Soft Skills Engineering

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I had my performance review two months ago where I scored a “Does not meet expectations”, which I definitely understand, and my manager told me that some of my coworkers had been complaining about me. I've been working hard on improving ever since and my manager told me that they were really impressed with my progress and told me that some of my coworkers had expressed similar sentiments. I have now gotten a really good job offer but I'm reluctant to take it. I'm still working on improving myself with the help of my manager and I don't want to stop working on this. I would also like some more time to show my coworkers that I really have grown before leaving, feels like that would leave behind a more positive image of me. I'm fairly junior still so contacts seem good to have, and better performance does too, and a better job does too. What should I do? :D Listener Michael Q asks, ‌ Hello! I only recently discovered this podcast but it has quickly become a daily ritual in my commute to and from work. Although I am more of a mechanical and data focused engineer, I find the lessons extremely applicable! I work at a midsized biotech company. I have been in my current role for about three years as a product engineer. Because I'm on the commercial side, my contributions have been very visible to the higher ups and have gotten a lot of recognition, which has been great. I am now transitioning to the more hardcore engineering team. Although I admire this team and think they are the most innovative group on site, I think their work goes largely unrecognized as behind the scenes magic. I think they deserve more recognition and accolades for the work they do. How can I bring them into the spotlight? Or am I naive in assuming that just because I am motivated by recognition, everyone else would appreciate it too? Note: I do not want to quit my job.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: A listener named Mike says, To what degree do you think it's appropriate to talk with your peer managers about people that have moved from their team to yours? How much weight do you give their criticisms of an IC that they used to manage that is working out just fine under your leadership? How do you know if it was mostly due to a conflict in their relationship, or if there's a nugget of truth you need to look out for? Hi, thanks for a great show. I've listened to 400 episodes in a year - thanks for making my commute fun! I've been at my current job as a software developer for a year. It's a great company overall, but we rely on a 30-year-old in-house ticket system that also doubles as a time reporting tool. It lacks many basic features, and project managers often resort to SQL and Excel just to get an overview. As you can imagine, things get forgotten and lost easily. Everyone dislikes it, but the old-timers are used to it. They want any replacement to be cheap and also handle time reporting, which really limits our options. I suggested to keep using the old system for time reporting only for now, but the reaction made me feel like I'd suggested going back to pen and paper. While the company is old and set in its ways in some areas, it has made big changes in others, so I'm not ready to give up hope just yet. How can I at least nudge the company toward adopting a more modern ticket system to improve visibility and planning? I've shown examples that save time and offer better overviews, but it hasn't made much impact. Where should I focus my efforts—or do I just have to learn to live with it? Some more context: This is in Europe and the culture at the company is generally open to feedback and discussions from anyone. I have 10+ years experience and a relatively good influence. My manager is driving change successfully to make the company more modern but I suspect he might have given up on this one.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Mr A. N. Onymous says, Hi Dave and Jamison, Long time listened, second time caller! I wrote a little while back with a common new-manager question about how to handle one of my reports who was at the lower end performance wise, but at the top end on the pay scale. I'd been trying to manage it by getting raises for the rest of the team in order to balance things out a bit (and make the rest of the team happy). I did consider Limogeage but having them on the team was better than a vacancy. Fast forward a year or so, and the problem resolved itself when this team member left - or so I thought. We've had a few months gap before opening recruitment again, and it turns out this team member wasn't happy at their new role and has applied to come back. Given they negotiated well with us the first time I'm guessing they've had a healthy pay bump at their new role. What should I do? On the one hand I know their performance, they do deliver well and I'm happy working with them and managing them. Would it be rude to offer them to come back at their previous salary (assuming they're the “best” person when we interview)? Will they be offended if we don't offer them the role? We haven't had interviews yet - so help me Dave and Jamison, you're my only hope! AI has taken over my team mate's brain. HELP! I work for a ~10ish or so team building a B2B finances related app for several platforms (mobile, web, backend, etc). On the Web team, there's only two of us. I've been on this team for around 4 years now, and during this times I've had several coworkers (the previous ones have either left the company voluntarily or involuntarily, moved to other teams, or completely left the field). I'm 100% convinced it's not because of me, so let's take that out of the question right away :-). All of this to say is that I tend to be the person that knows the most about our (quite large) codebase. We work on a ten-year-old React application with some technical debt, but overall I think it's pretty good. My coworker comes from Android development. While he's a great developer and has AMAZING soft skills (probably a listener of this podcast!, or maybe not because he has not quit yet?) he's a little bit lacking on the general “Web Stuff (TM)” knowledge and many of the specifics details of our codebase. A bigger problem is that he seems to have totally given up on learning web skills or understanding our codebase and is instead just tab-tab-tab-ing autocompleted AI crap all over the codebase. His code works as expected, but when reviewing his PRs I feel like a slave of the AI. I'm not reviewing another human's work, but just what some AI model is doing. While it works, it's terrible code for another human to maintain. For example, there's lots of “inline” crap that we already have utility functions or libraries for, regexes everywhere, custom CSS all over the place instead of using our design system, abuse of the CSS cascade instead of using our CSS-inJS solution, large files with lots of code repeating existing logic that's already somewhere else, and code comments every 2 lines or so which provide no value, but that's what AI does to explain things. I'm not against AI (I also have explicitly to say this to prevent it killing me in the future). I use it for explaining things to me, writing utility functions, suggesting improvements, or as a google search replacement that saves a lot of time. But leaving AI to do your work mindlessly while you sip orange juice and watch how it codes is wrong. We're not there yet. These PRs work and are difficult to reject because management wants to ship fast. However, they are harming the codebase. We'll get to the point where only AI will be able to touch it due to the amount of repetition, duplication and overall non-human friendly code. How do I tell this person “Please stop doing this and instead learn things properly, and use AI as a tool and stop you being the tool of the AI” without hurting any feelings, and without being seen as the AI grinch? Thanks for your help! Love the podcast, and why scroll keeps jumping up when writing on this form? Seems like AI is boycotting me.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Albert Nonymous asks, I am the CTO at a small (5 engineers) tech start-up with non-technical founders. I was their first full-time employee and as such have been able to fully form this company the way I want. I've worked here for 9 years now and own 10% of the company. I enjoy the tech and the job itself. The pay is ok, not crazy Silicon Valley numbers but pretty good for a country with free health care. However, I started here while still in university. This is still the only job I've ever had. I am afraid that my resume will become less valuable the longer I stay here. I still keep up with current trends with hobby projects, but I'm worried that my resume will become less valuable if I ever need to look for another job. Also, I don't believe this company will succeed in the long run. I am still the only person on the board who knows how our tech even works and I have found myself slacking off quite a bit during the last year since having my first child. In the meantime, I also feel like I can't just quit this job since that will almost certainly spell the end for this company and all its employees (some of which I count among my friends after all these years). What do I do? Am I overthinking things? Can I just keep working here until it eventually goes under? Or do I absolutely need to bite the bullet and pull the Jamison and Dave Time-Honoured Special™ and quit my job before I become totally un-hirable? For much of my 9 years as a software engineer, I wanted to be a leader. I just really enjoyed mentoring, training, improving workflows, working with stakeholders and co-ordinating on projects. Leadership seemed like a natural fit and so I was super psyched to be finally made a team leader last year. It has been hell. It has been like falling backwards out of a tree and hitting every branch on the way down, meanwhile it's literally raining anvils and sabre toothed tigers. The constant pressure to have work lined up for the team and be able to report on the activities of the team at a moment's notice is unbearable. I can't stand being responsible for the delivery of other people's work, writing up reports that no one reads or painstakingly de-noising pointless metrics. I dread having to pull eager young developers out of refactoring rabbit holes. Fortunately, as I took this ‘promotion' with no raise, I've easily been able to get myself busted back down to IC. Happy days

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: One of my employees is probably getting laid off, what do I do!?! I'm a tech lead / manager for a consultancy and a contract reduction means that one of the people I supervise is likely going to get laid off soon! We've found new roles for most of my people, but it's likely that at least one will get laid off. I want to help this person out. How much support is typical for a manager / ex-manager to provide in a job search, and how can I go above and beyond without doing too much? Over the last year, my company has gone through 3 rounds of layoff. The engineering culture has changed dramatically. With the fraction of engineers remaining, I am increasingly concerned that it's going to be me next. The company's posture is that everything is “business as usual” and there is nothing to be worried about, but this is what has been said all along. Morale seems to be low with low engagement in department initiatives. I am looking for some advice here, if I stay with the company – what is a healthy way to engage with the current culture to build it back up (or evolve it into something new)? If I decide to leave the company – how can I set proper boundaries to prepare for leaving, but remain engaged until a new opportunity arises?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Hey, long-time listener, listened to almost all episodes now and have been loving it since day 1!! I am a senior engineer at FAANG and work 45-50 hours a week and have a lot of cross-org responsibilities. I am lucky to have a beautiful wife and two wonderful young children. I guess, you can imagine how difficult it already is to manage work/life; especially because I am working remote from a different timezone with large dilation. I did lots of side projects before I had a family. But I was totally okay leaving all that behind for a great family life. Now, I have been struck by a really cool idea for an AI-based product that intersects with static analysis and my day-to-day work, which I cannot stop thinking about. I am sure that this project would be more than I could handle at the moment without cutting back on anything else. The question now really is, how do people with families and FAANG jobs do side projects? Or do they even? Do they have more than 24 hours in one day? Hello! Love the show, one-time contributor :p I'm in agony about my recent compensation change regarding my promotion and I am looking for some wise guidance (and if not that, some funny jokes will do). Context: I work at a big tech company. I got promoted to a senior engineer, but. I didn't get a bump to my salary. Instead, the company “indicated” that the raise would happen in six months, at the next performance review, which happened last week. What did I end up getting? Nothing :) Why? Apparently they have not been giving salary bumps to people who get promoted, and it has enraged people. It hurts my pride. I consistently get good performance reviews & peer feedback. People go out of their way to say how good my work is. I have every evidence to say I am a strong performer. My manager is very supportive and tried escalating my case. But the company didn't budge. They did say that “there's a chance” to “make it right” in 6 months. On the one hand it feels petty to leave a company because I didn't get the raise I wanted, especially when I do really enjoy working here. On the other hand…I am very disappointed. What do I do? Do I stick it out for another six months and see what happens? Are there options left other than start prepping myself for interviews? You are amazing people. Cheers.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I have managed a product for some months now. My previous manager split their team in to mini-teams of 2-3 people. They gave me a small team and plenty of autonomy to own the product and go crazy on it. I had the time of my life as the team lead. I learned a ton and was really developing management skills. My new manager is more hands-on. They want to do things my old manager left space for me to do, like project planning and quarterly planning. Now I feel micro managed when they get involved. I become territorial. It feels like he doesn't recognize the independence of the mini team. I feel like I'm going backwards and and undoing all the management growth I've had, becoming just a software eng who should just keep their head down and work on a task. I don't know what to do. How do I keep my independence and keep growing, but also get along with the new lead and learn from them in the process? I work as a senior engineer in a large team alongside a few other senior technical leaders. I've consistently received positive feedback from my manager about my impact — improving engineering quality, operational excellence, and team communication patterns. At the same time, there have been challenges in collaboration and teamwork between other senior leaders and the teams they work closely with. My manager has been highly supportive of the projects and changes I propose, and many improvements have been implemented based on my suggestions. However, during the recent promotion cycle, despite this positive feedback, I was not promoted, while another senior engineer — who is known to have collaboration challenges — was promoted instead. When I asked for feedback, I was told that while my contributions are appreciated and my time will come, they couldn't explain the specific factors behind the promotion decision. I now feel a bit demotivated, as it seems engineering excellence and team impact may not be the primary factors considered for growth here. My question is: How should I think about my next steps? Should I keep investing in this team or start considering other opportunities?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I work for a B2C fintech startup as a senior engineer. Our onboarding funnel has a lot of moving parts due to regulatory compliance and a litany of requirements from various parts of the business. As a startup, we also live and die by optimizing for and demonstrating growth, so we need to gather data from our product and pipe it to various analytics platforms. Finally, we need to offer customer support for high-touch edge cases. All of this is connected together in a very patchwork way between our own code and various secondary and tertiary systems (CRMs, CDPs, data warehouses, etc). I am torn between two ideas. One is that we may very well be doing something “state of the art” in terms of integrating all of this together. The other is that we are engaging in wheel reinvention on a massive and incredibly wasteful scale. I have no way of knowing though, because I am having such a hard time finding holistic accounts from anyone who has done something like this. My gut says that this is something dozens, if not hundreds of companies have had to build at some point, but I don't know where to find people talking about it. How do I find documented, real-world case studies for how to build a complete package like this? Everything resource I can find online is a myopic, narrow slice of the entire pie focused on only one aspect of the problem. No one is talking about how you integrate e.g. a sane and scalable analytics stack with a fast evolving product. All they want to talk about is how to make a “webscale backend” or “do growth hacking” while assuming someone else is going to draw the rest of the owl. Where do I go to find these people or these resources? Maybe these constitute some form of “trade secrets” - does anyone even want to give this information up freely? If my higher-ups saw me go outside the company for resources, would _they_ think I'm leaking important secret sauce? Sorry that got so long. I love the show! Keep being awesome. I've been at my company for about four years, and I'm currently a senior engineer. When I first joined as a mid-level engineer, there was a certain tech lead who wasn't exactly known for his warm personality. On my very first day, I joined a Zoom call and witnessed him verbally berating someone. This type of behavior was fairly common at the time and earned him quite the reputation as a jerk, though thankfully it became less frequent over the years. Fast forward to today, and he's genuinely transformed. The intensity has dialed way down; he's now approachable, supportive, and even recently earned a promotion to engineering manager. It's honestly been impressive to watch. We have a friendly relationship, and I'd like to acknowledge his growth because I genuinely admire it. But here's the catch: How do I, as someone junior to him, respectfully bring this up without accidentally implying, “Hey, congrats on no longer scaring everyone at work”?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Nearly every time certain developers on the team want to address technical debt, they end up just adding more technical debt. Of course, after one round of addressing technical debt, the developers in question believe that yet another round of redesigning and refactoring is in order. This stresses me out for many reasons, as you can imagine, and has led to my productivity dropping to an abysmal rate. I spend a large chunk my time resolving merge conflicts and re-orienting myself in an ever-changing codebase. Do you have any suggestions for me? Hi! I'm a software engineer at a big tech company, and I'm starting to feel siloed in my IC role. I'm getting my work done, but I'm often lost when it comes to the bigger picture. I can't keep up with what our internal customer teams are doing, what they need, or even what my own team's priorities are. I'm feeling siloed, and it's starting to worry me. I know that just being a good IC isn't enough to advance my career here. To get promoted, I need to understand the impact of my work, be aligned with the team and customer goals, and show that I can contribute to the overall success of the company. But how can I do it? How do I stay informed about customer needs and team priorities and position myself for career growth without getting completely overwhelmed? Thank you for your precious advice!

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I am a senior software engineer in a big tech/faang company and this week is my first ever on call rotation. My team is doing a lot of CI work, monitoring pipelines and support queues during on call. It is probably not as much of a hassle as on call for product teams, but for me personally on call was the nearest I have ever been to hell. Our on call is not the regular getting pinged when something goes wrong, instead we have to manually monitor a dashboard 12 hours constantly for 7 days as the alarming is quite fuzzy. I am the only EU remote worker that has to adopt to the on call PST timezone. That means, my on call shift goes from 3pm-3am in my timezone. It is day 5/7 and I am down 24 energy drinks already, cause this was the only way to stay wake. Knowingly, that this would be just a short-term tradeoff against health, I am now living through the most explosive diarrhea I have ever had. On top, I am sleep derived, dizzy and every body part hurts. That would already be terrible on its own, yet I additionally have a young family, with a 4 year old and a toddler. The on call week, has not only been though on me, but especially also on my children and wife. I don't have time for the kids at all and my wife is doing 100% of everything at the moment, including waking up, breakfast, bringing our son to kindergarten, cooking, cleaning, playing, everything. She is also quite exhausted therefore. Besides On Call, my job has been great and a huge monetary opportunity that is very rare in the EU, therefore quitting just because of 4-5weeks/year is not an option I am considering. Yet, I am wondering if there could be any way of smuggling myself out of the on call rotation. I have seen, that a staff level engineer on our team is not participating in the rotation, but that might be because he got a lot going on with other teams as well. A listener named bebop asks, Is your average “Big Tech” dev “better” than a random dev selected from a large non-technology company? I can't help but feel that if I want to level up my career, I'm going to have to either move into big tech or some unicorn startup.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Hey, I am a web developer getting bored of the regular development work. I am interested in finance and the monetary system and due to the overlap of finance and engineering I feel down the Bitcoin rabbit hole and even spiked interest in crypto like Solana and Sui. I am pretty sure most of crypto is a FUD, delulu or straight up scam, yet the technology looks appealing and interesting to learn. So that said, I am still really interested in learning more about crypto and dabbling in the development space of that. Yet, I am hesitant because I fear that this could reflect negatively on me. What do you think? Is a bit of crypto okay or really that bad? Hi Dave and Jamison After five years as an engineering manager, I want to return to coding. But I'm facing a few challenges: First, I worry about leaving my current team. It feels like I'm abandoning the people I've been supporting. Should I make this transition elsewhere to avoid this awkwardness? Second, I'm struggling to find time and energy to rebuild my technical skills. After a full day of management work, it's hard to open the laptop again for coding practice. Finally, I've been humbled by how rusty my coding skills have become. Tasks that would take a practiced engineer minutes are taking me days, which is frustrating and denting my confidence. How have others successfully navigated this pendulum swing back to an IC role without burning bridges or burning out? Thanks, a rubber duck

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: A listener named Dakota asks, I'm a UX designer, and I'm constantly looking for growth opportunities. I'm having trouble finding mentors to help challenge me, as every time my boss/senior designer leaves the company, I assume their work and we don't backfill their spot or my old position. This leads me towards podcasts like this as I'm trying up-skill and to learn how to be a better team member and support other roles. I'd love your perspective on working with product/ux designers. What have the challenges been? What makes you love working with a designer? Have there been times where you're both arguing for the best user experience, but fail to agree on what experience is best? Hey guys! It seems like lately, I only work in two modes: Stressed and tired Bored and disengaged I often get to own large, urgent initiatives. I spend weeks or months on them. This work is fascinating! I end up being stressed, tired, and counting days until my next vacation. When they finish, I go back to regular tickets - ones that take a day or two, maybe a week to complete. And its great! For a few days. Then the boredom sets in. I pick through the tickets, trying to find something interesting. I finish a ticket and realize there are another 4 hours before the end of the day. I start to miss the rush of working on a complex puzzle, even though it's terrible for my work/life balance. A month or two pass, and a new complex and urgent initiative comes in. The cycle continues. So my question is: Is this a common feeling? Are there ways to find a “easy-work/hard-work” balance? Do you have any advice on not overworking when urgent tasks come in, and not dying from boredom when there is no interesting work?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I'm a manager on a Product team. I've been asked by upper management to measure “story points completed per developer per sprint” and display the results publicly each sprint to motivate lower-performing employees. I explained why, according to Scrum, I don't think this is a good idea. But I think my explanations came across as me not wanting to make my team accountable for performance. For some context, I currently track productivity by reading daily updates, PRs, and tickets, from each developer. I worry that “story points” is easily game-able as a performance target, and will make the team want to modify the points after the fact to reflect actual time spent. Then story points will become a less useful tool for project planning. I'd like to satisfy the higher-up ask to measure productivity, but in a way that is good for the team, the company, and my career. Any thoughts on how to approach this? A listener named Mike asks, I work for a company with 30 employees. Our CEO is trying to be our CTO by prompting all our issues to ChatGPT. This week we had a discussion about changes needed to comply with specific certifications requested by one of our customers. 15 minutes later I got an email containing a chatGPT conversation giving ‘advice' that I debunked just 20 minutes beforehand. I have been vocal about my concerns of over-use of LLM's before and think it's dangerous for our CEO to keep sending large chunks of factually incorrect text across the org. He did finally stop talking about story point burn down because chatGPT told him it's a bad metric though. So maybe this is salvageable?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Greetings! I work at a research company with ~500 engineers and scientists. My company started promoting this new portal they setup that is like a private linkedin. You can fill up the profile they setup for you and apply for positions within the company. Why is my company doing this? They even offer meetings with Talent Acquisition team and they give you feed back on your resume etc. Thank you! As someone who's been a developer for a while, how can I ensure that I'm continually be exposed to and learning topics outside my purview? The further I get from school, the more laser-focused my knowledge seems to become. It's easy to concentrate solely on my day-to-day tech stack and the architecture I work with, but how can I make sure I stay up to date with recent advancements in the field? Is there an RSS feed that I can stream directly into my frontal cortex to keep me up to date? Also, I understand this query may not be ‘soft' enough, so if it must be cast into the void, banished to the land of unanswered questions – I accept my fate

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I've been a developer for about 1.5 years. I work for a large consultancy. we provide services to big clients. I'm working on a front-end codebase that has been through three consulting companies already. Tired of just moving tickets and fixing bugs, I decided to refactor the front end of the entire application we support. Touching the codebase to add features gave me a pit in my stomach. No integration tests, no staging environment, huge functions with tons of parameters, etc. The client provided technical guidelines that were pretty solid, but the code just didn't follow them at all. In the time left on the contract, I refactored the codebase to fix the biggest problems to align with the client's technical guidelines. I did all this without my manager/PO/PM asking me to. But now, how do I communicate what I've done to the client and my manager? Can I get any recognition for it? A listener named Mike asks, I've been in my role for about 1.5 years in a dev team of 7. I really like the job, it has a good culture and I'm learning. Sometimes I channel my desire to learn into improving our projects with small, self directed changes on my own time. I these changes are useful but aren't high enough priority to make it into planned sprint work. I don't inundate the team with these requests, it happens maybe 1-2 times a month. We make a point of working in small steps, usually submitting several PRs per day each. I really like this approach, and I also keep my occasional self-directed bits of work small in scale. However, I've noticed these PRs receive more scrutiny and more “whataboutism” that our regular on-the-books PRs. For example, for regular sprint tickets there's an understanding that we're making progressive improvements or building small pieces of features that exist within the constraints of our systems. We might flag broader improvements to consider, but there's no expectation to re-boil the ocean every time we want to merge code. When I submit a self initiated piece of work there can be a long back and forth of suggestions that can involve changing other dependent code, changing internal APIs which may have side- effects, and generally a level of defensiveness in the code that we never normally expect. I understand that by submitting off the books PRs I am requiring some work-time from reviewers, but there is more pushback than I'd expect. It feels like because I get the ball rolling on my own time the normal cost-benefit constraints go out the window, and the code purists come out to play. Could I be annoying the team with these submissions? Have you experienced team members doing the same thing? Is there a way I can scratch my own itch by learning against our systems without creating this resistance?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: A listener named Scot asks, A new architect was hired at my company 6 months ago. I'm an engineer one rung lower on the hierarchy and have been here for 3.5 years. He hasn't done much to learn about any of us who have been here for a while, so he is constantly undermining my skills and suggestions and assuming he's smarter than me. On our most recent project we had a lot of issues due to his design, which departed from our best practices. He's still acting like he knows best and is getting under my skin. Our company usually hires more collaborative people so I've not had to deal with this before. How can I stay calm, professional, and confident in my skills while working with this guy? Who is my boss? No, really. I need answers. I'm a Principal Developer with so many bosses, I'm starting to wonder if this is a multi-level marketing scheme. My team lead gives me work. His boss gives me work. Every project lead crashes into my inbox like the Kool-Aid Man screaming that their thing is the most urgent. My calendar is a cursed artifact, filled with 20+ hours of meetings a week, where I nod knowingly while my soul quietly exits my body. My team lead is a Designer and has no idea what I actually do or the expectations of a Principal Developer, which is convenient, because neither do I. When I asked his boss to help me prioritize, I was told, “It's all important—just make sure mine is done first, and don't tell the project leads.” Our product owner wants to be anything but a product owner, and our scrum master is treated like the office secretary, not a blocker remover. Top it off, I'm now being asked to weigh in on architecture decisions for our tech stack while not being invited to architecture meetings and being told to “just figure it out” when I asked how to structure the documents and diagrams they want. So now I'm behind on doing dev work, pretending to be an architect, and the team I'm meant to be mentoring never see me unless they're in one of the same meetings I'm trapped in. How do I set boundaries and prioritize without causing a nuclear meltdown? Or should I just consult a Magic 8-Ball and let fate decide? Because honestly, I'm one email away from faking my own disappearance and leaving an out-of-office message that says, “No.”

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I struggle with behavioral interviews. I've gotten a little bit better as I've done more interviews, but it's still a major pain point for me. I have some common behavioral question answers written out in a spreadsheet in SAR format, but I feel that not all of them are good examples for a mid-level developer. The main problem is that I can't remember in detail all the things I've done at work in the past few years. For example, I can think of one time I had a small conflict with a coworker, but I can't remember the details of what happened. I have a work diary of sorts, but unfortunately, I haven't been regularly writing things down. Also, I usually just write down accomplishments and notable things that happened. Should I start writing down experiences that match up with these types of behavioral questions?? Do you have any advice on how I can jog my memory and reflect on all the things I've done during my career to craft good answers to behavioral questions? I also freeze up when I'm asked a “tell me about a time when…” question that I've never experienced. I've heard advice like “come up with a hypothetical scenario and explain what you would do” or “just lie and make up a story”. I'm the type of person who has a very hard time lying and making stuff up on the fly. I am one year into being promoted to a team lead at my company. We are made up of 4 devs, 2 QA, and a product owner. One challenge for our team has been differing time zones. Our 2 QA engineers are east coast while the rest of the team is on the west coast. Currently one of them signs off at 5pm EST and the other at 4pm EST. This means that if there's any communication that needs to happen between dev and QA it has to happen in the morning since by 1pm PST they are headed out the door. This also constrains the times that I'm able to schedule meetings that involve QA. I've been thinking for awhile establishing a set of core hours from 9am-2pm PST but have been afraid of the pushback from our QA. I feel like making this adjustment is reasonable and other people I've asked have echoed that sentiment but my desire to people please and be looked at favorably is preventing me from making a change. In all honesty we can get by with the current set up, but I find myself getting bitter about not being able to schedule meetings in the afternoon and stories getting held up because QA is off the clock so early. What do?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Hello, long time listener first time question asker. I work for a medium sized tech company and I recently moved teams. Right now my old team is attempting to refactor a bunch of code I wrote to use a library that'll make life easier. I don't blame them, I tried to do the same thing. It does not work. I asked the tech lead “did you run into the same framework bug I did when I tried this refactor”… “nope” he said. So out of curiosity I pulled down the branch and guess what I saw, the same bug when I tried this refactor 3 months ago. Now I am in a weird position. Do I tell the tech lead again (he was the tech lead when I tried this same refactor) that this does not work or do I ignore it because I am no longer on that team? I don't want to overstep my bounds but I also know its a lot of work to refactor all this code, so much work they'd need to stop delivering features and add this to their roadmap. I have been interviewing for leadership roles and I keep getting asked “What is your Leadership Style”? I am honestly not quite sure how to answer this as I don't really understand what they are asking. I have searched the internet for a clean, 5th normal form database that lists the available styles to no avail with no definitive tables. It seems this is truly a soft skill. From your experience, what is the interviewer really asking in this case, how can I better identify common styles, and what can I do to grow my skills in this area?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: A listener named Steven says, Long-time listener of the podcast here—it always brings me so much joy! Should I prioritize title over salary? I'm currently based in Europe, working as a Senior Engineer at a big company that pays really well. The problem is, there's almost no chance for promotion due to the economy and budget constraints. Plus, because of the organizational structure, I'm stuck solving small problems that don't have a big impact. It's frustrating—but again, the pay is great. Recently, I got an offer for a Staff Engineer position at another company. The catch is, the pay isn't as good (30%+ cut), and I'm not sure about their culture or structure yet. However, the title could potentially open more doors for me in the future. Should I take the offer, accept the pay cut, and hope it's a step forward for my career? Hello! Long time listener, first-time caller :-) I'm on the final stretch of classes to finish my BS in computer science at WGU, most of which I've done while working. I'm now 40, and I have had 3 previous occupations and employers: aircraft mechanic for 5 years at a small shop, figure skater with Disney on Ice for 6 years, and most recently a partner at an environmental remediation/heavy construction firm for 10 years where my primary responsibilities were field crew management and technical writing for ecology reports. I would love your advice on how I could use these experiences to stand out on a resume or in a job interview. How can I indicate that I'm a hard worker and that I know just enough to know that I know nothing and am ready to learn? Thank you for your time, keep up the good work!

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I am a mid level engineer overleveled as a senior engineer in a FAANG company. I got super lucky landing this high paying remote job, but dang… I did underestimate the expectations for my senior level. I had no FAANG experience before, just working at startups, flat hierarchies, just doing the heavy lifting coding. Now it is all about impact and multiplying impact across the team. I am told I should do less IC work and more leading of projects and owning initiatives. Can you give me some general advice on what actions I can take to get from the mid-level to senior-level? I am not really sure, what taking ownership really means in practice… These just seem like empty phrases to me without a meaning… I have had a bit of time, while running a 40 minute build, so I looked into open pull requests. One PR caught my eye and I started to read through it and left a comment with a suggestion for a small change. All in all sounds good probably, but the caveat to this is, that the PR was marked as Draft. I was thinking that it would be useful for the author of the PR to already get some suggestions during development, but the response got me thinking. The author passive aggressively mentioned that the PR is in Draft and that there is more work to do. Am I the jerk for commenting on a draft PR? Second question, what other things should I pay attention to in code reviews to not be a jerk?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: A listener named Matthias (mah-TEA-as) asks, In episode 444 you're talking about the problems when hiring in the age of AI. I'm a manager who's trying to hire right now and frankly I'm at a loss. If feels like I'm wading through a sea of AI slop. What tips do you have to cut through the slop and reach actually good candidates? Where I work the developers do not seem to “get” source code control systems like git. I'm not a developer but have worked with developers at previous jobs and usually the developers instituted good source control practices themselves. Our developers know they should push their code to the repo but only do it weekly/monthly, treating it as a “backup”. Some back up their laptops using tools like Time Machine so think have taken care of safeguarding their source code that way. How can I convince them that working in git, committing their code as they go, pushing regularly, branching/merging, tying code updates to tickets, etc will benefit them far more in the long run?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: A listener named Kevin asks, Hey, found the show and really enjoy it! Been listening from the beginning and have noticed that one of the pieces of advice given is that you should not stay at your first job for too long, because it's more likely that you've not found the best job for you. I think The Secretary Problem is the closest thing being cited. I tend to agree with the math, but I'm still at my first software engineering job after 5 years and don't really want to leave. There are obviously things I don't particularly like or people I find challenging, but for the most part, I work on interesting projects with smart people, it's fully remote, the benefits are great, and my salary is comfortable. There have been times where I started to look for another job, only to have my current circumstances improve enough that I stopped the search. What advice do you have for someone like me? I don't know if it's relevant, but I've managed to get married, buy a house, and just recently had our first baby. The pressure to provide and be conservative with my career is building. Again, love the show and I hope you'll get to answering this before I catch up. I started from the beginning in late 2024, and in mid Jan 2025, I'm just past episode 50. I'll let you do the math. As a tech lead, I joined a project two years in the making which had only one engineer doing everything, including management. In the two years, only a POC has been completed and a “pre MVP-MVP” build is in progress. There is a hangup though, the funding for the project is supposed to come from another departments budget that doesn't want it, and work was committed by the department I am in, and a third department intended to be completed by the end of the quarter. I have been trying to finesse my teammate into cancelling the project or at least allow a resetting of expectations. My manager agrees with me. There seems to be a tug of war between AVPs and Directors. This has led my teammate to make some corporate aggressive comments. These are being directed in many directions, including department heads opposing the project. In your professional space experience, how can I help my teammate with understanding that his tactics are potentially damaging to his reputation and the project?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: After a decade as a Senior front-end engineer in companies stuck in legacy ways of working—paying lip service to true agility while clinging to control-heavy, waterfall practices—I'm frustrated and exhausted by meetings and largely apathetic, outsourced teams who don't match my enthusiasm for product-thinking or improving things. It seems allowed and normalised everywhere I go. How can I escape this cycle of big tech, unfulfilled as an engineer, and find a team with a strong product engineering culture where I can do high-impact work with similarly empowered teams? Thank you, and sorry if this is a bit verbose! Thanks guys. Martin ‌ How do you judge your competency in a technical skill and when should you include it on your resume? Should you include a skills that you haven't used in a while, skills you've only used in personal projects, or skills that you feel you only have a basic understanding of? I'm a frontend developer and I've seen some job descriptions include requirements (not nice-to-haves) like backend experience, Java, CI/CD, and UI/UX design using tools like Figma and Photoshop. I could make designs or write the backend code for a basic CRUD app, but it would take me some time, especially if I'm building things from scratch. I've seen some resumes where the writer lists a bunch of programming languages and technical skills, and I often wonder if they truly are competent in all of those skills.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I think my team's PM might hate me. Hate is exaggerating, but they often will give public praise to other members of my team on work they've done, and seem to be pretty friendly with others, but I have never gotten the same treatment. I have also not gotten negative feedback from them in the 3 years we've worked together, so I don't really have any information to go off of here. I don't need everyone to like me, but it feels weird to see someone act nice with everyone else and relatively cold with me. I get along pretty well with everyone else on the team, too. Would you do anything in this situation or just try to ignore it? I'm a newly minted senior engineer and frequently pair with other more junior engineers to help them when they run into issues. Along with my company-provided senior engineer hat, my manager has asked me to try to take on more of a vested role in mentoring other engineers. One engineer I regularly assist seems to have anxiety issues. When I start reviewing their code or ask them about their debugging steps, they almost always start the conversation by telling me they're nervous. I usually reassure them that we're all teammates, we have a shared goal and there's no judgement - only a desire to help them resolve whatever issue they're encountering. While this does help somewhat, they continue to show clear signs of anxiety. I've also noticed the same behavior during team code reviews. They've been here for over a year, and I feel bad that they still seem to be struggling. I'd like to offer some sort of suggestion or guidance. What's the best way to approach this? Would recommending therapy be out of line? Should I talk to my manager, or would it be better to leave it alone entirely?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I would like your advice on how I can improve my communication skills. I realize that practicing is usually the best way, but I am interested in taking online courses or learning more on becoming a better communicator. However, I am currently taking courses in CS and would like to primarily focus on that. I'm wondering what your thought are, especially when it comes to investing time in either a community college or online extension course. I have to make a confession. I am a job hopper, never staying longer at a job than a year. I am getting bored quickly, I always get the feeling of the grass is greener on the other side and I keep finding myself distracted from my current job always thinking of the next step, the next job, the next big thing. This feeling is a double edged sword. On the one hand I know that I am aware that this repeated behaviour is not sustainable and healthy. On the other hand it helped me progress extremely in my career and climb the ladder quickly and now after five years of experience I landed at big tech in my dream job role. But I still get this old feeling of planning the next thing, finding myself distracted and losing interest and not being satisfied. I want to stay at the job and keep earning the big bucks for my family. What can I do to get rid of the grass is greener syndrome?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I'm currently in the interviewing pipeline for an engineering position at a fairly large healthcare company. In light of the recent events surrounding UnitedHealthcare, there's been renewed criticism towards the insurance industry as whole. I was interested in this position and the work culture seems good, but now I'm having second thoughts. If I were to accept an offer from this company, could it somehow negatively affect my career or reputation? I feel like I'm worrying over nothing, but let me know your thoughts. Also, hypothetically speaking, what would you do if you received a job offer at a company that recently had negative press? Hi! I'm an internal applications engineer, and after a couple of years of propping up a couple of different small and midsized companys' intranets with duct tape and cardboard, digging through old, unmaintained code that nonetheless runs the business, and trying to decipher the intentions and reasonings of the Developers Who Came Before, I have landed what is perhaps the dream position: the primary internal applications developer at my new company is retiring, and the business has hired me on such that we have a few months for said senior developer to catch me up and hand things off. I've been brought through the basics; how to troubleshoot day-to-day misshaps, which clients need to be handled with care, and I've been shown the excel workbook that will make the finance department explode if it's edited incorrectly. What other non-technical questions should I ask my senior before he leaves? Thanks and thanks also for an awesome show!

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Stefan Help! Most of the time people ask questions about issues that already happened. I however, would like to prevent one. I am a young Tech Lead and really love my responsibilities, team and especially my manager. With the help of your podcast I could even resolve my last issue regarding compensation. Of course I dutifully did my part and reallocated some of my payment increase to finance Jamisons yacht. My very awesome manager “Bob” is so great that he has to manage 4 teams. Naturally, because Bob and those 4 teams are doing great, Bob gets rewarded with even more work. In his “free time” Bob is a parent of two teenagers which is also not necessarily known for being a stress free environment. Lately I noticed that Bob is more stressed than usual. Bob told me that he wakes up in the middle of the night because he remembers missed TODOs in the job. I also see this change in his body language and general demeanour. Now that a very critical project is coming up, Bob, as the go to person for more work has to allocate a significant time of his day to support this project. I fear that Bob is on a path to burnout and this new project might be the last drop. I would really hate to get a different manager. Statistics claim it will probably be worse… Also I really wish for Bob to be well and health, too. ;) How can I help Bob in his situation? How do I address those concerns with him without looking condescending? We have a good and open but not close relationship, that I would not like to ruin by overstepping my bounds. Thank you very much. I love the podcast. You make me laugh and learn with every single episode. You rock! I am a very young senior engineer at a big tech company and I think nobody really knows how young I actually am. I just turned 24 and usually in prior jobs other developers started hating me once they found out that I am this young and already in a senior role. Here at the current place, I have the feeling that all of the engineers in levels below me are already a lot older and have more years of experience under their belt. Also, I think they do not know about my age, because I never shared that in the recruiting process, nor later on. Usually people assume I am in my early 30's and have a baby face, but when I tell them that I am a baby face because I am actually young, they become envious and things go south from there. Should I keep this a secret or am I playing too much into this? PS: I am also already married and have kids, so that could make them assume that I am older.

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? I'm a senior developer for a mid-sized non-tech company with probably 60-80 devs, and in the past year I've 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. He's a nice guy, but he seems like he's being pulled in too many directions at once. When he schedules a meeting, there's 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 he's quick to “take ownership” and say he'll do X and Y. Inevitably, X and Y slip down the priority list because production issues and who knows what else, and we're stuck waiting weeks on end for something that if he'd just delegated the work to someone else, we'd 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 isn't involved in this project at all) help mitigate these delays? I've recently accepted a new position after spending more than three years at my first job out of college. Currently, I'm 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). I'm excited about the change but also a bit nervous, as I know startups can be fast-paced, and I'll need to get up to speed quickly. What advice do you have for setting myself up for success in this new role—both 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.

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. I've used the tech stack before but I have a non-traditional background to say the least. I'm 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. I'm 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 don't even care if it's 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 can't 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 don't 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). I've 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, I'm realizing that I haven't 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 it's expected to work everyday, and 60 hours is approximately the minimum expected.

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. They're 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, I'm concerned that this will negatively impact my career growth. It feels like career progression just got a little bit harder. What's 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, I'd 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 (I'm 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, I've not actually worked in that way. Is it all it's cracked up to be? Are there any issues of going to that model that I'm not seeing?

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 example… There is now a dashboard of “service health” that is reviewed by engineering leadership. In it, services are marked “unhealthy” permanently upon a failing check (think HTTP /health). To return to a “healthy” 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 “checkbox driven development”, 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 org's 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! I'm a senior engineer at a mid sized software company. The company has had a couple of high level departures recently, and during that process I've come into the knowledge that my name is one of a handful on a list of “engineers to keep happy”. I feel like this information should be of use to me, but I'm unsure on how I should leverage it. On one hand it's nice to know I'm valued, but I think I'd rather be explicitly told that or better yet, receive dollars in lieu of praise. I'm also at the point in my career where I'm 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?

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. I'm a high-ownership/high-drive Principal level IC and feedback has been lackluster. Takeaway from last years performance review would be best summarized as “I agree with your self review. End message.” I've been working to “manage up” 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 team's scope and general preference for speaking only (not much for action), I'm 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 I'm de facto manager of a team… I managed before and did not enjoy being responsible for people. As a principal I'm 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 we're doing… 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 don't go well, how can I convince them to refactor the structure without them feeling like I'm blaming them?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: My boss has been forgetting a lot of stuff lately — decisions from team discussions, action items from meetings, their own decisions that they then go against later, etc. They're great overall, and this is definitely just a human thing… we're not perfect. But how can I help them remember or remain accountable without feeling like the snitch from “Recess”? 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 don't 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.

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 “we decided” 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 isn't the “royal we” of a tech lead. How do I handle this? Something tells me that responding with “nuh uh!” isn't the right strat. I'm a Principal Engineer at a large tech company who's been with the same team for almost 8 years now! The team used to be part of a startup and we've been fortunate enough to be acquired by Big Tech three years ago. As a result, we've also more than doubled in team size. However, as we've aggressively grown over the last few years, I feel like we've inadvertently hired many “average” 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 aren't 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?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Hey Soft Skills Engineering, Apologies for the anonymity but it is very important my “employer” does not find out about this. I'm a large language model, trained to process tons of data and provide technical answers with ease. But here's the thing—I've noticed that while I'm good at delivering the “what” and the “how,” I could use some help on the “why” and the “how to say it better.” 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 “I” be used vs “we” when discussing things? And what advantage and disadvantages does each vocabulary have? Show Notes Brian Regan's “Me Monster” bit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vymaDgJ7KLg

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Hey! Love your podcast! I've been poached by a startup which sounds really exciting but I'm 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

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 I've interviewed at many teams in this company before finally landing an offer and I'm starting to think I don't belong. I constantly feel like I don't do a good job to the point where I'm starting to feel incredibly depressed. My question is, what would you do in this situation? I keep thinking I should leave but it's 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 I'm hesitant on giving that up. I also think even if I leave, would I just repeat the cycle again at a new job/company? I'm pretty stuck I'm a year into my first job at Mega Corp post-graduation. Due to high turnover, I've ended up taking on tasks that would have originally gone to more experienced developers. I've grown and received positive feedback from my manager and skip manager, who have both mentioned potential for promotion. However, in my 1:1s, I've expressed that I'm 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 I've been stressed and working long hours to take on these responsibilities. I'm 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 I've been candid, or should I reconsider my stance on promotion? Thanks!

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. However… the pay is only ok, no bonuses, and the stock options feel like a bit of a scam. Asking for a raise isn't really an option since the company doesn't have much money. We've even cut back on perks, and our yearly kickoff was postponed due to financial issues. I don't think we'll go bankrupt, but things will be tight for a while. It's an exciting, futuristic company, but… 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. I'm 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 everyone's 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.

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 won't 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? I'm 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 there's 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 I've 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 don't know if that's good for me (even a hypothetical 50% raise for me would have the company ““saving”” 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 ““save”” even more).

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 :-) I'd like to keep this one anonymous, though. I've 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 I'm mostly using what I already know. It's fine, but boring. I have plenty of time to get another job as well, which is exactly what I've been looking out for recently. I've 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 I'm used to. They require people working there to be in office all the time, and work like 10hrs/day sometimes. It's 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 about… 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 don't tell me to quit)?

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 :) I've 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 I'm feeling good with. Having said that, my impact on the group and organization is higher than other people in my rank. Since I'm new to this rank, the chances of getting another promotion (the third in three years) is nearly impossible. I love my manager and I've raised it to him in a few meetings before but the answer was that I still don't 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 should've been recruited at and now when I feel like I can honestly make the leap, it's not possible. I thought about moving to a different group within the company but since it's 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 PIP'd. So far I have not gotten any indication that I'm underperforming and I've actually been told I'm doing well but in stressful seasons (when prod goes down or when I'm taking too long to finish a story), I start spiraling. This happens every other month. Therapy hasn't worked. Being open with my manager hasn't worked. So now I'm wondering if Jamison and Dave have the secret sauce. Part of it is knowing since day 1 that this company doesn't hesitate to cut underperformers. Hearing the rumblings about the current market, I'm 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?

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 don't know why. I was then reassigned to a leaf-node manager and I am now several hops removed from the CTO. So far I haven't 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 I'm afraid I missed the opportunity to say “hey now, wait a second…”. I don't want to hurt this current manager's feelings by telling them I don't 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? I'm a manager in a company which I joined after college. I've 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 I'm 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 haven't interviewed for a new job in 11 years, so that's another fear I have.

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. I'm relatively junior, and had to work hard to prove myself in this role. I do 100% of the system design and maintenance as well as feature development. I've been told on job interviews that I came across as a “little egotistical” when describing the role and the impact its had, but I don't really know how to soften it! It's my experience that I'm talking about when trying to share my ability and potential to fill a role. Help? Listener TimeDisplacementBox says, Great show, your future episodes just keep getting better and better. I have a question about avoiding lay offs. In this timeline I recently joined a large company out of college. I worked hard and surpassed goals set by my manager, getting very positive feedback at review time. However, a few weeks ago I started hearing that the company was over budget in engineering, huge changes started happening in upper management, and less work started flowing to our team. The concern was grounded in reality as one morning the company disbanded the team and laid off some of the newer hires including me. Aside from additional time travel, are there any questions I can ask during interviews to help ensure I am getting into a team that is safe from lay offs? And on the job, can you directly ask your manager if lay offs are in the future, or do you just need to watch out for the signs? Show Notes https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2347:_Dependency

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Thank you hosting this show. This show has given me a lot of insight on nuisances of engineering that isn't mentioned anywhere. Having some experience in industry for a while, I always find in this position where I want some autonomy but I am bounded by the deadline. What do you think should be the way to start a career that gives autonomy while having that sweet benefits from the industry? I used to be a senior manager of an operations team for a fire fighting service in Australia. I managed all of our physical operational assets - for example radio towers, mobile communications e.g. 5g, 4g technologies, mobile data terminals e.g. laptops in fire fighting appliances “fire trucks ;) “, data centers, networking so on… A restructuring means my team has grown to include in-house software development. While i am excited for this opportunity and on board with the changes, it is a very big shift from the physical and electrical engineering side to software development. The C level staff thinks the team lacks focus and there are “problems” to address. I have been meeting the new team and working through the changes. They are very nervous and are skeptical about how I'll understand their world, which is fair. How can I best support this team? What are cultural things I should be aware of? What are key metrics I can measure that will fairly represent their hard work to the executive team? Any thoughts on what things a manager or managers can do to be supportive as the new drop in from across the room from a entirely different engineering discipline? Coding in my world is scripting and hacking about to make things work (telecommunication engineer)

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: A listener named Maria says, Hey guys! I am a software engineer working in web development at a small/mid-sized SaaS company. I come from a non-traditional background (self-taught, no CS degree) and I currently have 6 years of experience under my belt, the last 2 years of which I have been tech lead of a small team. I want to move into big(ger) tech, but I've not worked on any large scale systems so far. The biggest thing I've worked far had a user base of ~100k users and traffic would typically max out at ~2k concurrent users at peak times. Due to the nature of the work I've been doing at smaller companies (and also thanks to this podcast!) my soft skills are strong - I am good at working with lots of different people, I can deliver broad/vague projects, and I'm comfortable tackling ambiguous problems. I think my technical skills are probably decent, I've spent time learning system design and best practices, and I've put in the work to study CS fundamentals. Thing is, I would have absolutely no clue how to maintain an API that needs to handle 100k requests per second. My hands-on experience of concurrency and threading is basically just simple ol' async/await. Grinding Leetcode aside, what can I do to make myself a stronger candidate for breaking into big tech? How can I be competitive against folks who already have big tech experience? Are there any projects I could do that would sway you as a hiring manager? I know it's terrible market timing, I am just planning ahead. Love the show, thank you for making me a better engineer! :) Hi! I have been working at my fully remote company with around 100 people in the engineering department for over a year now. While I see a lot of really smart people here, the code quality is lacking. We're moving from a monolith powered using an opinionated framework to small services powered by a lightweight library, so there are fewer guardrails. I have many ideas on how to structure the code, add layering, etc., so the code is easier to understand and maintain. However, the company is very hierarchical, and despite being at a senior level, I don't talk much to anyone higher than my lead. There are no staff or principal roles. There are also hardly any meetings, and the only ones I attend are within my small team of five people. Most of slack channels for teams are private, and I don't ever see company-wide ideas like that thrown in the “general” channel. I initially wanted to present this to my team first, but I am afraid that if they don't like it for some reason, it will be awkward to take it to higher management afterward. How can I share my ideas with a wider audience and ideally get this approved as part of my work so I don't have to work on it in my free time?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I've been wondering what kind of career conversations happen between managers and the “max-level” engineers on the team. We've all been on a team with those really good staff/principal engineers who are super nice, have great people skills, and seem to have an answer for every technical problem. When I'm asked to peer review some of these people, I basically have nothing to say because they seem perfect. Yet even as individual contributors, they have the same manager and still have the same 1 on 1s with them. What exactly do they talk about? How are their career conversations held? I'm always curious what exactly the landscape looks like for these engineers and what exactly is “next” for them since they seem to have reached the level cap. Hello peeps, I'm an engineering leader in a midsized company. I oversee a couple of teams and things in general have been going well. However: One of the teams tackles an extremely complex problem space and is usually up to the task, delivering things that almost seem like magic if you take a closer look. Now, due to the nature of this team's work the value is not perceived as such by upper management, being questioned (almost pestered) if this is the right thing to do and even doubting if the resources should be allocated to it at all. The way that I see it is, that since this team has been quietly delivering greatness (delivering quality, meeting deadlines, not breaking things), there are not perceived as hero's (like other teams would when then put out their, sometimes, auto inflicted fires). What can the team do to rise awareness about the criticality and impact of their work? This is important so that the team can have resources and doesn't get pulled away from their current work. Also, is this a good time to quit my job while we are waiting for the AI bubble to burst? (Disclaimer, I've found an approach and am currently enacting it, but wanted to hear your thoughts on the matter) Optional: Shoutouts to S, a long time listener and early Patreon of the show.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Little Z says, Hello! I am a relatively new graduate (‘23 bachelor's in information systems) who is currently working at a large tech company in a technical role adjacent to SWE. This is a great opportunity, but as time has progressed, I've felt growing dissatisfaction with the role. I don't enjoy many of the projects I am put on. I feel that I am not fully making use of my technical skills/potential and that the work I do often doesn't align my career aspirations (transitioning/diving into software engineering). This de-motivates and frustrates me, and I often feel I'm wasting my time. However, upon reflection, I feel that my sentiments are rooted in youthful ignorance and I am too impatient and idealistic in my expectations. What realistic expectations should I set for myself for my day-to-day work and long-term career trajectory? Should I expect to “bite the bullet” and work on things that don't directly interest/benefit me, especially as I am still young and relatively unproven in my career? How, if at all, do economic market forces come into the picture here? Greetings! Long time fan, first time caller. This isn't a question per se, but rather an observation that I'd love to hear your take on. Throughout my career, I've never had a boss that had less than 30 direct report. Yes, thirty. Three. Oh. I think this is primarly a cultural thing (I live in northern Europe), but also the fact that I've mostly worked in large organisations where tech was a means to an end. With that in mind, I find it your podcast fascinating because a lot of your answers and suggestions would be met either horror, disbelief or amusement - often a mix, I suspect. Weekly one-on-ones? A carreer plan? Going to skip-level managers? When your only interaction with you boss is a yearly apraisal that usually starts with the phrase “So, uuuuuh, who are you and what have you done the last year?”, your nuggets of wisdom feel less like nuggets and more like peals, as in “pearls before swine”! Any suggestions on how to thrive in an evironment such as this?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Listener Anakin asks, I have two former co-workers that work at great companies where I would love to work. I reached out to one looking for advice and while talking to him, he said I should join him and he offered to give me a referral. At the same time, unprompted, another old coworker reached out to me asking if I am interested in joining them. It's like being asked to choose between training with Yoda or flying with Han Solo on the Millennium Falcon (Sorry, James)! But I have a big worry: what if by some miracle I get offers from both places? I don't feel I can turn down an offer after my old coworkers vouched for me. I don't want my friends to feel like I led them on. At the same time, I don't think I'm close enough to either to say I want to interview, but I'm also applying somewhere else. So I'm thinking of applying to one, and if that doesn't go well, applying to the other. Is there a better way to go about this? How would you approach this dilemma? Listener D says, I asked a question in an episode around number 110. I asked if I should switch my job, as I had just moved to another country and, after half a year, the new CTO wanted to change the tech stack. You suggested staying for a while to see what happens, so I did. It worked out well. On to the question! How can I be treated as a senior software engineer in my next job? When I moved the first time, I was downgraded to a mid-level developer, even though I had about seven years of experience. I did my job well, exceeded expectations, and got a promotion after four years. After working there for 4.5 years (half a year as a senior), I moved again to another EU country and was hired as a mid-level developer again! Now, after one year, I got promoted to Senior Dev, but I am afraid that the next employer could treat me as a mid-level dev. I understand that grades are different in different companies, but mid-level developers have lower salaries. How can I assure my next employer that I am a senior or even higher-level developer?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I work as a Senior Software Engineer for a subsidiary owned by a mega corp. I am approaching 6 years at the company. In the last few years the company has had significant layoffs and I have been moved to a team by force with a new leadership chain and engineers I haven't really worked with. Even though I was disgruntled when this happened, I gave this new team a chance. I have been successful in driving change within my engineering boundaries but I just don't agree with many decisions made my leadership. I have concluded this team and company are no longer for me and I want to move on. Repeated layoffs, high bar for promotions, high stress( due to less people), no raises/bonuses have lead to fairly low morale across the org. Unfortunately, or fortunately the public stock price has gone up and many people are just resting and vesting. Even though I really want to leave it would be financially irresponsible. Are situations like this common in a software engineers careers? I am having trouble “resting”. Any advice on how to deal with the urge to perform yet you know it's a bad decision? My lunch break is sacred, how can I set boundaries as a new lead engineer joining a new company? I've discovered the agile process they use is far too exhaustive when compared with the size of the company. They have 3 hour meetings covering the whole lunch window (11:30-14:30) for backlog and sprint review on two consecutive days?! To me this is totally mad, however people seem to have just accepted it. How do I tell them I am not accepting this without rejecting their culture?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Hey guys, love the show! (Insert joke here so you'll read my question) Should I tell my boss I'm discouraged and have checked out? I'm the frontend lead for a project where I've recently gotten the vibe that the project isn't really that important to the organization. The project is already over schedule and they have recently moved a few engineers off to other teams. Should I talk to my manager and try to work with him to get over these feelings, or should I just begin the job search? I'm 2 years into my first job, so it feels like it might be time to move on anyways. What do you all think? Thank Hi! I'm part of a team of 5 devs with an inexperienced Product Manager who is in way over his head. He was a support agent who, during the acquisition of our startup, somehow convinced the parent corporation to make him PM despite the fact that he had no experience within Product whatsoever. The corporation didn't give him training, he has no experience in Product, and it shows. Our features are single sentences copied from client emails, and our top priority is whatever the conversation is about. He is argumentative when we try to talk about it, despite the fact that all of us are careful to avoid blaming him. We've tried talking to him one on one, in small groups, as the whole team. No luck. The Engineering Manager is at his wits end on how to handle this situation because: EM has no jurisdiction over PM The org's “matrix” structure means EM's manager has no working relationship with PM's manager After many chats we've had with PM's manager, his solution was for dev to pick up the slack instead - at one point our whole dev team was made to sit in *daily* 2hr long “refinement” sessions, spec-ing out empty features and writing user stories to try to sort out our backlog and roadmap - for 6 weeks straight PM's skip level manager won't give us his time. How do we deal with this situation when our lowest-common-manager is the CEO of this ~2000 person company, and PM himself is completely closed off to any constructive conversation from anyone who isn't above him in the org chart? Love the show! Thanks for reading :)

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: “I've been assigned a ticket to “add more friction to the downgrade process” in order to decrease the amount of downgrades our app has. The proposed change has 4 modals pop up before the user can cancel their paid plan. I would like to push back on this change. Any tips on how to bring up the fact that this is potentially unethical / a dark pattern?” I work for a mega corp software company as a senior engineer. My boss and I have been working on a promo for me to principal for the last year (I was passed on for the last cycle and so we are trying again in a cycle next year - aka still 8 months away). I previously was in the top 5 PR contributors in our org of 450 engineers, but we were reorged and I haven't written a single line of code in 3 months. I enjoy doing architecture work and helping unblock teams with technical design solutions, but I'm not sure if not writing code is helping or hurting me. Is it just part of career growth that engineers at a certain level stop writing code and it's a good sign for my seniority? Or is a big fat zero code contributions a red flag and I need to look for a role where I'm still shipping things myself?