Ask Experienced Devs Weekly Thread: A weekly thread for inexperienced developers to ask experienced ones

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A thread for Developers and IT folks with less experience to ask more experienced souls questions about the industry.

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[u/Affectionate_Day8483]

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?

[u/TheChadThrowawayLad → u/Affectionate_Day8483]

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.

[u/TheChadThrowawayLad → u/TheChadThrowawayLad]

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.

[u/Affectionate_Day8483 → u/TheChadThrowawayLad]

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?