Soft Skills Engineering

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Liam asks, I was the second hire in my team and worked with one lead engineer who created the entire codebase from scratch. This engineer’s code was functional but not well architected and has many inconsistencies. They have since left the company and replaced with two new senior developers who are a lot stronger technically. We recognize issues with the current codebase but we’re finding it hard to make decisions on the best way of solving things. We’re all at the same seniority level and the managers above us do not have hands-on experience with our codebase or tech stack. Because we’re at the same seniority level I don’t want to start acting beyond my job title and make all the architectural decisions, but at the same time I don’t want to be a pushover. How should decisions be made in a team with a flat structure and no defined leader? My previous manager quit the company last year and we’ve been assigned a new

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Hi! long time listener first time caller. i am the CTO of an early startup with 15 employees (12 engineers). 3 months ago, we hired a new engineer whose output is quite low compared to other engineers on the team. i have brought this up with him many times and tried to coach him on his debugging skills, time management skills, etc. After months of this, I am not seeing any change in output and am growing frustrated. At this point, I suspect that the engineer is just spending very little time on their tasks compared to others on the team (who admittedly often work late into the night). I don’t want to fire the engineer or micromanage his schedule, but am concerned that their slowness will impact our culture and product. Do you have any ideas on how I could help this engineer improve? Howdy fellas, I started my first SWE job out of college at a startup in the bay area and work in a team of three. Myself, my technical manager, and

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Love the podcast, love the banter and jokes, keep up the great work! Now, for my predicament: Good news: I just got my first job at a FAANG! Bad news: I’m coming in at the lowest level of software engineering despite being in my mid-30’s and nearly 10 years of non-FAANG experience. Given that it is my first Big Tech™ company, I understand being down-leveled, but I did not expect to be downleveled THIS much. I’m glad to have finally “hit the big leagues”, but I’m not thrilled that I’m on equal footing with a fresh college graduate. Hurt feelings aside, what is the best Soft Skills advice on how to catch up to the mid-30’s engineers who joined a FAANG fresh out of college? My plan is to tell my aspirations to my manager once I start and see how they can help me perform as well as possible in order to promote quickly, but I can see how that might come off as greedy or entitled. What do you think? Should I do anything abou

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I work in a squad that has been slow in delivering. Squad leadership (including myself) concluded we need a staff engineer (one level above senior engineer) to help guide tech directions and to support other engineers. Unfortunately we have received only a single applicant- senior engineer “Brett” who’s already on the team. Brett is a good engineer and has a lot of great qualities - but falls short of the “staff” level. Our tech lead “Chris” doesn’t think Brett is suitable due to bad technical decisions Brett has made in the past. Chris also thinks Brett should have been discouraged from applying in the first place. (Brett’s manager is outside the team so has less visibility on what’s happening inside the squad) We’re suddenly in a bind. If we give Brett the role we are in the same situation as before but having to pay him more. If we don’t give him the role we run the risk of losing him in this environment - which would be ver

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Is it possible to move too fast and do you believe in too much enthusiasm? I am one of the youngest member of the team and am always willing to start new projects and balance a few different things. Is there a point where this can start hurting my career? I’ve gotten bumped in compensation fairly, almost 25% raise since I first started. My career goal is to stay on the programming side but want to become a possible trainer for newer engineers/devs. Listener Michael asks, I’m a backend engineer in an engineering/coding role with a small bit of SRE type work. I love the work as I get to dig deep into tech we use and have become subject a matter expert on databases within the company. I really like my team and my manager in particular, and get to learn a lot every week. My manager is leaving my team to lead a new team within the company that is focused on the company’s SaaS offering and I’ve been given the option of joining this

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I recently joined a new company that pays me much better and has much better engineering practices than my previous job. I referred a great engineer who was hired on a different team. Then, another engineer from my old job applied for MY team and is currently being interviewed for the role. This engineer is one of the reasons I left my former company! They have an impressive resume and interview well, but are unable to complete even the most basic tasks and have no interest in improving their skills. They asked me to put in a good word with my tech lead, but if anything, I want to encourage my tech lead NOT to hire them. I’m not a part of the interviewing process but I feel an obligation to let my tech lead know just how bad this developer is. Help? Thanks for thinking I’m neat! I think you are pretty neat too! In my most recent 121, my manager asked me to give some feedback on another colleague on whether I thought th

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Hi! Thanks so much for all the work you do to put this show out, it’s kept me sane the past year. To sum up my problem…I’m aware this is going to sound like a slightly bananas thing to complain about, but my team’s tech lead is superhumanly productive. About 8 months ago, we hired Sarah. I can’t overstate how awesome Sarah is, but, well, in some ways that’s the problem. My team already suffers from under-resourcing. Rather than pushing back on unrealistic requests, Sarah will churn out 90% of the work required by working crazy hours so that we make the deadline. She always shares the credit and plays up even the smallest contribution any of the rest of us made, so again, that’s not at all the issue. For context, my team doesn’t have a manager, and our leaders are super high up the org chart. The problem is that now leadership expects this velocity from the team all the time, not realizing that this it relies on Sarah’s definite

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I wanted to know if listing past offers (as a brand name signal) on your resume will help or hurt you during the resume screening and interview stages? I am an SQA engineer at one of the FAANGS, and I feel inadequate in my position; I get the gist QAs are not valued much. Essentially I got into this domain early in my career, and I find moving out of this role difficult. My long-term goal is to get into a PM role. Is that even possible, or should I first switch to the Dev role to build a better foundation? Help me. I am lost.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Hey guys, a long time listener here, I love the show. I’ve recently joined an early-stage startup with a tiny engineering team. It’s like most startups at this stage, there’s some chaos and a lot to figure out. It’s exactly what I like about startups. In the past years, I’ve been working on the very same kind of software we’re building now. I have a ready answer for many questions we might have, I’ve seen some things go badly and others work great. I’m eager to help the team deliver. But I also don’t want to be seen as the know-it-all jerk that tells everyone how to do their job. I have respect for my team and want to contribute. How do I use my experience without annoying my colleagues? Thanks for sharing your wisdom (I hope for 101% of it). Listener Andy asks, I moved to company A and it’s been 6 months I am constantly getting interview requests, Gave an interview and got a 30% rise moved to Company B, Now

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I am working at my first job as a software engineer for 2 1/2 years now. I really enjoy working as a programmer and I’m super excited about the tech industry in general. However, sometimes I feel like I’m too excited about everything. I spent a lot of time reading blog posts, watching tutorials or taking online courses. I think about what books to read and what languages to learn all the time. Not everything but a big part of it happens during my working hours. While I know that “loving to learn” in general is considered a positive trait, I feel like I might take it a bit too far and I should focus more on the actual tasks I have - especially, because I think my coworkers spend much less time keeping up to date with everything. What is a reasonable amount of time to spent on these things during working hours and beyond? How do I know I spend too much time not working on my actual tasks? How can I make sure I learn the right things th

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Listener Sara asks, How can I deal with favoritism towards informal leaders in a group? The group is losing group intelligence because the informal leader’s reasoning and direction is favored. Example: when member A propose an argument is dismissed, but when the informal leader proposes the same argument it is cherished. How do I react to the question “why didn’t you do it this way” for features already in production? I am frustrated by being asked that. I got scolded for an idea that turned out to be bad after I implemented it (in production), although I asked the Lead for his opinion ahead of time. As soon as trouble came up a.k.a performance issue in production, he pointed the finger at me. Lost all kinds of respect for him.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I keep hearing about Web3, DAOs and Smart Contracts. Part of me wants to get excited about these and other shiny things but I just don’t seem to care all that much any more. How long into your careers did y’all stop getting excited about shiny stuff and how do you keep learning when it is not all that exciting to you any more? Maybe it is time to be a manager?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I started working at a new company last month. I’m just under senior level (I-II-III-Sr) and I am working on a project with someone slightly more junior, who started there a few months earlier, to help them complete a project on time. Despite my best efforts, I can’t get on the same page with them. They ignore half of my suggestions, don’t give me straight answers to my questions, take forever to review pull requests, and are making very little progress each day without reaching out for help. I am not certain what to do, but I’m worried I’ll leave a bad impression with my new manager (who is actually pretty reasonable, I’m just paranoid) by missing the deadline, which is in checks watch 1 week. Any suggestions? Should I quit my job? (leave that option off the table for now) I hate my current job and cannot see myself working here for more than a few months. Is it better to find a new job before quitting? If I quit tomorrow

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: In the past couple of years I transitioned from a freelancer, to a full-time software engineer, to a product owner, to a manager of a small product development team. Due to the relatively rapid changes, I feel I have not had enough time to go particularly deep in my knowledge and experience with any of these roles. I’m currently focusing on developing the soft skills needed to be a better manager. I have this nagging feeling though that I should still be developing my technical skills. But in the grand scheme of things, is it still useful for a manager to continue to develop technically in order to provide useful input/guidance on technical decisions? Or would it be better to leave the technical decision-making to the team and instead focus purely on building up the team, supporting members in reaching their career goals, and improving processes? Thanks in advance for your thoughts! Hi! Love the show and recommend it to everyone

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Jealousy - as bad as it is, it still happens. I was the first employed programmer at a startup. Within the first year of my work there an colleague from my previous company I worked for asked me if it’s okay with me if he comes work for the same start-up as me. Since I strive to be a good person and friend I answered “yes”, but deep down I knew it is a bad idea and what I was thinking will happen, happened. So few years passed in the same company and my friend got promoted higher than me and into a position I wanted to move to eventually. The company is kind of small and there is no room for more positions like his (Tech Lead). So now I live with Jealousy. Each time I see his title I’m reminded of it and I don’t know what to do. I’m even thinking about just leaving the company and never work with friends again. I have been doing software development for around 7 years now and in recent times I have lost the enthusiasm to write code a

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Listener Rafael asks, If you’ve already been working at a company for several months, how do you set boundaries with your employer as to when, time during the day, it’s acceptable for them to contact you? What can you say to your employer or colleagues if they expect you to respond to correspondence at all times, with a 30-min turn around? Can you adjust expectations after you’ve been working the role for several months, or is it too late? Hi, Do you see any benefits to being a junior developer? Any advice you would give to a junior, like “Hey, do this while you’re still a junior, once you’re a senior+ it might be harder to do or find time for it”?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Questions Zach asks, A few weeks ago, I interviewed and recommended we hire a contractor candidate, who I will call “Bob”. We hired “Bob”. Today was the first time I saw “Bob” since the interview, only “Bob” was not the person I interviewed. It seems “Bob” had someone else pretend to be him to pass the interview. What should I do? Thank you for doing this show, it’s amazing and I look forward to listen to it every week. I’m a software engineer with 3.5 years of experience and in those years I’ve worked at 5 different companies consecutively, increasing my salary by around 50~70% every time I change jobs. At this point I’m afraid that it looks really bad in my resume since the longest that I’ve been at one company is 1 year and 3 months but at the same time it is really tempting to keep growing my salary and benefits that easily. Does changing jobs every ~1 year have a negative effect on my employability in the long run?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Questions Starting to work on a team that is split across time zones. With a majority of the company based in one time zone and a handful spread in others. I want to emphasis the importance of asynchronous communication. I have found Slack to begin to feel like I need to respond ASAP instead of when it is convenient. If we were to say slack is used for asynchronous communication, is asking the team to use signal or even text appropriate for a quicker response? What is a good way to reach out to team members in cases where a response is needed more immediately? After about 1 year at my developer job, I was moved to work for a client company helping them launch a new product. This other client had different plans, it turns out, and now I’m just testing their API for them. That’s fine but I never get questions answered and I hate my job with my client and hate my job with this company that sells me like a cheap piece of meat.

This is a rerun of episode 220. In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Questions Hello, I know you said you don’t read the compliments on air most of the time but this podcast is great. I just found it a few weeks ago and I love the positive fun approach to question answering. It has really made me think about software engineering outside of the ““make code do thing”” box. Anyway, the question: I have been at the same company for 4 years. It is my first job out of college. I have ended up working in so many different languages and frameworks I don’t remember them all. I guess that’s just how things go. Recently I have been selected to take on a scrum master role and I feel I am quickly being groomed for management. That was never really my goal. I wanted to build a depth of knowledge and always have my hands on code. Will taking on these kind of roles hurt my chances at future technical roles? Am I dooming myself to managing spreadsheets and Jira tickets until

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Questions Many engineers want to go into product management, but I’m the reverse - a product manager who wants to move into engineering. What advice would you give to someone pursuing this path? How would you recommend I spend my time while jobfinding? What type of job should I be looking for? I have a computer science degree but I’ve worked as a PM for 10 years, so… it’s been a while. I’ve pursued various side projects over the years and have a basic working knowledge of lots of things (e.g. android, ios, react, python, computer vision, firebase/serverless functions, databases, algorithms/data structures) but not much depth in any area. I know one option is to convert at the company you’re already at. Take that off the table for a moment and say it has to be at a new company. I recently just quit my first tech job for higher pay at another company. Upon turning in my two weeks notice, my boss coxed me into agreeing t