In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. ‌

   Hi Dave and Jamison,

   Internal dev asker from the second half of Episode 441 checking back in. Your “ask what scared the previous dev” advice in particular has paid off handsomely; I now carry around a little book of eldritch warnings and, somehow, people keep bringing me their unknowable monsters to interpret. It’s almost as though the previous dev knew these sorts of things would happen! I didn’t set out to acquire Lovecraftian knowledge, but here we are, still in one piece.

   Today’s puzzle: getting busy humans to test our stuff early, while feedback can still make it into production. We’re trying to build a culture where people will poke at a rough prototype now, instead of filing a Very Concerned Ticket three hours before release. How do we get people to test and provide feedback earlier? Do we stay disarmingly warm, promise tiny time boxes, and make a public show of “you said / we changed” until participation feels like the default? Or do we wave our terminal windows around threateningly on a screen share and promise doom (and minor annoyances) until they comply?

   Thanks for lending sanity to the abyss, —An increasingly arcane internal apps dev

2. I have been listening to your podcast regularly and am inspired by how the podcast and the community have grown.

   I am a developer with over 10 years of experience and have moved to Sweden from a country outside Europe, with the ambition to build my long-term life and career here.

   For several years, I have tried to take that step myself, but often encounter the same obstacle: I am told I need experience as an engineering manager — but without the role, I can’t get the experience, and without the experience, I can’t get the role.

   I have invested a lot of time and energy in developing myself: learning about leadership, coaching, communication, and team dynamics.

   Despite this, I find it difficult to see a clear path forward. With everything happening in tech right now, I sometimes feel stuck and uncertain how to break this cycle.

   My question is: how did you take your first step? How can one realistically enter an engineering manager role when the door seems closed without prior experience?

   Thank you for creating such an honest and inspiring podcast. It already means a lot to me — and to many others, I am sure.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I’m a relatively new people manager and I really struggle when it comes time for performance reviews, or even regular praise or critical feedback in one-on-ones, because I can’t help feeling like an adult “talking down” to another adult, regardless of whether the feedback is generally positive or critical and instructive. Something about it all seems so patronizing to me. How can I approach this stuff with a different mindset?

2. Hello D & J! Quick one from your biggest fan!! This week (Tuesday 6th Jan 2k26) I was promoted to Tech Lead of our team. In my new role, I have done no work *cries*, I’ve spent all my time assisting team members, unblocking QA, dealing with ad hoc requests from product/stakeholders…. I asked the previous tech lead is this what they did? They did! And they said spent their personal time to complete stories assigned to them.

   Is this really what a tech lead does?!?!! Helpppp

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Listener Tom says,

   I’m a software developer with six years experience, mostly at small startups with engineering teams anywhere between 2 and 10 developers.

   Because these startups have been small, most of the interviews were really casual. I’d speak to either the CEO, or CTO about my past experience, and we would talk about the direction the company was heading, and whether I’d be interested in joining. They felt less like interviews, and more like free-flowing conversations.

   I’m now back on the market, and I’m looking at larger, more established tech companies. I can get past the tech interviews just fine, but I’m struggling with the soft-skills interviews. Compared to what I’m used to they’re a lot more structured and it feels like they’re looking for answers that fit a certain criteria and format.

   What advice would you give to someone used to interviewing at small startups, but now interviewing at larger companies?

2. I took an unpaid full stack internship role at a new non-profit, and it turned out to be a team completely made of other interns. There isn’t a single experienced engineer on the team. I have gone way deeper than originally intended and am now functionally a founding engineer where the founder pretends I’m a lead engineer and calls me an intern. The founder is also hellbent on having the highest development velocity, and sometimes will contribute their own AI-generated code, often bypassing the review process especially for things I’m not comfortable signing off on like an AI-generated TOS and user agreement.

   I recently learned that the founder is not viewed highly in their local area after a scandal where they were accused of scamming a large sum of money, which is likely why they are doing their free community projects they started now in order to save face. This has backfired, and now people are calling their projects “AI generated schemes” despite the services being completely free.

   I’m not sure if I should continue contributing to these projects anymore. Since the founder rushes things to get done, walks through legal areas with their AI “lawyer,” and has a bad image, I’m worried about whether my resume will be taken seriously by potential future employers.

   Should I continue working for this person or is the experience not worth it?