Soft Skills Engineering

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Hi D&J! Question from Sweden! I’m a senior dev that have seen a lot of orgs without tech lead and/or staff engineer roles. I know some companies have them, but mostly newer more techy companies. Bigger older less techy companies usually have non-coding “architects”. Though that’s one title I have no good experience of, just neutral ones or worse :) In particular I’ve been in many teams without a tech lead (all developers are equal, no tiebreaker vote). It’s often successful due to a leader and/or consensus emerging organically and peacefully. I loathe the failure modes however: consensus abuse through veto (we can’t move discussion forward because someone explicitly actively disagrees, a “keeping the meeting hostage” situation), disagreement on technical priorities and choices (lowest common denominator it is…) or that the team is bickering and bikeshedding during technical discussions. Is this just a regional/cultural thing

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I have been at a small startup company for 5 years now. It’s a very small technical team, 4 devs and a tech lead that contributes code & architecture. I am getting a small raise this week for my 5 years but it’s a smaller raise than I was expecting. We’re an all remote team across the globe but I had a dev co worker in the same city as me just leave the company. This has put more pressure on me as I’m the only dev in the primary time zone we operate in, everyone else is east coast or opposite side of the world. With the added pressure and some forward comments from me in one on ones with my tech lead I expected much more that I’m being offered. I think I’m supposed to quit my job but I’m terrified of that idea. This is my first job in the field and I love the work. The full stack startup experience is fun and I’ve learned so much, and I like my team a lot. I’ve never even applied to another position in tech yet, I got this one with th

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Hey guys. This question comes all the way from New Zealand. Recently discovered your podcast about a month ago, and have been catching up with older episodes on morning walks ever since - you guys are awesome. Anyway - the question: Is it more beneficial to work for a company where the software itself is the product (SaaS etc) or does it no longer matter given the rise of the robots anyway? For context - I’ve been working for a telco/internet company for just over five year. Initially when I joined there was a huge roadmap of software to develop internally - things like customer facing portals, diagnostic tools, and of course internal tooling. However over the past couple of years, it has just been cost cutting and downsizing. Given that the company is not in the business of selling software, our department has been stripped to skeletal level just to ‘keep the lights on’. So, I’ve started applying for jobs at SaaS companies on the basis that e

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: My company follows scrum, with daily standups. We got a new scrum master. He is very formal and procedural and I struggle with our daily meetings. He goes through a long list of assigned tickets, asking each ticket owner about status and info on progress. We are all engineers with many years of experience but it feels like we are in the kindergarten. We don’t have deep expertise about each others work. It is important to know what each of us is doing more or less, but going deep in these issues makes me disconnect, and I think these meetings are above all very good to signal blocking points and ask for help. A recitation of tickets and work being done is not their purpose. On top of that, most days it takes 25-30 mins to go through all the issues. Am I being difficult complaining about this? I tried to be polite when I raised the issue but I was told more or less that this way is better for the company. Is it common in the industry t

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Hi from a long-time listener and first-time caller. I need some advice on a toxic workplace situation. I’m currently unhappy with my job due to a difficult dynamic with a colleague. My manager put us on the same team, meaning we share responsibility for our output. Although this colleague is technically a level below me, they act as though they have seniority. This creates significant friction: they’re resistant to advice, insist they’re always right, and refuse to accept reality even when they can’t deliver what’s required. They’re incredibly stubborn, and arguing with them about what’s feasible takes an excessive amount of effort. The situation is particularly frustrating because I’m held accountable for the shared results. If I weren’t responsible for the final outcome, I could probably just ignore their behaviour. Instead, they frequently talk a big game while contributing very little actual work. People unfamiliar with our domai

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: My parent organization has trust issues: we registered on a recent survey as one of the lowest across the bigger software org (thousands of employees). There are two groups: functional, trustworthy people who get stuff done, and people who are behind, stuck, or just not working. Those struggling say they need better emotional support, but there is consistent, documented evidence that they cannot keep up. I’m perpetually frustrated that there are only two or three people in an org of 30 who can effectively complete tasks and manage the insane workload. I am biased: those in whom I have no trust have repeatedly demonstrated that they cannot be trusted. I believe that the organization would be able to go faster without them. Whats the right answer here? Should I start my own company to abandon this mess? Do we cut scope super aggressively to allow underperformers to be reasonable contributors? One example: one of these contrib

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: How long until I am ethically obligated to let my company know I’m doing no work? There was a big re-org at the company I recently joined. It’s a huge financial company, so there’s a lot of bureaucracy. Somehow in this mess I was kicked off the first team I joined so that I was pending re-assignment. It’s been a month and I haven’t been re-assigned. Instead of being in between jobs not working, I am currently in between teams, but still getting paid! This feels unintentional on the part of the company as no one has followed up with me. I’ve been happily using the time to catch up on hobbies, but I’m starting to get concerned about what will happen when the other shoe drops. At what point do I start to venture into irreversible reputational harm? For some added context, teams at this company are about 6 people and the manager handles several teams, so I’ve never talked to my manager since I joined. I got the message about the re-org from a scre

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Should I declare my struggle with this AI world we live in here? Nah. I mean, I’d like the hype to die down, a lot, but we keep getting new tools and I get to experiment, so here we are. My real struggle, and this podcast is implicated in it, is around non-technical people contributing to production systems. Why are we so obsessed with this idea? COBOL tried it. Low-code and no-code tried it. BDD and Gherkin aspire to it. Yet time and again the field demonstrates that you need people who know their stuff. To “democratize” software engineering implies that all people have the desire and ability to become software engineers. That premise is false. You democratize access to education or financial systems, the stock market say. You don’t democratize skill. Skills are earned. We would never, I hope, democratize bridge engineering or piloting an aircraft. Software engineers are just as critical as either. When our software breaks, mon

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I’m approaching 15 years of experience with the last 7 years at fang. About a year ago I was promoted to staff engineer (thanks to the podcast) and switched to an adjacent team under the same director. I have never actively pursued a management role but I’ve been starting to think about it more. A colleague of mine just announced they need to take extended medical leave (1-2 months) and I was asked to fill in as a temporary manager while they are out. How do I go about managing a team if everyone knows it’s short lived? Should I just try to keep the team alive or aim higher? Is 1-2 months enough for me to get a sense of whether I’d enjoy management? I feel like I’ve dived into the deep end and it’s scary but also exciting. I love the podcast, I’ve listened to every episode! I’ll take whatever comedy or advice you have to offer. Bobby Drop Tables asks, Recently came out of a salary negotiation where HR blocked a payrise

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I work at a large remote company. We meet up once or twice a year. I don’t really know much about my engineering coworkers aside from the 5 people on my team, so the in person meet ups seem like a good place for me to get to know people from the other teams. I am a career switcher, and am currently a mid level IC (borderline junior) in my late 30s and a youthful appearance. At these meetups, my position and appearance (and honestly, possibly my demeanour) makes me feel like I am expected to socialize with other ICs in their 20s. Although they are nice people I find it hard to relate to them when talking about non work related topics since I am much older and in a different stage in life than all of them, (married with a mortgage and kids). I want to socialize with coworkers closer to my age and stage in life but most of them are team leads or manager. I feel like socializizing with them would be seen as brown nosing. I’ve also heard

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I am a senior software engineer at big tech and need a career change. With the rise of AI, I no longer enjoy this profession and panic everyday just waiting for a huge round of layoffs. At this point I feel like I am on some assembly line hitting enter like a monkey. Therefore I have been thinking of changing lanes and would like to get into engineering management. On the one hand I have enjoyed mentoring, strategic planning and coordinating projects across vendors and across teams, but besides that I don’t have clear evidence that this profession would fit me. In my current job there is no immediate opportunity to step up and manage a cross team project at the moment, so I am not sure how I can figure out if engineering management is the right choice for me. How do I figure this out without doing the job and how does one transition into it, probably as an external hire or transfer hire? Paolo asks, I’ve stepped into a senior ro

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: How can I get our company to follow the law and stop sending SPAM without being regarded as negative? We’re sending out emails that don’t comply with CAN-SPAM, and I think we should comply due to the risks, but I don’t want to risk any blowback! People want the emails to look more ‘human’ sent, and putting your mailing address at the end of an email is not very human, so we’re not doing that… It’s a medium startup (500 people), but I’m close enough to the marketing work that they might know it was me! Should I send an email to our general consul? How can I raise concerns and do the right thing without being regarded as not a team player?? How do I stay motivated on a team that’s always sick? I’m on a team of 3 ICs and one manager. The other two ICs are plagued by health issues. I am trying to be empathetic, but this has been going on for the at least a year. One of them regularly takes sick days, often turning into sick wee

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Hey there, I started a new job in August at a large European retailer. There were ups & downs, but long story short, my weekly one-on-ones with my manager was either positive or neutral. This was my second job after graduating, so the firm factored in, I’d like to think, when setting expectations this was my first time switching codebases and tech stacks. On January 3rd, I was fired in the last month of my 6 month probation. This was a total surprise. My tech lead told me I required too much assistance from others to finish my tasks. Some part of me doubted the sincerity of my boss, since I asked for example pull requests or tickets where this was the case and he was unable to provide a single example, but obviously, like every dev, technical insecurities are a big part of my life. I’ll be starting a new job at a prestigious newspaper in May, so here’s my question. In a remote first environment, how do I determine if I’m mee

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Hi Djavison, I’ve heard y’all say something along the lines of “this is the most exciting time to build software” in a few recent episodes. I’m glad that has been your experience and seems to be the experience of many others. But for me as someone 5 years into the career who is, thankfully, employed—I can’t help mourning a job that no longer exists. Obviously, there are still lots of us with the job title “software engineer” that create software. But, what I originally fell in love with doesn’t really seem like a thing you can get paid to do anymore. I now spend most of my development time reviewing code and making sure things work. Which feels way less rewarding and way more soul-sucking. Maybe I’m just nostalgic for being a more junior developer, but it’s obvious that our jobs have changed forever and will continue to evolve. So, my question is: How can I get excited and feel passionate about this new way of doi

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I’m a senior software engineer at a remote company (~500–700 people), and over the last year a new HR org replaced our old people team. They’ve spent six months building a new goals/leveling framework. During a public meeting I asked in slack: “We’ve had goals before and then stopped using them. How will these be different?” Nobody answered directly. The next day I was pulled into a meeting. The new VP of HR had screenshotted my question and sent it up my management chain. My manager told me they were on my side but leadership didn’t appreciate it. Days later I was pulled in again and told the problem was my “tone.” I didn’t argue because we were at an impasse. It felt like tone policing and like being sent to the principal’s office. I didn’t feel like they were treating me like an adult. In yet another 1:1, my manager said leadership wanted it raised again and that they don’t want questions like that in public. I told him the meeting sho

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Hi Jamison and Dave. Eight years into my software engineering career, all of it at Series B and C startups, I’ve been craving two things: a recognizable brand name on my resume and the chance to work on real scale problems. After a long search, I finally got both. The catch? I got them in the wrong order. I accepted an offer at one of the hottest and fastest-growing AI companies in the application layer space. Exciting work, smart people, real momentum, but not quite a household name yet, and not quite facing the kind of scaling challenges that come with a billion users yet either. Two weeks later, I finally heard that I cleared the interviews from a big brand name tech company. I’ll be honest: it wasn’t my first choice brand name. I bombed interviews at a few others and this was basically my consolation prize. Here’s the thing about this mega tech company right now: the culture has … shifted. It feels less like a tech company and mo

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I’m a software developer with about 15 years in the industry, and I am soon starting as the CTO of a robotics company with about 50 employees. Though I have years of experience and an academic background within the field of robotics, I have always been focused on the software side of things. In my new role, I am ultimately responsible for the hardware team as well. How do I go about earning the respect, and becoming an effective leader, of my new colleagues working in a field in which I am not an expert myself? Hi, I’m meowmeow, and I’ve enjoyed your podcast for a long time. I’m working at a small engineering company which don’t have lots of profit. Recently, the PMs at my company(including the CEO) have started “vibe coding” directly on our product. They’ve even added PMs to the project planning list as contributors. Whenever they open a PR, the code is AI-generated and reflects their personal working style.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Hi, thank you for the podcast, I am long time listener, first time asker. Something weird is going on at my company. A colleague of my always wanted to get promoted to management, he got the opportunity, but after multiple preparatory meeting for this new promotion, HE QUIT! He did not tell what happened there, only that “it was time for something new”. Now several months later my skip level declared that he wants to be a developer again. Another manager was offered his position, which is a significant promotion (basically head of engineering), which he accepted, but after being included into high level meetings he declared that he is also QUITTING! We now have an interim Head of engineering, who declared that he is only doing this until a replacement is found. Why does no one wants to be in the management? What is happening at these meetings that people leave? Btw. the financial state of the company is not great, but not horrible, the CEO eve

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: A listener named Derek asks, I am the CTO and cofounder of a startup. Now that vibecoding is a thing, our CEO has kind of gone rogue, and and he’s vibecoding a bunch of random stuff, one of which he bought a domain for and has pushed a potential customer to pay for, without talking to our team. I feel like this is fragmenting our focus, but I don’t want to ban our CEO from vibecoding and being creative. how should I handle this without damaging relationships? AdmiralFox asks, Hi Dave and Jamison! Longtime listener, first-time question asker here. After 14 years at a consultancy firm, I’m moving to a major retailer to become their Java Learning and Community Lead. Instead of shipping code, my new role will be shipping knowledge. I will be managing learning paths, organizing internal knowledge sharing events, and help managers screen candidates. Basically, I’m moving from a ‘Maker’ role to a ‘Multiplier’ role.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I have been with my current organization for 5+ years. I like the company and have generally had a good experience working here. However, the last several years I have not really gotten a raise except for the standard “merit raise”, which does not cover inflation, so effectively the last several years I have made less money than the year before. I brought this up to my EM who said there is no chance of the company increasing the merit raises to meet inflation, unless I get a promotion. However, my EM also said there are no promotions available. I don’t know if this means the company knows the job market is tough and they don’t have to pay us as much, or if the company is in dire financial straits and unable to keep salaries up with inflation. This job market is tough and I don’t know how long it would take me to find a new job, but certainly I will look. My question is basically, how can I go about getting my manager to help me level