In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. I have noticed the majority of the managers get stuck at a mid-management level and never move to C level. And, there are a few who experience astronomical growth. For example, I know a C-suite executive who has moved to his current role from a Web Developer role within 9 years and changed job only thrice. One more C-suite guy I know has gone to that position within 8 years in the same company. Unfortunately, I don’t have the rapport to ask either of these folks what I’m going to ask you, so here it goes. What makes some managers move very quickly up the management ladder, whereas the majority remain stuck in mid-management? Also, at the mid-management level, how detrimental is job-hopping to quick growth. Looking at my small sample size of 2, both have not hopped around much.

2. Hi, love the show. I have a history of working as a Voice Engineer but since I got my last job I have migrated towards more Sysadmin/Devops type job. This was on purpose as I absolutely HATE the voice stuff. The problem is that I still have a bunch of people coming up and asking me to help with Voice related issues or projects. I have tried to very subtly express I am not interested but it doesn’t seem to work. I am probably also guilty because I am a yes man and want to be the nice guy so I don’t say no to these requests.

   So the question is, how do I get away from my past and stop people from coming up to me with questions about a domain I dread/hate?

Show Notes

https://lethain.com/career-narratives/

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. Hi Dave and Jamison, I’m in my mid twenties working at a large company with 1,000+ devs. My direct manager (let’s call him Bob) is probably in his late forties, is from a different country, and has a wife and two children who live in his home country. He currently manages ~20 devs in multiple scrums.

   Last month, I had my mid-year performance review with Bob. I am pretty sure that I’ve done a great job during the first half of the year. I made a few performance improvements, designed and partly implemented a few new systems, and even saved the company from a potential lawsuit. I think that I’m already delivering much more than the typical junior would already. Bob seems to disagree. He only gave me a mediocre review. When I pushed him for his reasoning, he seems to avoid the question and just told me to focus on the whole year review instead.

   Last week, I just came to know that Bob is filing a divorce. I would think that he is probably feeling quite depressed. Nonetheless, it bothers me to feel that my review score is somehow related to his personal affairs. He rushed all of his reviews on the last deadline though. I get the feeling that he is dispirited and didn’t focus on giving his team a thorough and honest review.

   I don’t want to bring this up to Bob’s manager as it would probably make him even more miserable. I also don’t think I can give him divorce advice. What would you do?

2. Hi there. I just graduated from undergrad and will be starting my career in just a few days. A big question on my mind going in is whether software development is the right career for me. I landed here because my parents saw me tinkering with HTML as a kid and pushed me into a CS major and this job. Me personally, I had wildly varying attitudes towards programming in college. Some days I was so hungry that I threw myself into hackathons and side projects; other days I was ready to drop my CS major. All this left me unsure of where I really stand. I’m grateful to have ended up on this path, but as I think more long-term, I question whether I’m really here for the long haul. What signs could I look for to gauge my compatibility with the tech industry or help me decide whether this career is really for me?

   Either way, thanks so much for making this podcast - it’s been a great window into the world that I’m about to join.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

1. Hello. Thanks for hosting such a great podcast. I recently finished binging all the previous episodes.

   I’ve recently noticed in conversations with my team, whether synchronous or asynchronous, after I propose an idea or stake out a position, I easily get defensive if a teammate tries to give feedback on my idea.

   I don’t mean to get angry, but I sometimes don’t notice until it’s too late.

   I think it has gotten to the point where my teammates might have caught on, and I don’t want this to lead to a state where they never disagree with me.

   Have you ever dealt with this, in yourself or others? How have you dealt with changing this mindset?

2. My first software developer job lasted two years. I didn’t learn much.

   • We deployed legacy Java apps with SCP
   • We had no tests
   • We didn’t have CI/CD
   • We were using a beta version of an old framework which we never upgraded
   • Our repos were not in sync with our production code
   • A lot of commented out code, dead code over the place
   • Using multiple languages across the board. We were using Java for something, Node for some, PHP for web/api, JS for client side. Basically the devs were cowboy coding to get the stuff out.

   I am three years into my current role & have already learned so much more than in my first role. I feel like my first job set me back. How do I overcome this?