This is a rerun of episode 87 from December 14, 2017.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. ‘I’ve been working on a project for the past year with two other senior developers. One of them is the lead, and the other, is my peer. We all have a lot of respect for each others opinions and resolve our engineering disputes amicably.

   My problem is that sometimes my peer will just give up saying ““have it your way”” etc. I want to have it out with him and evaluate each solution on its merits. I’ve considered saying ““STAND AND FIGHT YOU MANGY CUR””, but then looked up ““Mangy Cur”” and decided against it.

   How do i get him to be more vocal about his opinions? (so that i can prove to him that i’m right)

2. I like the idea of measuring things, but I also feel like work “metrics” are easy to game and hard to make indicative of actual quality work being done / product being produced.

   In particular I worry when the data collected leads people to choose work that will bump stats rather than lead to better end user experiences / product / maintainable code. What kind of data do you think is useful to collect in terms of developer activity? Can you share some examples of ways you’ve been able to assess your own and your coworkers productivity?

   I’m interested in this both on a team level and a personal one. How can I get better if I don’t have a way to track what “good” is for myself? Is trying to turn the complicated and messy thing that is what I actually do all day into a trackable, data driven domain a fool’s errand?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I recently started working at a small dev shop. Somewhere along the way I may or may not have started seeing a coworker outside of work. It’s really been great but there are no clear examples of how the organization would react to something like this. We have fairly lateral positions and there are no written policies or anything in the handbook. Even so, we’ve been doing our best to act “business casual” when we run into each other during the day. We don’t work directly but it’s a smaller company so the chance is pretty good that we eventually will.

   It’s been fun to navigate so far but wondering what your take is on this/the pros and cons of telling trusted coworkers or management. Thanks!!

2. I’ve been working as a software engineer for several years now. In my current job I have fortnightly one-to-one catchups with my manager. My problem is that I very rarely have anything to say. My work is going fine, I’m happy enough with my job, and I don’t feel like I really need help with anything. I feel as though not having much to say reflects poorly on me, giving the impression that I’m uninterested or that I don’t value my managers input. What is it we should be talking about?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I’m working for minimum wage as a full Systems Administrator at a State University while I’m taking classes. I really like working here, but I need to make at LEAST 40K /year to justify this level of effort for much longer. I just got offered a job two hours away for 80 - 100K as a System Administrator at a smallish ISP. The same day my boss told me he got approval to hire me on at 45K in 3 - 4 months.

   If I wait and stay I’m not making what I feel I’m worth, but if I leave I’ll make WAY more money and probably won’t finish my bachelor’s degree.

   I already have 5 years of experience as a ““system admin”” but I want to move over to technical project management in the next 10 years.

   I think I should stay, make less money, continue growing my relationships in the Scholastic Network, and finish getting my Bachelor’s degree. That way I can get past HR checks to become a Project Manager somewhere else.

   What should I do?

2. I’ve recently become the technical lead at my company. I need to build my team more but am struggling with one thing. How do I overcome the fear of hiring someone better than me who could potentially overtake me as the team lead? Is this a common fear among leaders? I want to build an effective team of high caliber developers. But I can’t do that if I let my ego and insecurity get in the way.