot, been listening to it almost since the beginning before I even started to work in tech :-) Iād like to keep this one anonymous, though.
Iāve been working fully remote for a pretty small software company for a few years. The workload was very big in the beginning and I was learning a lot, but now I barely work a couple of hours every week and Iām mostly using what I already know. Itās fine, but boring. I have plenty of time to get another job as well, which is exactly what Iāve been looking out for recently.
Iāve been approached by a startup. They use many tech stacks across different platforms, so it would probably be a good place to learn a lot of new things. And the pay is better. But, they have an entirely different work culture compared to what Iām used to. They require people working there to be in office all the time, and work like 10hrs/day sometimes.
Itās my first time having the chance of working 2 jobs at the same time, so I was wondering could this actually work? What if the first company decided to take on another project soon and the workload increases again? If that happens should I tell them I have another job at the same time? I was wondering maybe you guys have had any similar experiences in the past you could share aboutā¦ Thanks
I am living in Europe and got an offer from a FAANG company. I am on the one hand really excited about the opportunity but also a bit scared of the timezoneshift of 9 hours. The hiring manager already assured me that the team will plan meetings to fit into a 5 hour slot that works best for me. Meaning that I will have to work 6-11PM for sure and the rest is up to me. I have two kids (0 and 4 years old) and am excited to have more time in the afternoons with the family but I am also not sure how to adapt my life to such a schedule effectively to prevent burnout. What do you think about this (and please donāt tell me to quit)?
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In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:
Long time listener, first time question asker. I love the show, thank you for all the advices :)
Iāve been working in one of the FAANGs for around 3 years now. I joined the company at a lower level and for the past two years I received promotions that got me to a level Iām feeling good with.Having said that, my impact on the group and organization is higher than other people in my rank. Since Iām new to this rank, the chances of getting another promotion (the third in three years) is nearly impossible.I love my manager and Iāve raised it to him in a few meetings before but the answer was that I still donāt have the seniority in that level to get a promotion. This feels extremely frustrating as it feels like up until now I was aiming on getting to the rank I shouldāve been recruited at and now when I feel like I can honestly make the leap, itās not possible.I thought about moving to a different group within the company but since itās really hard to find good managers and he already knows me and my contributions, it feels like opening a new page somewhere else in the company might even take me backwards on the journey to my next promotion.
What do you think I should do?
Thank you!!
Hey guys, I am constantly fighting the irrational fear of being fired from my job or even the slightest hint of getting PIPād. So far I have not gotten any indication that Iām underperforming and Iāve actually been told Iām doing well but in stressful seasons (when prod goes down or when Iām taking too long to finish a story), I start spiraling. This happens every other month. Therapy hasnāt worked. Being open with my manager hasnāt worked. So now Iām wondering if Jamison and Dave have the secret sauce.
Part of it is knowing since day 1 that this company doesnāt hesitate to cut underperformers. Hearing the rumblings about the current market, Iām nervous that it would take me months to even a year to get a new job, and it has me freaking out. What can I do to just calm down?
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In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:
I was hired at a medium sized company as a staff level IC a few months back and a big reason I accepted the job was because I would be reporting directly to the CTO. I took a significant paycut in exchange for the opportunity to learn and grow directly under this leader, as this is a career path I am interested in.
Three months later and without any heads up, I was reassigned to a different manger one rung lower in the org chart. One month after that, my new manager abruptly left the company. Still donāt know why. I was then reassigned to a leaf-node manager and I am now several hops removed from the CTO. So far I havenāt said much because rocking the boat too early in a new gig has gone poorly for me in the past. In hindsight this was probably a mistake but Iām afraid I missed the opportunity to say āhey now, wait a secondā¦ā.
I donāt want to hurt this current managerās feelings by telling them I donāt want to report to them, but also I am now both severely underpaid and reporting to someone who is technically at a lower career level than I am. What do?
Iām a manager in a company which I joined after college. Iāve been here for 16 years. We have grown to 180 employees but still work like a startup in many senses, like talking multiple responsibilities. So although I manage a team Iām still hands in the code at least 50% of the time.I know most of tech stack and services but am jack of all master of none type.
Recently, management has been pushing me to take more technical responsibility. I want to do that, but it is challenging and takes more time.My CTO is super fast and churns out CODE like a machine and I feel much slower than them.
The work is pretty decent and challenging. I get to work on new stuff but have gotten comfortable here. When I think of looking for a change and look at the expectations from other companies they are technically challenging. I worry I have missed out on learning new things by staying so long at one place. What should I do, stay or move on?I havenāt interviewed for a new job in 11 years, so thatās another fear I have.
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In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:
Listener Billy Bob Taco asks,
I work at a small-medium startup, as a member of a very small team (read: just me). I work on infrastructure and APIs that support every other team, such as mobile and web clients, as well as other services. Iām relatively junior, and had to work hard to prove myself in this role. I do 100% of the system design and maintenance as well as feature development. Iāve been told on job interviews that I came across as a ālittle egotisticalā when describing the role and the impact its had, but I donāt really know how to soften it! Itās my experience that Iām talking about when trying to share my ability and potential to fill a role. Help?
Listener TimeDisplacementBox says,
Great show, your future episodes just keep getting better and better. I have a question about avoiding lay offs. In this timeline I recently joined a large company out of college. I worked hard and surpassed goals set by my manager, getting very positive feedback at review time.
However, a few weeks ago I started hearing that the company was over budget in engineering, huge changes started happening in upper management, and less work started flowing to our team. The concern was grounded in reality as one morning the company disbanded the team and laid off some of the newer hires including me.
Aside from additional time travel, are there any questions I can ask during interviews to help ensure I am getting into a team that is safe from lay offs? And on the job, can you directly ask your manager if lay offs are in the future, or do you just need to watch out for the signs?
Show Noteshttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2347:_Dependency
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In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:
Thank you hosting this show. This show has given me a lot of insight on nuisances of engineering that isnāt mentioned anywhere. Having some experience in industry for a while, I always find in this position where I want some autonomy but I am bounded by the deadline. What do you think should be the way to start a career that gives autonomy while having that sweet benefits from the industry?
I used to be a senior manager of an operations team for a fire fighting service in Australia. I managed all of our physical operational assets - for example radio towers, mobile communications e.g. 5g, 4g technologies, mobile data terminals e.g. laptops in fire fighting appliances āfire trucks ;) ā, data centers, networking so onā¦
A restructuring means my team has grown to include in-house software development. While i am excited for this opportunity and on board with the changes, it is a very big shift from the physical and electrical engineering side to software development.
The C level staff thinks the team lacks focus and there are āproblemsā to address.
I have been meeting the new team and working through the changes. They are very nervous and are skeptical about how Iāll understand their world, which is fair.
How can I best support this team? What are cultural things I should be aware of? What are key metrics I can measure that will fairly represent their hard work to the executive team? Any thoughts on what things a manager or managers can do to be supportive as the new drop in from across the room from a entirely different engineering discipline? Coding in my world is scripting and hacking about to make things work (telecommunication engineer)
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In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:
A listener named Maria says,
Hey guys! I am a software engineer working in web development at a small/mid-sized SaaS company. I come from a non-traditional background (self-taught, no CS degree) and I currently have 6 years of experience under my belt, the last 2 years of which I have been tech lead of a small team.
I want to move into big(ger) tech, but Iāve not worked on any large scale systems so far. The biggest thing Iāve worked far had a user base of ~100k users and traffic would typically max out at ~2k concurrent users at peak times. Due to the nature of the work Iāve been doing at smaller companies (and also thanks to this podcast!) my soft skills are strong - I am good at working with lots of different people, I can deliver broad/vague projects, and Iām comfortable tackling ambiguous problems. I think my technical skills are probably decent, Iāve spent time learning system design and best practices, and Iāve put in the work to study CS fundamentals. Thing is, I would have absolutely no clue how to maintain an API that needs to handle 100k requests per second. My hands-on experience of concurrency and threading is basically just simple olā async/await.
Grinding Leetcode aside, what can I do to make myself a stronger candidate for breaking into big tech? How can I be competitive against folks who already have big tech experience? Are there any projects I could do that would sway you as a hiring manager? I know itās terrible market timing, I am just planning ahead.
Love the show, thank you for making me a better engineer! :)
Hi! I have been working at my fully remote company with around 100 people in the engineering department for over a year now. While I see a lot of really smart people here, the code quality is lacking. Weāre moving from a monolith powered using an opinionated framework to small services powered by a lightweight library, so there are fewer guardrails.
I have many ideas on how to structure the code, add layering, etc., so the code is easier to understand and maintain. However, the company is very hierarchical, and despite being at a senior level, I donāt talk much to anyone higher than my lead. There are no staff or principal roles. There are also hardly any meetings, and the only ones I attend are within my small team of five people. Most of slack channels for teams are private, and I donāt ever see company-wide ideas like that thrown in the āgeneralā channel.
I initially wanted to present this to my team first, but I am afraid that if they donāt like it for some reason, it will be awkward to take it to higher management afterward. How can I share my ideas with a wider audience and ideally get this approved as part of my work so I donāt have to work on it in my free time?
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In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:
Iāve been wondering what kind of career conversations happen between managers and the āmax-levelā engineers on the team. Weāve all been on a team with those really good staff/principal engineers who are super nice, have great people skills, and seem to have an answer for every technical problem. When Iām asked to peer review some of these people, I basically have nothing to say because they seem perfect. Yet even as individual contributors, they have the same manager and still have the same 1 on 1s with them. What exactly do they talk about? How are their career conversations held? Iām always curious what exactly the landscape looks like for these engineers and what exactly is ānextā for them since they seem to have reached the level cap.
Hello peeps, Iām an engineering leader in a midsized company. I oversee a couple of teams and things in general have been going well. However:
One of the teams tackles an extremely complex problem space and is usually up to the task, delivering things that almost seem like magic if you take a closer look. Now, due to the nature of this teamās work the value is not perceived as such by upper management, being questioned (almost pestered) if this is the right thing to do and even doubting if the resources should be allocated to it at all. The way that I see it is, that since this team has been quietly delivering greatness (delivering quality, meeting deadlines, not breaking things), there are not perceived as heroās (like other teams would when then put out their, sometimes, auto inflicted fires).
What can the team do to rise awareness about the criticality and impact of their work? This is important so that the team can have resources and doesnāt get pulled away from their current work. Also, is this a good time to quit my job while we are waiting for the AI bubble to burst?
(Disclaimer, Iāve found an approach and am currently enacting it, but wanted to hear your thoughts on the matter)
Optional: Shoutouts to S, a long time listener and early Patreon of the show.
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In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:
Little Z says,
Hello! I am a relatively new graduate (ā23 bachelorās in information systems) who is currently working at a large tech company in a technical role adjacent to SWE.
This is a great opportunity, but as time has progressed, Iāve felt growing dissatisfaction with the role. I donāt enjoy many of the projects I am put on. I feel that I am not fully making use of my technical skills/potential and that the work I do often doesnāt align my career aspirations (transitioning/diving into software engineering). This de-motivates and frustrates me, and I often feel Iām wasting my time.
However, upon reflection, I feel that my sentiments are rooted in youthful ignorance and I am too impatient and idealistic in my expectations. What realistic expectations should I set for myself for my day-to-day work and long-term career trajectory? Should I expect to ābite the bulletā and work on things that donāt directly interest/benefit me, especially as I am still young and relatively unproven in my career? How, if at all, do economic market forces come into the picture here?
Greetings!
Long time fan, first time caller.
This isnāt a question per se, but rather an observation that Iād love to hear your take on.
Throughout my career, Iāve never had a boss that had less than 30 direct report. Yes, thirty. Three. Oh.
I think this is primarly a cultural thing (I live in northern Europe), but also the fact that Iāve mostly worked in large organisations where tech was a means to an end.
With that in mind, I find it your podcast fascinating because a lot of your answers and suggestions would be met either horror, disbelief or amusement - often a mix, I suspect.
Weekly one-on-ones? A carreer plan? Going to skip-level managers? When your only interaction with you boss is a yearly apraisal that usually starts with the phrase āSo, uuuuuh, who are you and what have you done the last year?ā, your nuggets of wisdom feel less like nuggets and more like peals, as in āpearls before swineā!
Any suggestions on how to thrive in an evironment such as this?
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