In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Hey Guys, long time listener, first time asker!

   At my BigCorp Co., whenever I talk to my skip level about my concerns, it seems we are playing the ‘Gloom Olympics’ every time we meet. I’ll mention I worked late, and he’ll counter with, ‘That’s nothing, I haven’t slept in three days!’

   This repeated lack of empathy is demotivating and I don’t think I have had a fruitful discussion with him.

   How can I tackle this? How can I feel heard?

2. I’ve decided to leave my current job as a software engineer at a large retail chain. This is my first out of university, and I’ve been here three years.

   I’m interviewing for two other jobs: one as an engineer at another large retail chain on a team, and another at a world renowned European football club.

   That job would be very different. I’d be the first internal dev hire ever, and I was told I should expect no other devs to get hired for 2+ years. I’d write my own tickets and review my own prs. The project would be to build a dashboard to manage the players - drug testing, injuries, rosters - internally.

   What should I do? Feedback & mentorship were central to my growth at my current job. I won’t have that at the sports club. My concern is I go to the football team, drink a lot of beer & have a great time, but after 3 years of being my own boss, I’ll think I’m the greatest dev ever but really not have kept up to date with modern trends, forgotten how to take feedback, and written a lot of 💩 code.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Listener AWS multi-region is not real multi-region, ask me how I know asks,

   We’ve recently acquired some bright-eyed and bushy-tailed new grads. What have you found to be the most effective way to onboard new grads into development roles? How has it changed (if at all) since the advent of LLMs? I want to make sure my new-grad crushing machine is operating as smoothly as possible considering the recent advancements in developer tooling. Those new grads won’t crush themselves!

2. Listener Taso asks,

   Early in my career I was all-in on startups. Then I spent seven years in big companies in leadership roles. I learned a lot, but the politics and the pace were so slow that at some point I’m pretty sure geological processes were moving faster than our release cycles. So I finally flipped some metaphorical fingers and quit. Since then I’ve been interviewing almost exclusively with startups… except Google, where I somehow ended up with an offer on a team I’d genuinely enjoy. You’ve both bounced between big tech and startups—if you were in my shoes, how would you think about choosing between the two?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I handed in my resignation this past Monday. During the conversation, my manager confided in me that this coming Wednesday, 25% of the workforce is being laid off.

   For context, this is the second round of layoffs. The first round happened a year ago and was a disaster. It was announced via an internal video the night before, but the CEO forgot to mention that the affected employees had already been notified privately. This caused mass panic; thinking they were next, many experienced engineers immediately brushed up their resumes and jumped ship voluntarily. Even my skip-level manager was in the dark. Shortly after that chaos, we were acquired by an American Private Equity firm.

   Morale has been at an all-time low ever since, and the writing has been on the wall all year.

   Now I am in the awkward position of serving my three-month notice period while walking through the ruins of my company. I am the “lucky one” who quit voluntarily two days before the hammer dropped to join a different company for a massive raise and promotion, while my colleagues are about to lose their jobs.

   How do I navigate the next 90 days? How do I interact with the survivors who are likely furious and overworked, knowing I’m already checking out?

   Sincerely,

   Rearranging Deckchairs on the Titanic

2. Hello!

   I have a bad manager, like really bad. She gets the whole team together to say “so and so is getting laid off tomorrow, or in a month, don’t say anything”. She openly shares employee compensation in 1-1’s, gossips about her boss and team members and takes feedback as personal attacks.

   Would you believe me if I said that no one trusts her?

   What should I do? I want to contact HR but I have never talked to HR before in my career. I know I can’t tell her because engineers who have offered feedback on team dynamics, or general professionalism, get yelled in 1-1’s. Is this something worth taking to HR or do I just live with it until… I get a new job? If I do say something what do I say? Do I bring up the distrust she has created amongst the team or do I keep it to the poor judgement and unprofessionalism? Do you want to write the letter for me? Yes!? Thanks!