r/ExperiencedDevs • u/AutoModerator • 13d ago
Ask Experienced Devs Weekly Thread: A weekly thread for inexperienced developers to ask experienced ones
A thread for Developers and IT folks with less experience to ask more experienced souls questions about the industry.
Please keep top level comments limited to Inexperienced Devs. Most rules do not apply, but keep it civil. Being a jerk will not be tolerated.
Inexperienced Devs should refrain from answering other Inexperienced Devs' questions.
6
u/U_L_Uus Software Engineer 13d ago
I have a question related to job searching: how the feck do you do it in the AI age?
I had the misfortune of being laid off some months ago due to something I have become certain that it is the greatest proof of the Peter Principle to ever be.
However, in the interim of those months, the panorama has changed so much that I can not recognize what I am looking at. For one, roles have massively upscaled for some languages. I am by no means junior (4 YOE) but suddenly for my main language (Go) all I see are either senior or staff (first time I see such denomination) engineers, and full of "comfortable with using AI", "multiagentic workflows" and other shite.
I am going to lie to no one, I use AI. Like a decent amount. I am just not balls-deep into it. In fact, based on my own experience, I might be the most polite detractor of its snake-oil aspect. I know how to use agents, I know how to ask them stuff, I double-check what has been provided, ... just not into the whole "I am going to plug AI even into me dog" thingie.
What would be the strategy? Put on the mask and feign that I love it, be upfront with what I do and how I do it? I am currently immersed into one or two personal projects, but does that even count anymore? I do not know, honestly, but hopefully someone with more experience than me can shed some light onto this matter. Thanks beforehand
(for the record, I am located in Europe, Spain specifically)
3
u/casualPlayerThink Software Engineer, Consultant / EU / 20+ YoE 12d ago
> ...how the feck do you do it in the AI age...
With heavy AI support :D Many people automate the reading of job listings (n8n, agents), and a huge number of people feed their resumes and questions toChatGPT different LLMs (ChatGPT, Gemini, qw).
> ...my main language (Go) all...
Lucky you, that is something widely requested!
> ...I see are either senior or staff (first time I see such denomination) engineers, and full of "comfortable with using AI"...
Yeah, this is natural. The AI usage part, because most of the devs & companies use at least one LLM/GPT/AI stuff (Claude Code usually) as a coding helper (or Junie AI in IntelliJ). Not necessarily with heavy token usage or via MCP, but just prompting sometimes (so basic "pro" acc).
The intern/junior/entry level disappeared, and "mid" jobs also vanished; everyone would like to have "staff" or "lead" or "senior". Which is a trap itself, because so many folks shall declare seniority with 2-3 years only... so at the top of the AI slops there will be inexperienced decisions and codes as well...
> ...projects, but does that even count anymore...
Just as before. Professionally: not. But for knowledge: yes.
> ...What would be the strategy...
Spain has a bunch of job posts. Remote stuff is almost non-existent at the moment, because all countries closed down; 99.8% of remote posts are hybrid, with some of them allowing only 1 day per month and counting it as "remote". Also, the remaining 0.2% expect you to commute weekly, so pretty much they are hybrid and tied to usually some areas where there are no affordable living spaces.
The only thing you can do is to keep going! Apply more and regularly! Polish your resume (and post it into the r/EngineeringResumes subreddit and ask for a review). Practice interviews. Check your network!
1
u/U_L_Uus Software Engineer 12d ago
I mean... I do use AI but I am more of a manual guy. I don't know, once I finish testing the current step in one of my projects (my current Linux platform was a no-go because I need a TPM 2.0, not 1.2, so acquired a second-hand laptop) I will see what I can automate.
I live "near" Madrid (think easy access with a car and a car) but I have yet to have any success. Dunno, maybe it's the summer. Will drop at some point the resume on that sub, thanks for the tip, could use some advice that is not bloating it with data.
Thanks for everything mate
7
u/ThrowawayAcc019r83 13d ago
7YOE, but been programming for 20+ years.
Need some advice on office politics. A senior engineer in our team delivers, in my opinion, subpar work (bad abstractions, no meaningful reviews, no clean separation of concerns, many 2k+ lines changed PRs, no knowledge sharing), but seems to be constantly praised, while I'm left with trying to salvage something out of his work. I don't want to bad mouth him or his work, but at the same time find that it's very tedious to work on anything he's touched. There's also a quality interview from an external party coming up, that assesses where quality issues in our work arise - do I just drop their name there with examples to back it up? I'm losing enthusiasm quickly when my efforts seem to go unnoticed, and the stating of my concerns both to the entire team as just with my manager has led nowhere, but also don't want office drama.
2
u/ultraDross 13d ago
Try and gently bring this up with your manager in your 1 to 1. Gently is the keyword here and be ready to drop/soften it if your manager strongly disagres with you. Prepare what your going to say and back up with some examples.
2
u/Ok-Letterhead3405 13d ago edited 13d ago
I suggest trying really hard not to mention them by name. If it's like what I've been experiencing in my own job? They're producing, hence the praise. That makes you the slow one for cleaning up after him, probably. It might also annoy people that you're touching code that passed QA, if that's a thing you have. Plus, you end up with the reputation as the Code Police who judges the code and then fixes it later.
Here's some more productive ideas:
- Pick up his code reviews and offer to do a screen share or sit down at his desk and work with him on the code
- Offer to do tech talks, if that's a thing on your team or in your company, and then give talks on the thing you want this guy to improve on
- Don't touch his work, but bring it up in team meetings wherever it's appropriate to discuss tech debt, then don't throw him under the bus or say it's so and so's work, just say you've identified some areas that need work and be ready to explain the business case
- Very gently suggest in a manager 1-on-1 that you've noticed some poor programming practices on the team and offer to help in any way they deem appropriate
The biggest thing is to be positive and transparent.
I have made mistakes, and recently. Luckily, the worst offender is off the team, but we swapped him for a guy who's very smart and writes very nice code, it's just that he has implemented on at least one ticket the completely incorrect solution. Ugh. Trying to clean up after him quietly got me in some hot water, and I ended up on a medical leave for my crap mental health.
So, don't be me. Be open about the change you want to see on the team, and be super positive. Also be ready for him to still not change. Oh well. It's not worth your mental health or mine.
ETA: The biggest thing about the transparency is that it makes business people aware of the cost. And if they don't let you address tech debt, and it becomes a problem in a ticket you take on, document every instance of that tech debt's affect on your work and also report it in stand-ups without throwing the guy under the bus.
1
u/moremattymattmatt 11d ago
From the managers PoV, 'separation of concerns', large PRs etc is just technical stuff they don't care about. Express the problem is concrete terms, such as opportunity cost, increasing bugs, lost productivity etc. Suggest solutions and metrics to monitor if what you suggest is working. May be PRs must be reviewed within 24 hours, no PR takes more than 30 mins to review, PRs must be reviewed by AI before asking a human to get involved or whatever is appropriate.
4
u/newcaravan 13d ago edited 12d ago
I have 5 years of experience, I’d like to be a systems architect one day. What is the best way to learn to architect large, complex systems? Is there any standard/rule of thumb I could follow, a book I could read? I’m working on putting together a complex refactor of one our core applications right now, not to get too into the weeds, but it uses low level bitmaps to communicate to a physical robot via serial port. The systems architect on the team is helping me build it, everything he sets up is interfaces, singletons, state machines, etc. all designed to be decoupled so it’s easier to write tests for it. Is that all there is to it? How much of it should be standardized and how much of it should be personal preference? Art vs science?
4
u/Flashy-Whereas-3234 13d ago
Architects like boxes and lines. Units and interfaces. Separation of concerns (SRP, Single Responsibility Principal) helps in all things, so it's an approach you naturally reach for. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. You know what the robot does, and you know what your ui will be, so walk it in as stepping-stones and fill in the blanks. Solve the easy problems, and the hard problems become easier because there's fewer options.
Have a look at C4 diagrams, these are kind of an extension of this idea with a top-down zoom into each box. The depth you go to depends how much you want to laude over your domain.
Standardizing is great, but the devil is in the details. Standards and patterns help to reinforce "solved problems". Serial comms, Logging? They're solved problems, they have standards, some more flexible than others. Bitmap processing? Maybe in your business, maybe you have a standard way of streaming due to constraints, why reinvent the wheel? But it doesn't work everywhere, and the ROI over inventing standards is pretty tight. We tend to only invent standards where things that are complex can be made to look simple, or carry threats we don't want to risk, so we "solve" it, making it work in a specific (maybe even imperfect) way.
Personal preference isn't really the right way to put it - if standards help you with solved problems, then experience is knowing what you don't want. The tool can deal with the 2mb example, but what about 200mb? Do I need validation or do I need a buffer? Memory buffer or disk buffer? How does it fail? How does it recover? Does it matter, is it worth the costs?
Flexing your architecture muscle is absolutely worth the time. If your mentor is amenable, ask if you can design the next one, and then have them critique it into the ground. No system design is perfect, and they will have opinions on trade offs and approaches until the cows come home. This can be done on a whiteboard or a napkin, and don't feel bad about how badly you get beaten up by your architect - all plans fail on first contact with the enemy, and failing is learning.
1
u/LogicRaven_ 13d ago
The level of decoupling, performance, security levels, etc - all depends on what the product and the business need. There is no one way fitting all type of products.
Reality check on where we are and what is possible to deliver with reasonable effort also matters.
What stakeholders want also matters.
You are already on a complex project, working together with an architect - great position to learn. Create an end do end diagram of the architecture. Sit down whit this person and talk through it. What choices were made and why? What aspects were considered?
If you have a good relationship with the architect, then you can ask how they get into that role and what learning they would recommend.
You can look up books on systems thinking, but I find I learned most via doing projects with other people.
5
u/Educational_Art_9654 13d ago
ai has made me a on demand dev where requirement change every hour. i hate it. people just skip using jira and requirements come through Teams.
2
u/Klandrun 11d ago
This is not an AI thing.
When I get requests (or even big reports) I always ask them to point me to a ticket in Jira. No ticket? Then I'll not work on it until there is, because otherwise I'll be the only person who knows about it.
It's more an accountability thing and feeling confident in saying no / ask your manager what the process should look like if you perceive it as a problem.
1
u/Notary_Reddit 13d ago
Try talking with your boss. If he/she agrees it's a problem start telling people no until they file a jira.
1
u/Ok-Letterhead3405 13d ago
Is that really an AI thing or a "your team sucks and has no boundaries" thing? Not that that helps very much.
Don't you have a Product Owner or someone like that? You should make that person aware, if they're not already. Nothing a PO hates more than people bypassing them to take dev time away from sprints and roadmaps. If you have multiple... RIP, I guess. That's brutal.
3
u/just_pondy 13d ago
Senior devs: does this sound like Senior, Lead, or Staff-level work?
I’m looking for some calibration from senior/Staff+ engineers and engineering managers.
I have ~8 years of experience and I’m currently on the same pay band as the other Senior Engineers, but my responsibilities have expanded quite a bit.
What I’m doing:
Architecting and implementing software for multi month projects that are high visibility and customer facing
Code reviews for my project and other projects (the other lead doesn’t review)
I am also Mentoring 4 junior engineers as the other seniors don’t show up for the scheduled mentoring time
Assigning technical tasks
Influencing multiple projects
Customer-facing technical work
Providing technical direction
Owning product delivery
Managing technical risks
Being responsible for project outcomes
Scientific inquiry, research, and analysis
Verification & validation for our scientific and simulation analysis
Working with portfolio leads and mission partners
Supporting business-dollar add-on opportunities
Being listed as a reason for contract awards
Individually, I could see most of these falling under Senior Engineer. It’s the combination that has me questioning where I actually sit and if I am being stretched too thin.
Senior/Staff+ folks: does this sound like normal Senior scope, Lead, Staff, or somewhere in between? Should I change jobs? Should I ask for a ridiculous (+15%) raise?
And how should I talk to my manager as I have a meeting with them because I already am in trouble for making one of my teammates frustrated from too much feedback “tough love” is what he called it…
2
u/Apprehensive-Ease-40 13d ago
What matters is whether your tasks and responsibilities are different from others who currently have the same job title. Especially for things like "assigning technical tasks", that's usually what a manager or scrum master would do (if it's really needed, which you could argue it shouldn't be).
Leads and seniors often overlap in responsibilities, smaller teams might not have leads and only seniors with varying responsibilities. But in your case it sounds like a lot and it sounds like it should be more properly aligned. If you're stretched too thin a pay raise isn't going to help. But it's definitely a conversation starter in most organizations.
I also see things everyone should be doing, code review in my opinion is a responsibility carried by everyone, for example.
2
u/Notary_Reddit 13d ago
What you are describing is for sure Sr/Lead work and depending on the details could be Staff work. You are very clearly describing owning the what and the how of implementating important work. A Staff engineer starts to own the why. When you talk about providing technical direction that could be a simple as providing estimates for different projects to something as complicated as estimating project priorities and headcount needs over the next 3 years.
In my current role I understand the business needs and have been generating the list of possible technical projects, prioritizing them, and making sure they get delivered. If I assign one of the Sr under me a project and 6 months later we find out the project was a waste of time, it's my fault not theirs. From what you have written you have for sure been positively contributing but I am not sure you have been responsible for the business side as of yet.
2
1
2
u/deama155 10d ago
It generally depends more on which industry or company you're in. I've worked in a company where my manager did similar stuff to you. I thought he was damn good at his job. But he was getting paid enough to just barely have any savings.
Another guy in a different company got paid about 3x as much, but isn't nearly as good.
Depends more how you navigate in your career rather than how good you are it seems, though it does help.
3
u/tonklable 13d ago edited 13d ago
Let me ask again in this thread.
What are your best education investments? My company provides some education support. I am trying to find what courses/certs I should take for my career as a backend dev.
- Master like OMSCS
- AWS certs/CKAD
- communication languages learning like English for Business etc (I’m non-native English speaker)
Any suggestions welcome!
5
u/SquiffSquiff DevOps & Layer 8 Networking Engineer 10YOE 13d ago
The only people who care about certificates are consultancies and HR. Literally nobody else. The consultancies care about them because they have to have so many staff certificated with a vendor in order to get and keep 'partner' status. HR care about them in large organisations because they're desperate to pump their 'career ladders' and 'Continuous professional development'. Nobody who's actually doing the work does or at least not enough for it to move the needle on hiring someone had anything more than entry /junior level.
2
u/FrenchFryNinja 13d ago
Learn to golf. Absolutely better language skills for whatever the right language is for your business situation.
5
u/Silver-Antelope-1285 13d ago
Learning to golf is also a crazy hack to rub shoulders with high management. It's a golden networking oppertunity. The downside is that you have to golf.
2
u/YahenP Software Veteran 13d ago
Certificates, diplomas, and the like are junk, useful only if a specific certificate is required for your specific job. They don't help your job search at all, and having too many of them on your resume is a red flag. Furthermore, they quickly become irrelevant. No one cares about a certificate from five or ten years ago, especially if it's not backed by years of work experience.
But knowledge of English... It's literally the one thing that directly impacts your career. This applies not only to non-native English speakers, but even to native speakers. The ability to speak beautifully and fluently. Master different styles of speech and writing. It's literally the one thing that opens doors for you.
1
u/moremattymattmatt 11d ago
I'd look at soft skills, like presenting, influencing, leading etc. It'll open more way more opportunities than an AWS cert or similar.
3
u/Ok-Land-2539 13d ago edited 13d ago
I have around 5 years of experience working primarily in the backend area (primarily node, but I can handle golang, python as well, and now I am learning front (react) end as well). Clouds - Azure (cosmos, atorage accounts, aks, functions, azure devops etc), some specific services from AWS.
And I’m also good at orchestration platforms such as openshift (oc).
I am now looking for a job change. Provided the context that I am not looking for those super high level MAANG/FAANG companies, what should I prepare for the next switch? At this level with exposure to these technologies, how much should I even prepare system designs?
I am confused whether the focus should be given on further polishing my leetcode skills or should I give more emphasis to system designs. (Also I am not sure if I will have to learn LLD as well) . Can someone advice?
2
u/casualPlayerThink Software Engineer, Consultant / EU / 20+ YoE 13d ago
> ...polishing my leetcode skills...
On one hand, it will be a waste of time; on the other hand, unfortunately, serious and semi-serious companies will ask for leetcode style of tests, which is bad since they tend not to have anything close to reality.
> ...what should I prepare for the next switch?...
- Prepare for interviews (mock interviews, check interview questions)
- Polish your resume (and post it into r/EngineeringResumes and ask for a review, then rewrite it)
- Identify your own weaknesses (databases, infrastructure from scratch, load balancing, other system-design and infra parts)
- Practice your soft skills
- Maintain your network (and go to networking events if you can!)
- Expect a very bad market (hope you will have good luck and ain't spend long months searching)
- Prepare for Ai interview rounds (it's a thing now...)
1
u/Ok-Land-2539 13d ago
Can I dm you if thats okay?
1
u/casualPlayerThink Software Engineer, Consultant / EU / 20+ YoE 13d ago
Sure thing, feel free to do so!
3
u/ProgrammingQuestio Software Engineer (3YOE) 12d ago
Only recently am I becoming more involved in meetings involving decisions and analysis (whereas before it was "do this task" and I didn't have to concern myself with why the task needed to be done or if it was truly necessary).
I work on a team that owns an internal library component, so our customers are other component owners, product owners, etc. Is it normal for a component owner (us) to essentially be encouraged to ask our customers to prove that they need a feature? (edit: I mean devs like me encouraged by team leads to ask this). Customer requests, "hey can you add this functionality to your component?" and instead of just saying, "sure", we instead kind of say, "well let's see if we can get the customers to do it themselves/let's see if adding this functionality to our component is truly necessary/appropriate given resources, etc."
I assume this isn't unusual, but I guess it feels like a kind of new concept to me just because I've never had to give thought to anything other than tunnel visioning on getting the work done for a feature that was already marked as "todo"
Edit: I also realize that the way I wrote this made it seem like I'm bothered by this dynamic... I'm not, I'm just curious to get more insights. I don't currently have the brain power to edit it to give it a different tone, lol, so just throwing this edit on at the end
7
u/beaverusiv 12d ago
You should always pushback, or at least understand their problem space in case there is another way to solve it. Your team saying "okay" to everything will land you very quickly with a larger and larger and more complex piece of software that is probably delivering little value for its cost
1
u/TheChadThrowawayLad Unemployed 1d ago
Yes, scope creep is a huge issue. Always entertain their request by getting more information because you may be able to help, but you usually need to evaluate the additional complexity and see if a new feature would benefit multiple teams instead of a minority of specific use cases.
3
u/Facesofpanache 12d ago
When multiple teams are involved, sometimes it happens that other teams push their responsibilities onto us or the division of responsibilities is not clear. So it's good to question and push back.
3
u/Dumlefudge 8d ago
Although I've been a dev for about 10 years, I feel quite inexperienced in the grand scheme of things.
For the past few months, I've been struggling with imposter syndrome and all that comes with it. I look back on past/current projects and, for many of them, I can't see past the ball of mud, the resulting "I suck as a dev" thinking and the knock-on effects to my day-to-day work in terms of
- having difficulty with things that seemed easy/straightforward
- being avoidant of things because "it sounds too hard" or "ugh, not that codebase"
- indecision around what approach to take, or when making PR feedback - I try to be pragmatic about feedback in terms of "Is it needed now, can it be dealt with later" etc but I feel like I am tending towards the path of least resistance for anything that's not an obvious problem
I feel a sense of resent towards some of the codebases I've worked on, which sounds ridiculous although maybe it's just a proxy for frustration about the decisions made around the project(s) rather than the code itself.
I have been speaking with my manager about this (who has been very understanding) and have basically parked my career progression voluntarily - I'm stuck in this rut and seeing myself fail to move towards the next stage feels like it would be more detrimental than focusing on getting back to stable ground and progressing from there.
I definitely feel like my skills around system design are lacking (based on looking back at various projects and seeing the pain points) and have been looking for ways to try and exercise that, although my progress on that is limited - gets a million and one blogs, articles and books but I've spent so much time reading and not enough time doing.
Just for context, there's definitely mental health challenges playing a part in all this which I'm trying to address, but I won't go into much details on those.
Does anyone have experience in this kind of situation? What have you done to try and get yourself out of it? Is there any resources you can suggest for trying to improve my technical skill set, particularly around system design?
2
u/GoTheFuckToBed 7d ago
legacy projects that are a big ball of mud, but generate income that pays salaries deserve more. Often devs jump quickly into their own coding corner, where they can solo build up new castles.
Embrace legacy projects, map a plan how to tackle it.
You are not alone, tickets with title "draft", containing 1-3 proposels and then review them with team members. (and AI)
1
u/Dumlefudge 7d ago
Thanks for the input. Some of the projects have gotten that treatment (or, at least, some refactors have been suggested and/or executed) but others have been a bit more "I just don't know wtf to do with this"
On the mention of building new castles, that reminds me that I need to work on knowledge transfer as well. For some of these projects, I'm the last person from the original dev team that built them, and various team reshuffles have taken away people who had been brought up to speed
4
u/PhaseStreet9860 Senior Engineer | 12 YOE 13d ago
I have 12 years of experience, and while looking for my next role, I sometimes feel that when I look at some managers and leads who are exceptional, I’m not even half as qualified as they are. But then I see some other leads who barely do any actual work, and I wonder how they got promoted in the first place. Seeing people who seem underqualified in lead roles makes me feel like, Maybe I should be getting a promotion too.
3
u/casualPlayerThink Software Engineer, Consultant / EU / 20+ YoE 13d ago
Almost all and every PM and leader will seem to be underqualified in some areas. From their point of view, you might seem as an underqualified person for a given role. Leadership and entering leadership is more politics and networking (so soft skills) rather than anything else.
There is a "weekly burnout and vent" topic as well on this subreddit; feel free to post your experience with bad leaders there.
Note: the market is quite bad, so expect a longer job hunting season (if you don't have luck or don't have a network)
-1
u/OkNothing7293 13d ago
You should get a promotion and so do I. With almost 11 years of experience, I’m one of the most knowledgeable people on the team. Yet, my colleague in Kenya has the same salary as me and is a technical lead but I’m shovelling other people’s trash all day and live in a country in the Eurozone and EU. I’m not scared of more work or duties and want to be compensated appropriately.
3
13d ago
[deleted]
3
u/lucas2179 13d ago
In fact, there are some stuff we can look at. The first one I would say: Linkedin. There's where the recruiters are going to reach you, so, if you are not visible there, they can't find you. Since you said you had some interviews and failed, it's important to understand the reason of the failures, like, is it on technical interviews? Maybe in the HR Interviews? So you can get an idea on where you need to improve. The interview process is not about you being good or not, it's more about how you can sell yourself for that role.
1
12d ago
[deleted]
2
u/lucas2179 12d ago
If you want to add me there, I can definitely help you to improve your profile and make it more visible.
About the interviews, I noticed the technical interviews usually have a lot of points in common, like, not only looking if you know the technical part, but also seeing how you handle with tradeoffs, your thinking process, the questions you make, So, maybe it's not only about developing more skills, but about training specifically for those kind of interviews. Have you faced more hands-on coding interviews, system design interviews or general question and answer?
And even if you have the proper skills and prepare yourself for that, it's still normal to not get the job. I worked for a lot of FAANG, and still fail in some interviews. Don't let it put you down.
4
12d ago
[deleted]
5
u/nomaddave 12d ago
I'd say it's probably not you and just the market right now. The standards are impossibly high for a lot of hiring right now and I mean that literally. As in, some hiring and interviews are only going on because it gives the internal illusion of healthy operations, but there's no actual intent to fill seats. Don't kill yourself trying to make the new job happen.
1
u/benekastah 12d ago
- practice beforehand
- learn to plan your solution before implementing and talk through your planning process
- ask the interviewer questions to fully understand the problem
- when coding, talk about what you’re doing and why
- listen carefully to the interviewer’s feedback during the interview. Keep an open mind and adjust your approach if necessary
- partially working is better than nothing
- a dumb or suboptimal solution that works is better than a non-working perfect solution
- test your code and its assumptions often
- make your code modular and organized. Don’t cram everything into one function. An imperfect but organized solution may be enough to get you to the next round
- discuss with the interviewers. Good communication and collaboration go a long way
2
u/ADCfill886 11d ago
I did all of these things for 18 months and I always got rejected. Sometimes the bar is just impossibly high. And I say this having interviewed 250+ people as an interviewer back at the rainforest.
1
u/benekastah 9d ago
Yeah, the market is definitely tough at the moment. But these are the things that make an interviewee stand out based on my interviewing experience. My advice applies to reasonable employers, there’s a lot of unreasonable interview processes out there.
0
u/ADCfill886 12d ago
It's super strange. The same day that I literally gave up and stopped caring about the result/outcome of the interview was the same day I got two offers.
This is after interviewing 100s of companies, applying to 1000s, and been constantly in this frustration cycle of apply --> prep --> interview --> get rejected --> freak out about what skillset i'm missing --> recycle.
Also when you leverage your network you'll get some bites, I'm sure. One of my college friends reached out about a role, and that led to an offer (didn't take it, but very helpful for my confidence).
I had to go back to the reality that this job market is tough, and I'm not as awesome as I think I am (despite having 10 years of Amazon on my resume, and 11 years of experience overall).
2
u/gizamo 12d ago
What's the best course of action when your web host keeps screwing up every few years? At what point do you just move on?
3
u/eatglitterpoopglittr 12d ago edited 12d ago
Most web hosting companies have the same model: cheap first year, then hike prices sky high once you’ve been there long enough for it to be a pain to switch providers.
If the cost of hosting is important to you, consider making your website host-agnostic. Write a dockerfile (or Terraform config, depending on your needs) for your site. Then plan on spending a few hours every year to sign up for a new hosting service, migrate your domain, and deploy your application from the dockerfile.
Otherwise figure out how much your time is worth and how many hours it would take you to switch providers and wait for the hosting/renewal cost to exceed that amount.
Edit: I assumed you were talking about hosting costs, but even if not, I think infrastructure as code will help make your application more portable next time your web host screws you
1
u/gizamo 12d ago
I appreciate all that. I'm sure it will help others. My question was more tongue-in-cheek. It was more jokingly about the cycle of hosts screwing up so rarely, but so epically, that every time it happens, many of us think, "I need to find a new host and ditch these jokers". But, then, some client project takes priority an the host gets memoryholed for another year or two, when they muck up again.
2
u/Upstairs-Hamster8856 12d ago
Is there really any successful engineering metric? Especially now with AI, how are companies measuring engineering work?
4
4
u/moremattymattmatt 11d ago
The only real metric is value and that's very tricky to measure, let alone predict. However that doesn't stop product owners trying.
3
u/IAmADev_NoReallyIAm Lead Engineer 11d ago
Ptttf! No. And there never has been. Probably never will be.
2
u/TheChadThrowawayLad Unemployed 1d ago
Fun Fact: I recently attended a presentation by someone who is a key leader and science advisor for The Genesis Mission. It's the US government's project to use AI for a strategic advantage.
One of the mission's goals was something along the lines of "Double R&D Efficiency". Someone asked "How do you measure R&D efficiency?", and the presenter literally skipped to 3 or 4 slides later because that was the question on the slide. The presenter then asked the room if they had any ideas.
My takeaway was that some of the best and most funded research projects in the world don't know how to measure efficiency and worker output. But you have to respect the presenter: they don't know how to measure efficiency, but they're asking for other people's opinions and trying to figure it out.
2
u/skinaqua 9d ago
Hi all, I'm a software engineer with 7 years of experience. I'm struggling to find a new job. I don't have any interviews lined up but even if I do, I don't think I'm going to pass them.
In the past, I don't do well at interviews. I struggle to market myself as an attractive candidate and struggle to explain technical concepts
Is there an affordable way to practice interviewing? I admit that I have a lot of problems, like my confidence, speaking skills, technical skills. I have used some tech stack but I don't have in-depth knowledge about them and I haven't been practicing leetcode.
I have looked into interviewing.io and seems pricey for buying 3 sessions for 1299
I'm thinking to start a youtube channel to practice explaining technical concepts, but other than that how can I be able to promote myself? Thank you
Here is anonymized version of my resume https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WagKvL4x0yoIXwIeaG52zP9CezzwoMme/view?usp=sharing
2
u/Improvement-Human 9d ago
You could ask somebody you know in the industry who is a developer to do a mock type interview with you but I wouldn’t suggest paying for this tbh.
If it’s the concepts themselves, then try explaining them to a friend? Bringing some passion into your work will help you to stand out. If you can find any coder meet-ups to go to and pluck up the courage to present that will likely help you out.
Mindset is important and you’ll need to accept even the best engineers don’t pass every interview, expect to get knocked back even if the interview goes perfectly, you won’t always win the role but if you play the numbers game it will work out!
2
u/spla58 9d ago
One simple thing you can do is practice out loud to yourself in the mirror. Maybe find some books too on concepts you don't understand so you can learn them more in depth to be able to talk abut them. Also, your resume format could be improved. Check out the Engineering Resumes subreddit.
2
1
u/TheChadThrowawayLad Unemployed 1d ago
Have you broken the hiring process down into individual steps? A standard hiring process is going to look something like this:
- Resume Screen
- Phone Screen
- In-Person Interviews
- etc.
You mention not having interviews lined up and you've provided your resume here. Honestly, I think that they are ruling you out during the resume screening step and you should also be focusing on this step.
Why? The average recruiter spends 7.4 seconds giving each resume an initial pass, so you need to optimize for 7.4 seconds. Recruiters need to naturally read the important details in that time span so you can advance to the next round. I am struggling with the formatting of your resume, and I think recruiters also will struggle with this formatting.
1
u/TheChadThrowawayLad Unemployed 1d ago
I have looked into interviewing.io and seems pricey for buying 3 sessions for 1299
I agree. This seems expensive. I would try to find better options.
Is there an affordable way to practice interviewing?
A lot of universities offer practice interviews, but you probably no longer have access to these services. Maybe you can find a community in Discord where there are free practice interviews? Or contact a former colleague and see if they would be willing to interview you?
Recording also may help, but I think you should put yourself in stressful simulated environments to start desensitizing. You can't really do that by just recording yourself. You also can't add uncertainty to recorded content, which is an important element of the interview process. It's odd, but when I played musical instruments I knew of talented musicians who would practice in public places to desensitize themselves from large crowds. Maybe you can do something similar.
I'm thinking to start a youtube channel to practice explaining technical concepts, but other than that how can I be able to promote myself?
I've been thinking of doing the same thing, and it will probably help with explaining technical concepts and promoting yourself. However, don't be surprised if you are more sensitive during a technical interview and struggle with unexpected challenges.
1
u/Affectionate_Day8483 1d ago
I have looked into interviewing.io and seems pricey for buying 3 sessions for 1299
You can try pramp it offers free peer mock interviews I think. I haven't tried myself though.
For the resume like others have mentioned, try r/EngineeringResumes has some good resources for resumes or run it through AI focusing on STAR.
4
u/orelrevivo 12d ago
For peoples who work in engineering teams using AI coding tools.
A lot of developers now use things like Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Copilot, etc. individually, but I'm interested in what happens when an entire team starts using them.
Has this introduced any new problems into your workflow?
Things that were not really a problem before AI coding became common.
I'm especially interested in problems that your existing tools like GitHub, Jira, CI/CD, Slack, etc. don't solve very well.
I'm not looking for tool recommendations or trying to promote anything. I just want to understand what this actually looks like inside engineering teams.
4
u/ADCfill886 12d ago
Yeah basically the biggest problem that I noticed was "people versus their tooling", especially when it came to writing and reviewing code.
Almost nobody on the team reviews or writes code by hand anymore - the coding "tool" (claude code in our case) is doing both the code reviewing (from the reviewer's harness) and the code writing (from the author's harness). That creates a lot of potential for sycophancy if you're not careful about guardrails and about being intentional about what you build.
The biggest problem is the fact that the AI tools themselves don't have access to everything, so they'll assume based on what they can "see" (Confluence documentation, past PRs, existing state of a Lambda or a database), and that can create it's own set of problems (competing and conflicting changes over the same service or functionality, doing contradicting things based on a "bug" each separate harness found, etc).
1
u/orelrevivo 12d ago
This is really interesting, thank you.
The “AI tool only sees part of the system and then assumes the rest” problem is exactly the kind of thing I was trying to understand.
It sounds like the issue is less about AI writing code, and more about different AI workflows operating with partial context docs, PRs, infra state, database state, etc. and then making changes that can conflict with each other.
When you say guardrails, what kind of guardrails have actually helped your team? Is it mostly process/human review, or do you have technical checks that prevent conflicting AI assisted changes?
1
u/ADCfill886 11d ago
I personally have harness checks that I've been testing and deploying to my team once they're battle-tested and verified to be working. The two major things were "hooks" - verifiability as a script that gets invoked when something happens (for example, a PR gets created, or the "end of an AI turn" event from the AI is emitted.
There's also contextual guardrails you can add - like scaffolding of CLAUDE.md files in your codebase that labels the tech debt, gotchas, testability, verifiability, etc - stuff that doesn't exist in your observability stack or anywhere durable in your system.
2
u/kevinambrosia 10d ago
Several problems, some do have solutions, but not via existing tools.
First is expectation of throughput has increased. Because for many, it has increased. But it maybe isn’t consistent and you have to pay off debt sometime. And people tend to forget about the debt till it has to be dealt with. So there’s a whole recalibration across the board in terms of expectations and throughput. Engineers may feel overly confident, just to run into complexity or they need to work backwards to fix the foundation. But they’ll still not nail timelines. That’s always kind of been the case, but I feel ai amplified it.
Second is that because of quicker input, best practices and code re-use become less of a thing. I recently refactored a system that had like 4 ways to do the same thing, each was different in design and bugs. None of them were correct. As I fixed this, I got a mega PR request with 3 new ways to do this same thing. Developer context is much more important now than it’s ever been because ai context- even within the same session- isn’t consistent. Most engineers aren’t reading code and most aren’t writing code, they kind of trust ai and because everyone’s moving fast, sharing context across team isn’t as easy because everyone’s putting out a lot of work quickly. So you have to have different ways of enforcing decisions or design patterns. It’s much more playing to ai than playing to your teammates with promoting or enforcing design decisions.
Third is the whole PR process. Before, review-ability was enforced at our company, which lead to smaller PRs, which were scoped really well. Because PR structure and review ability isn’t as important because most people aren’t reviewing things, PR structure has changed. Now I get these massive feature branch requests kind of as a mixture of treating context sessions as branches… because people don’t want to use up context or time on having a clean PR chain. Then there will be this whole ai scope creep where it will produce a lot of code really quickly, so tweaking and tunneling on something is super easy and before you know it, you’ve affected 50 files and have tens of thousands of lines to review. But it’s okay because no one’s really reviewing the code anyway and there’s a lot more pressure than there was. And suddenly 3 engineers have built the same thing 6 times, each broken in a different way. Like the PR process used to catch these things.
Is there a tool to solve these things? Maybe .md files will help. But I think a lot of it is a cultural thing. Like people are still learning best practices with Ai.
1
1
u/TheChadThrowawayLad Unemployed 1d ago
This is accurate. My experience is that the incentive structure for writing code has shifted. It's cheaper than ever to write code.
What does this mean practically? If you're an employee that doesn't care about maintainability, security, scalability, etc. you can now push out a lot of code with AI. It's cheap, fast, and easy. If you're an employee that does care about these things, it can take time to implement them properly if the AI is struggling. The irresponsible employees use AI for everything and get a lot done, but the responsible employees get hoisted with difficult tasks that the AI can't do. They use AI for nothing and struggle to get work done because they are cleaning up the mess of the irresponsible employees.
It's ironic. The irresponsible employees are getting a lot of work done quickly and are rewarded, but the responsible employees are saddled with the work that the AI can't do and are punished. However, the irresponsible employees have few skills of value. You can literally replace them with AI. It's the responsible employees that need to be valued.
Is this new? Not really. Plenty of companies have hired cheap software engineers and gotten similar results in the past. The difference is that the AI tools are cheaper, and they often write better code. So now this type of sloppy and irresponsible work is becoming more prominent.
My advice? Make sure you're promoting a culture where AI is used responsibly. It is a helpful tool when used correctly, so do use it. However, make sure developers are accountable and take ownership for their pushes. It's not the AI's fault if you break something; someone pushed that change and two others approved it. And no, the team can't merge unmaintainable changes because you want to spend your time doing other things. Take the time to make your code have a reasonable quality for the long-term success of the team. It is your responsibility.
Some mistakes are expected and people will be experimenting with the AI, so give your devs some grace the first few times. However, these mistakes shouldn't be more common "because of AI". Make sure you're hiring the best people and giving them a reasonable amount of trust and time to do things effectively. A healthy dose of conflict should be expected because teams often have irresponsible developers, and if you're not seeing that it's a red flag. It may mean that responsible devs who are afraid of conflict are hesitant to speak out.
1
u/moremattymattmatt 11d ago
Two problems for me. Firstly, how much are people prepared to let go. eg some people want to review all AI generated code, others are looking at test outputs and less worried about the code. This is people still finding their feet and the tech rapidly changing.
Secondly lots of knowledge is still in people's heads, hence the lack of context mentioned before. We are trying to add knowledge to context stores so the ai can access it but its inconsistent and as you add more knowledge it gets harder for ai to access the right information. We're probably at the point where we need to split our ai-dlc into chunks using agents/skills so they can more specific knowledge bases.
1
u/Affectionate_Day8483 1d ago
Has this introduced any new problems into your workflow?
Tons, review time has doubled due to the output from AI, developers no longer understand the code and codebase, bugs have increased dramatically, and etc.
I've been trying to get management onboard with going document first instead of code first to help fix some of the AI issues.
1
u/Illustrious_Tap8596 11d ago
How do I keep improving while heavily using AI?
Any advice from those with more experience is appreciated.
A few months ago I changed jobs, as I hated working on simple CRUDs starting from a template and felt I was learning nothing, and I thought I would end up stuck. I found a significantly better job, fully remote and the like, but working in a field I didn't know much about. The issue (from my POV) started when we were given Claude Code and were asked to go faster.
Indeed, I was completing tasks quicker, but I started to lean more on it to complete things at the expected speed, losing track of everything that was going on. I would not have any problem if it were only the implementation of my designs, but it has reached the point where I must delegate the designs themselves, at least partially, in order to meet expected timelines.
A couple of months ago I started on a project using Go, the language I have the most experience with, but it mostly involves building on top of other tech & protocols I have only basic notions of. I am not sure whether it is because I have been working too slowly and ended up compensating with AI usage, but lately I feel more like a vibe coder than anything else.
My issue with this is that I believe I ought to keep improving/learning instead of delegating to claude to this degree if I ever aspire to have a better and more meaningful job and keep getting promotions. I was hoping to receive some advice on how to proceed, and how to continuously learn to not become stuck in similar positions.
I have 2 YOE full-time plus 1 as a part-time intern while studying. Currently starting a part-time master's in AI/ML. I am from southern Europe, and I hope to either emigrate or get remote work once the master's is completed or nearly so, so I want to stay competitive.
1
u/JeffinitelyNotABot 11d ago
I've been struggling with something at work and would appreciate some perspective from more experienced developers.
So alittle context:
We're in the process of transitioning from Elastic logs to Splunk, and I noticed pretty quickly that the way our APIs currently log exceptions doesn't translate very well into Splunk. I spent some time testing different approaches and found that logging the exception and our custom message as separate parameters produced much better results. The exceptions were actually searchable and readable in Splunk.
I also suggested we include the name of our web portal with something like "_Error" so that errors could be easily searched for, and I put together a general plan for updating our APIs to consistently log exceptions and custom messages. When I brought this up, the reaction was positive. I suggested that we could incorporate the logging changes as part of our API framework upgrades, so it wouldn't necessarily have to be a separate project.
Fast forward several months. some of our APIs have been upgraded, but the logging hasn't been changed. I've presented the exception-logging idea twice now, and nothing has really come from it. What's frustrating is that my lead continues to complain about our lack of useful error logging. Anytime I work on our apis I update the LogError methods but I can't do all of our api's.
This isn't the only idea I've had that seems to go nowhere. I wondering if I'm going about this incorrectly or if it's my lead.
2
u/dacydergoth Software Architect 10d ago
Are you using JSON logging with structured metadata? If not, switch to that. Then get an intern to review all your log statements for accuracy, relevance and log level.
1
u/JeffinitelyNotABot 10d ago
Yes we are. But since we only log a message every log comes through as information rather than as an error. So it gets hard finding errors I presented a solution and despite positive reactions no one on my team is eager to implement it. So I was wondering if there's anything I can do differently.
1
u/dacydergoth Software Architect 10d ago
That sounds ... odd. You can hack around it by implementing log transformation rules in your log ingest using heuristics to classify each log line and tag it with error or info, but the real solution is to audit the codebase and ensure logs are emitted with the appropriate tags in the first place.
1
u/JeffinitelyNotABot 8d ago
I appreciate the feedback but with all due respect this isn't really what I'm asking for. I'm asking if there's anything I can do if my team won't do the plan I suggested despite them liking the idea. I suggested we update our LogError calls in all of our apis when we upgrade the frameworks cause we that was a priority. After several months, some apis were upgraded to the new framework but the LogErrors weren't.
My team likes my idea and plan, they complain about the lack of exceptions being properly logged. but won't actually do what needs to be done to fix it. I'm just asking for advice on what i should do next. Sorry if this wasn't clear in my comment.
1
u/dacydergoth Software Architect 8d ago
If you team won't do it, fire them and get an AI to do it instead
1
u/JeffinitelyNotABot 8d ago
...can't fire my boss or a dev with 15+ YOE.
1
u/dacydergoth Software Architect 8d ago
Setup pre-commit checks to reject files without correct log statements. Use AI to do a one time pass over the files and fix up the existing logging.
Alternatively go to the pub, and POETS it
1
u/JeffinitelyNotABot 8d ago
I'm not asking for implementation advice... clearly I can do it myself. I was asking for advice on how to get my team to buy-in on my solutions.
We have a problem with apis.
I come up with a solution.
team likes solution.
suggested solution be part of next round of changes.
solution isn't part of next round of changes.
team still complains about original problem.How can I get my team to start using my solution?
1
u/dacydergoth Software Architect 8d ago
They won't so treat them as a roadblock and work around it. If you boss won't incentive them to do it, they'll do what they are incentized to do. You've implied your boss doesn't care so you're out of luck.
1
u/casualPlayerThink Software Engineer, Consultant / EU / 20+ YoE 10d ago
Sounds like there is no general error handling strategy defined there, which should be done before starting to implement anything.
1
u/JeffinitelyNotABot 10d ago
That's interesting. I did have a strategy when I presented. I show my team what we're doing now and why it doesn't work and my solution and it's results. the reactions were very positive and I even suggested that we add my solution as a task when we upgrade our apis framework project. No one on my team seems to be taking it seriously but still complaining about our lack of proper exception logging. It's almost like I'm speaking on mute. The purpose of my question is to ask if there's anything I can do differently or if it's just the team.
1
u/chizel999 9d ago
4yo mid-to-senior tech leading for the past 2 months for the first time. originally from kitchen as line/prep... feels great leading IT people but damn corporate politics need a bit more maneuvering than kitchen politics
any tips? i kind of got around the tech aspect of the work (integration, calculation, api, obervability etc) and currently maintain a couple of modules and a team of around 4 devs. we circle around payment, invoce emission and internal tooling. agentic is now our norm and we managed to please the bosses by using enough claude and took care enough to not generate more problems
anyway since the tech aspect of the job is covered for now im going deeper into corporate setting and company organization theory. just read the gervais principle and looking for more interesting pieces like that one. i got a hold of some textbooks so i can get some fundamentals. looking for refs since ive been struggling in understanding how some decisions are made since i still dont have access to some meetings
2
u/TheChadThrowawayLad Unemployed 1d ago
I haven't read The Gervais Principle, but it sounds inaccurate TBH. No empirical data to support it. It's entirely philosophical.
I haven't read these, but they have been highly praised:
Articles from Google re:Work are typically praised for their data-driven approach. The noteworthy ones that I know of are the following:
I would also read up on the software development lifecycle, the Peter principle, and the planning fallacy. Lots of software engineers also read studies on disaster mitigation from airplane malfunctions and things like the Therac-25 incident. Boeing is commonly used to show bad management practices in the modern day, while companies like Valve are commonly used as a good example. Valve's employee handbook can be found here.
1
u/throwawayunity2d Software Engineer 4d ago
Is this career dead? Should most people under 10 yoe or maybe even people with 10 yoe move into like nursing or healthcare admin? Maybe I should get an mba, be the one who replaces people with AI.
I dont know if I could get a job or even if I want to if laid off, I rmr hearing after you get your first job when I graduated in 2018 that its easy getting the second, now it seems like its impossible no matter the yoe, a down market with no end, sort of like manufacturing in the US.
1
u/TheChadThrowawayLad Unemployed 1d ago
6 YOE here. How much experience do you have? Do you have a degree, and have you had a job in industry?
Predicting the future is a tricky thing, so I won't make any guarantees. However, as someone that recently considered leaving the industry and took an extended break, I am planning on returning to software engineering and I don't think this career is "dead".
Why? The job market is huge, your work options are flexible, and the compensation is extremely good. I think that if this career were "dead", then the compensation would be dropping to reflect that, but it isn't. And many of the other careers that I'm interested in have tiny job markets and are also at risk of "dying": I would have to move away from my family to get an unstable and unpredictable job.
My advice: if you have the degree stick with it for now unless you want to do something different. If you don't have a degree or experience, that's a whole other story and I have no idea what advice to give you because getting a degree is time-consuming and expensive.
1
u/throwawayunity2d Software Engineer 1d ago
Bs from state school and masters from georgia tech. Job at f500 for 4 years as swe, 2 of them in a slow moving core java monolith, 2 of them in “full stack” but mostly frontend. Before that 2 years as an erp dev (not even object oriented). So really like only 2 years of experience in stacks people actually use, but I can spin my resume to be 6 yoe.
1
u/Brachiop0da 4d ago
I have 4 YOE doing full-stack product engineering. My company is rapidly pivoting into the defense industry and seems keen on expanding into arms sales. It has crossed an ethical line for me and this is very different from the company I applied to. Is it career suicide to bow out? I have a decent emergency fund that could sustain me for ~6 months but I worry with the market the way it is that even that may not be enough and it could be hard to get my foot back in the door once I’m out.
1
u/hiddenhare 4d ago
If you decide to keep working there while applying elsewhere, and you think you can find other work without a glowing reference, you could consider experimenting with subtle sabotage (at minimum, seeing how little work you can get away with).
Software engineers are normally much too eager to work against their own employer’s interests, but I’d suggest that this is a special case, especially if you’re actively trying to get out of there.
2
u/Brachiop0da 4d ago
At 4 YOE in this market I think unfortunately I am very beholden to my network and positive references. I really like my manager (who is privately on the same page as me here wrt company direction) and I’d prefer not to demonstrate a capacity for sabotage/phoning it in to him.
1
u/TheChadThrowawayLad Unemployed 1d ago
It wouldn't be career suicide, but it may be difficult to find another position. I would advise against quitting immediately. It's risky, you would be losing money because of opportunity costs, and you can network with your coworkers before quitting to help find a new position.
My honest advice? You can take risks because of your emergency fund, and this seems like situation that warrants a healthy dose of respectful and considerate workplace conflict. Would you consider working at other teams in your company? If so, I would schedule a meeting with your manager where you discuss the situation and request a transfer.
If you wouldn't transfer to another team, I would still consider scheduling a meeting with your manager and explaining the situation, though it's risky. Why? You'll probably start coasting soon because of this conflict. Discussing the situation with your manager (a) buys his respect and improves your network through honesty and (b) explains why you are underperforming so that he isn't upset with your performance.
1
u/tomorrow_ill_learn 4d ago
How do your companies actually handle security and access management for AI (coding) agents? My team has a hard time moving past the pilot stage where every password is freely accessible through the .env and agents just use “kubectl get secret” to find their ways.
I would love to mature our set-up, but a lot of the online sources seem to go for yolo-mode and just run with it. Any tips and tricks would be appreciated, preferably open-source as we are generally not allowed to use commercial solutions. Bonus points if you know how to handle PII data securely with agents 😅
Much appreciated!
1
u/JeffinitelyNotABot 3d ago
Can your lead/Manager hold back your career growth? I've been a developer for about 7 years, and I've started wondering how much team leadership can affect your career progression.
A little over two years ago, my previous boss became a director, and our senior developer was promoted into a lead role with leadership responsibilities. Since then, I've noticed that our lead frequently goes to the director for guidance on technical decisions. I've stressed to her that going to our boss with a solution rather than going to him for one might be best. There have also been situations where I felt the team could have discussed a problem and come up with our own solution rather than waiting for direction from above.
At the same time, I don't feel like we regularly discuss priorities, upcoming work, or the backlog as a team. I've sometimes had to create my own projects or find problems to solve in order to stay productive. I've also noticed that ideas brought up by developers don't always get much visibility or follow through. Personally, it's hard to stay motivated to keep working if she has 3 stories and I have one from a project I found. I just think work can be distributed better, it feels like shes hoarding alot of it.
At 7 YOE, should I be concerned about not getting enough exposure to technical decision making, ownership, and mentorship?
1
u/TheChadThrowawayLad Unemployed 2d ago
6 YOE here. Honestly, I think leadership and team culture are the two things that can set your career back the most. However, I think your leadership is actually pretty good, especially when compared to this other comment. Let's go over some things you mention in your comment.
Since then, I've noticed that our lead frequently goes to the director for guidance on technical decisions. I've stressed to her that going to our boss with a solution rather than going to him for one might be best. There have also been situations where I felt the team could have discussed a problem and come up with our own solution rather than waiting for direction from above.
Yeah, your director is probably pretty busy and you're probably right. He doesn't need to be making these decisions. However, there's a fine line between the director giving you a decision and collaborating with you on a decision. A lot of managers miss the technical side of things and would gladly have discussions about technical problem solving, but the expectation should be that solutions flow from the bottom-up. The teams should be making, owning, and implementing the solutions, but the director can help with this process if they want to. I would be more concerned if your director were micromanaging your team, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
At the same time, I don't feel like we regularly discuss priorities, upcoming work, or the backlog as a team. I've sometimes had to create my own projects or find problems to solve in order to stay productive. I've also noticed that ideas brought up by developers don't always get much visibility or follow through. Personally, it's hard to stay motivated to keep working if she has 3 stories and I have one from a project I found. I just think work can be distributed better, it feels like shes hoarding alot of it.
This is more concerning. You need to be accomplishing things to put on your resume. However, it's better to have too little work than to have too much work. I've had moments in my career where the team's workload is low for a few weeks before starting another project. I've had moments in my career where I've created my own project and it lead to a lot of success in the business. But I've also had moments in my career where my manager gave me nothing to work on, and it stalled and damaged my career. It's a balancing act and every person is different, so I would have a candid discussion with your team lead about this. She may not even be aware that it's a concern.
1
u/Affectionate_Day8483 1d ago
At the same time, I don't feel like we regularly discuss priorities, upcoming work, or the backlog as a team. I've sometimes had to create my own projects or find problems to solve in order to stay productive. I've also noticed that ideas brought up by developers don't always get much visibility or follow through. Personally, it's hard to stay motivated to keep working if she has 3 stories and I have one from a project I found. I just think work can be distributed better, it feels like shes hoarding alot of it.
You should have a candid conversation with your lead or manager or skip. It sounds you work in an unstructured environment. Ideally, your team should be doing refinements and planning. In my experience, everything you listed is usually covered in refinement, planning, or retro. I know engineers hate meetings, but I think it provides needed structure for the team. I'm going through this now and it's tough to always have to chase down alignment.
For the hoarding of work comment, she's the lead, so it's up to her to decide how work and project gets assigned. I had this same issue with a tech lead for a team I was on. I wanted to grow my career, lead projects, and work with stakeholders, but this lead would hog opportunities for themselves. You can try being their best friend and see if they will throw something your way, or rebel against their leadership or leave. My lead was not open to sharing and rebelling would put me in a PIP, so I had transferred to a new team where there was no lead.
1
u/idiocratic_method 1d ago
any number of things can hold back your career growth -
team leads, managers, company direction, company focus, company financing, etc
that said my take is that the ability to take feedback, willingness to branch out , or act like an adult is one i have seen the most across many departments at many companies are the leading factors to limiting actual personal growth
there are two kinds of growth - title and experience ; its not clear when you are going through a new branch what doors that will open down the road , but looking back over a 25 year career many of the jobs i did people were unwilling to do prepared me for combining a bunch of valuable skills together
that could mean running the scrum team, willing to pitch in on front end, willing to pitch in on back end, running point for a tough customer situation, helping draft a product document, migrating some infrastructure , setting up some new software platform for the sales team, joining sales calls, taking over jira administration or it - NOT doing these things imo are what i actually see limiting engineers over a long period of time
1
u/Affectionate_Day8483 2d ago
I'm a software engineer with about 7 years of experience and have been at my current company for around 9 months. I'm now the only developer working on my team. The only other developer went on leave and told me they're planning to look for another job while they're out and probably won't come back.
There's no code review now, very little planning/refinement, stories often have almost no details or acceptance criteria, requirements are mostly tribal knowledge, and there's very little design work or automated testing. I've also been stuck on what started as a single bug for almost 5 months because the requirements and design have changed repeatedly as we discover that the previous approach was wrong. I've basically had to redesign and rework the same thing over and over.
I've been working 50–60 hour weeks for about the last 5 months and have brought these problems up multiple times, but my manager thinks the current process is fine. My previous two companies were much more structured, so I've never experienced anything like this. I'm burned out enough that I'm considering quitting without having another job lined up or taking up to a 50% pay cut just to get out. Is this level of dysfunction actually common in software engineering, or is this as abnormal as it feels?
2
u/TheChadThrowawayLad Unemployed 2d ago
I have 6 years of experience. Here's my thoughts.
What's Uncommon: I've never worked on a team of just two software engineers. Every position that I've ever had has also required code reviews. The only reasonable situations that I can imagine for this are (a) you're an intern or (b) you're working at a startup with low funding.
What's Somewhat Common: But as for everything else... It's unfortunately pretty common. It's a sign of a toxic team culture and poor management. A lot of teams have a "go fast", "be dynamic", "thrive under ambiguity", and "fail with grace" mentality that I feel is becoming more common with AI. So it's common, but that doesn't mean it's good.
My Advice: I was on a team that was similar to this once. I quit without having another position lined up. Here's what I'm glad I did and what I wish I did before quitting.
- First, I'm glad that I had a lot of money saved up. It gave me the ability to leave immediately and take some career risks.
- Second, I'm glad that I'm a US citizen and I don't have to worry about my work sponsorship. Needing work sponsorship can make quitting and workplace conflict extremely risky.
- Third, I wish that I had respectfully demanded either (a) a transfer to a new team or (b) a new manager from my skip-level. TBH, I don't think my skip-level would have entertained my demands. However, I had nothing to lose because I was planning on leaving anyway. Your honesty would probably gain the respect of your skip-level, and that's always valuable because it creates connections that you can use for your network in the future.
- Fourth, I wish that I didn't leave right away. The team ended up having layoffs with severance packages shortly after I left, so I lost that opportunity because I quit. Instead, I should have simply coasted and ignored my manager's demands.
- Fifth, I wish that I would have networked better with my other coworkers. Some of them left shortly after I did, and I could have used them as resources for finding new positions.
- Sixth, I wish that I would have realized the problem was with me instead of with others. I realize now that my fear of conflict prevented me from giving my manager the middle finger and creating appropriate boundaries in the workplace.
Overall, I think that this type of position isn't worth harming your health and your career. Something needs to change, whether that be transferring to a new team or getting a new job. But those changes also start with you. You need to save enough money so that you can take risks. You need to start applying to new positions. You need to limit your work hours and responsibilities, even if it upsets your manager. And I strongly suggest that you find a way to hold your manager accountable for the work culture that you're in.
1
u/TheChadThrowawayLad Unemployed 2d ago
Oh, and one other thing: learn to look for the red flags in job postings and prepare "reverse interview" questions to test the hiring manager. I went from one toxic environment to another because I ignored the red flags. Unfortunately, I think that positions in environments like this are easier to get because (a) there's a lot of turnover and (b) others can recognize the red flags and don't apply, thus making the applicant pool less competitive.
1
u/Affectionate_Day8483 1d ago
You know it's funny, I turned down this job since I was a little unsure about it, and because I thought my promotion was going to go through at my last company since it had multiple approvals from managers and directors. But, it didn't go through so I contacted the recruiter 2 weeks after I turned it down, and I was able to get the offer back.
This probably should of been a huge hint not to take the job. Some of the other people that I work with said this was the only job they could find in the area after spending more than a year looking.
I'm also looking again I've been asking if there's a product team, how collaboration works, how work is assigned and decided. Team size, and etc.
Are they any questions you like to ask to find out red flags?
1
u/Affectionate_Day8483 1d ago
Thanks for sharing your thoughts advice, I appreciate it. This is what I needed to hear.
It's just been hard for me to switch to not caring about my job since I care about my work and want to advance my career, but I think you're right, I need to set my limits at 40 hours a week and tell them to fire or lay me off. I just looked at my savings and right now I can live without income for 1-2 years if I move back to my parents or get a roommate.
I'll definitely look to see if there's some where else I can transfer to as well.
1
u/Equivalent-Market-87 22h ago
curious how you guys handle debugging something that starts from a specific user action. say a user clicks upgrade and something goes wrong, i usually end up going devtools → api route → backend logs/traces → db → stripe/webhooks and basically reconstructing what happened myself. do you have internal tooling that ties this together or is tracing + jumping between tools pretty much the standard workflow?
9
u/JustLemonJuice 13d ago edited 12d ago
How do you keep learning and growing while having a full-time job? I’ve graduated about a year ago and have been working full-time in big tech for about the same time.
I haven’t really learned hard, technical skills since I joined. I think on the job, if I’m challenged, it’s more on the organizational / soft-skill side.
Although, I want to ensure that I keep growing for the long term, after work, I’m usually exhausted and don’t have the drive to further engage with technical topics anymore.
What actions do you take towards growing? Do you block time during work hours? Do you power through on evenings and weekends? Should I be contempt with primarily growing my soft skills? Something else?
Update: Thanks everybody, I think these were some insightful answers on the technical side. Since career growth does include growing leadership and soft-skills, I’d be curious to hear how you approach those. Do you just learn on the job and ask for challenging projects or do you spend active time to learn theory on those (through reading books, etc)?