In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. After a decade as a Senior front-end engineer in companies stuck in legacy ways of working—paying lip service to true agility while clinging to control-heavy, waterfall practices—I’m frustrated and exhausted by meetings and largely apathetic, outsourced teams who don’t match my enthusiasm for product-thinking or improving things. It seems allowed and normalised everywhere I go.

   How can I escape this cycle of big tech, unfulfilled as an engineer, and find a team with a strong product engineering culture where I can do high-impact work with similarly empowered teams? Thank you, and sorry if this is a bit verbose! Thanks guys. Martin

2. ‌

   How do you judge your competency in a technical skill and when should you include it on your resume? Should you include a skills that you haven’t used in a while, skills you’ve only used in personal projects, or skills that you feel you only have a basic understanding of?

   I’m a frontend developer and I’ve seen some job descriptions include requirements (not nice-to-haves) like backend experience, Java, CI/CD, and UI/UX design using tools like Figma and Photoshop. I could make designs or write the backend code for a basic CRUD app, but it would take me some time, especially if I’m building things from scratch. I’ve seen some resumes where the writer lists a bunch of programming languages and technical skills, and I often wonder if they truly are competent in all of those skills.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I think my team’s PM might hate me. Hate is exaggerating, but they often will give public praise to other members of my team on work they’ve done, and seem to be pretty friendly with others, but I have never gotten the same treatment. I have also not gotten negative feedback from them in the 3 years we’ve worked together, so I don’t really have any information to go off of here.

   I don’t need everyone to like me, but it feels weird to see someone act nice with everyone else and relatively cold with me. I get along pretty well with everyone else on the team, too. Would you do anything in this situation or just try to ignore it?

2. I’m a newly minted senior engineer and frequently pair with other more junior engineers to help them when they run into issues. Along with my company-provided senior engineer hat, my manager has asked me to try to take on more of a vested role in mentoring other engineers.

   One engineer I regularly assist seems to have anxiety issues. When I start reviewing their code or ask them about their debugging steps, they almost always start the conversation by telling me they’re nervous. I usually reassure them that we’re all teammates, we have a shared goal and there’s no judgement - only a desire to help them resolve whatever issue they’re encountering. While this does help somewhat, they continue to show clear signs of anxiety. I’ve also noticed the same behavior during team code reviews.

   They’ve been here for over a year, and I feel bad that they still seem to be struggling. I’d like to offer some sort of suggestion or guidance. What’s the best way to approach this? Would recommending therapy be out of line? Should I talk to my manager, or would it be better to leave it alone entirely?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I would like your advice on how I can improve my communication skills. I realize that practicing is usually the best way, but I am interested in taking online courses or learning more on becoming a better communicator. However, I am currently taking courses in CS and would like to primarily focus on that. I’m wondering what your thought are, especially when it comes to investing time in either a community college or online extension course.

2. I have to make a confession. I am a job hopper, never staying longer at a job than a year. I am getting bored quickly, I always get the feeling of the grass is greener on the other side and I keep finding myself distracted from my current job always thinking of the next step, the next job, the next big thing.

   This feeling is a double edged sword. On the one hand I know that I am aware that this repeated behaviour is not sustainable and healthy. On the other hand it helped me progress extremely in my career and climb the ladder quickly and now after five years of experience I landed at big tech in my dream job role. But I still get this old feeling of planning the next thing, finding myself distracted and losing interest and not being satisfied.

   I want to stay at the job and keep earning the big bucks for my family. What can I do to get rid of the grass is greener syndrome?