In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I’ve been an engineer for about 5 years and in the last two jobs, rock-star programmers have made my life very difficult. I define rock star programmers as ones with ability to produce lots of code and implement features at a pace that dwarfs my own. In my last job, the RSP would constantly rewrite core libraries and I would have to figure out his design and rewrite my code to adapt to the new design multiple times.

   In the current job, the RSP is very uncommunicative but with his sheer productivity steers the project into wild directions that are always coming as a surprise. Half the time my work then becomes throw-away because I was working based on the previous design. Am I a slowpoke and I’m seeing a normal programmer as a rock star or are these programmers just slightly above normal programmers but creating lots of work for everyone else?

   Managers are completely starry eyed at RSP and so talking to managers seems like a bad idea. What should I do?

2. How do you feel about sharing salaries amongst your co-workers? I’m about to have my yearly review and I get the sense that my raise (which has already been promised to me) will be underwhelming given how stingy the company has been previously. That is simply a hunch based on previous experience and the fact that our team budgets have tightened up in the past 6 months. Recently a co-worker let it slip what his salary is, and though I don’t like playing the comparison game, it made me feel underappreciated. I discovered that he was making the same salary I was, but for lower quality of work and less contributions to the team. I’ve heard some devs in other companies advocate for sharing salaries amongst their peers, but I’m not sure if it’s a good idea. Will sharing my salary and encouraging my co-workers to do the same, allow for myself and my co-workers to better understand our value and help us negotiate raises? Or will it simply foster resentment and division?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I work in a flat organization. There aren’t really any titles, and very few managers. There is no common “climbing the ladder” here. What are options for career growth that will help me feel confident that I am progressing in my career?

2. How do references work? I’m starting to look for a new job which means potential employers are going to be asking me for references. I’m not ready to let my boss know I’m thinking of leaving and aside from my current coworkers I don’t know who would attest to my ability as an engineer. I work for a small company (under 50) in an even smaller firmware department (about half a dozen). What am I to do?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Hi guys! I was faced with quite a dilemma recently.

   A few days ago one of my co-workers said he was sick and worked from home. But the next day he came to office, constantly sneezing and looking terrible, and for some reason finished the day in the office. The same happened the day after that. I didn’t want to be rude and I felt for this guy, but I didn’t want to get sick either cause I have some important tasks this week.

   What could have I done? I could not just tell him “go home you fool, you’re contagious!” I could say “Hey! I noticed you’re not feeling very well, why don’t you come to the manager and ask to work from home this week?” But I didn’t have the guts to do this. Besides, what if he couldn’t work from home for some reason?

   I solved this by lying to my manager that I’m ill too, and worked from home. What is the best solution here?

2. Hi, I recently went through my company’s annual review process. The review went pretty much as expected, with things that I was doing well and things that I could improve on. However, I received some negative feedback which I disagreed with. I asked for additional detail and examples of this, but neither my manager, or his manager (our site lead) could give me any concrete examples.

   After some further discussion they agreed to remove the comment from my review, but I’m now left wondering why this feedback was added in the first place if there were no examples they could give me. Their explanation for this was that it was feedback for our team, am I wrong or is an annual performance review the wrong place for that kind of feedback?

   Should I be concerned that they actually do have feedback for me, but were unwilling to do so given my reaction? Is this enough of a red flag to maybe consider looking for a new job?