Soft Skills Engineering

Jamison Dance and Dave Smith

It takes more than great code to be a great engineer. Soft Skills Engineering is a weekly advice podcast for software developers about the non-technical stuff that goes into being a great software developer.

  1. -3 J

    Episode 509: I hate AI software dev, so should I become a manager and leading, not doing

    In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I am a senior software engineer at big tech and need a career change. With the rise of AI, I no longer enjoy this profession and panic everyday just waiting for a huge round of layoffs. At this point I feel like I am on some assembly line hitting enter like a monkey. Therefore I have been thinking of changing lanes and would like to get into engineering management. On the one hand I have enjoyed mentoring, strategic planning and coordinating projects across vendors and across teams, but besides that I don’t have clear evidence that this profession would fit me. In my current job there is no immediate opportunity to step up and manage a cross team project at the moment, so I am not sure how I can figure out if engineering management is the right choice for me. How do I figure this out without doing the job and how does one transition into it, probably as an external hire or transfer hire? Paolo asks, I’ve stepped into a senior role recently. I’m no longer the primary driver on projects. I’m supposed to create space for junior developers to lead, make decisions, and own outcomes. My job is to mentor and support, not to take the wheel. But I’m seeing projects drag because of passivity. Sometimes the solutions are inefficient. Other times it feels like the core problem isn’t fully understood before execution starts. In a few cases, momentum just stalls, and weeks go by without real progress because no one is pushing the work forward. It’s worth mentioning that I check in multiple times to offer help yet these problems keep happening. I believe people grow by struggling, so I don’t want to jump in at the first sign of friction. But if a project slips or fails, that responsibility ultimately rolls up to me. So how do you strike the balance? How do you give someone real ownership, not just symbolic ownership, while still maintaining standards and accountability? And how do you avoid becoming either the micromanager who swoops in too quickly or the absentee leader who lets things drift?

    36 min

  2. 13 AVR.

    Episode 508: My company is an unethical spammer and my coworkers take so much sick time

    In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: How can I get our company to follow the law and stop sending SPAM without being regarded as negative? We’re sending out emails that don’t comply with CAN-SPAM, and I think we should comply due to the risks, but I don’t want to risk any blowback! People want the emails to look more ‘human’ sent, and putting your mailing address at the end of an email is not very human, so we’re not doing that… It’s a medium startup (500 people), but I’m close enough to the marketing work that they might know it was me! Should I send an email to our general consul? How can I raise concerns and do the right thing without being regarded as not a team player?? How do I stay motivated on a team that’s always sick? I’m on a team of 3 ICs and one manager. The other two ICs are plagued by health issues. I am trying to be empathetic, but this has been going on for the at least a year. One of them regularly takes sick days, often turning into sick weeks. The other has a long term issue and regularly does half days. This affects our ability to produce results, but we don’t have a PM and don’t really have deadlines given the nature of our work, so it’s not really noticed. I feel like we are moving a lot slower than we could be, and when we do check-ins on our goals at the end of each quarter, we maybe only hit like 50% of our goals. To me it’s quite obvious why we don’t hit our goals, but everyone else seems to be surprised by it. My manager can’t manage with enough rigor to produce results. I’ve brought this up to them before (our goal misses, not teammates being sick), but nothing seems to change. As the only seemingly-healthy member of the team, there’s no incentive to work more than the bare minimum. I feel like I should be taking more sick days! This is very demotivating and I feel like I’m stagnating. How would you all approach this situation? Should I also suddenly have health issues? Is this actually a blessing in disguise and I should make the most of it? Show Notes https://overcast.fm/+ABLmzfhZxak

    33 min

  3. 6 AVR.

    Episode 507: I got fired unexpectedly and breadth and depth

    In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Hey there, I started a new job in August at a large European retailer. There were ups & downs, but long story short, my weekly one-on-ones with my manager was either positive or neutral. This was my second job after graduating, so the firm factored in, I’d like to think, when setting expectations this was my first time switching codebases and tech stacks. On January 3rd, I was fired in the last month of my 6 month probation. This was a total surprise. My tech lead told me I required too much assistance from others to finish my tasks. Some part of me doubted the sincerity of my boss, since I asked for example pull requests or tickets where this was the case and he was unable to provide a single example, but obviously, like every dev, technical insecurities are a big part of my life. I’ll be starting a new job at a prestigious newspaper in May, so here’s my question. In a remote first environment, how do I determine if I’m meeting expectations? How do I gauge my standing in my team? How do I avoid a repeat? How do I effectively integrate myself into a codebase? Disclaimer: At the end of January, everyone in my department was hauled into a meeting and was told the retailer hired 11 external, Portuguese developers to ‘finish the job’ since management wasn’t happy with the output of the 9 internal developers (aka nearshoring) and no internal would get a pay increase this year. My tech’s boss was also fired/forced out/quit before he could be fired. Trevor asks, How do I balance depth with breadth? At my current job, I am moved around projects/code bases all the time and I am exposed to a variety of technologies and subareas. That’s cool but I feel like I only manage to face the consequences of our choices for a couple months until I am moved again. I think I need more time to really become an expert in any one area. At the same time, I dread getting stuck in maintenance work. It seems like most people around me (at my company or outside) find it boring and soul-sucking, and are only excited about major projects from scratch. Does a job that has a good balance of both exist and if so, how do I find it?

    33 min

  4. 30 MARS

    Episode 506: I hate my job with AI and my team-mate thinks I suck

    In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Hi Djavison, I’ve heard y’all say something along the lines of “this is the most exciting time to build software” in a few recent episodes. I’m glad that has been your experience and seems to be the experience of many others. But for me as someone 5 years into the career who is, thankfully, employed—I can’t help mourning a job that no longer exists. Obviously, there are still lots of us with the job title “software engineer” that create software. But, what I originally fell in love with doesn’t really seem like a thing you can get paid to do anymore. I now spend most of my development time reviewing code and making sure things work. Which feels way less rewarding and way more soul-sucking. Maybe I’m just nostalgic for being a more junior developer, but it’s obvious that our jobs have changed forever and will continue to evolve. So, my question is: How can I get excited and feel passionate about this new way of doing things? I am a senior team lead with 10+ years of experience. This is the first time I’ve had a team mate that clearly disrespects me. I have a Middle+ teammate who is technically perfectionistic and openly says I’m doing a poor job and that basically he doesn’t see me as an authority. He says I am not as devoted to technical excellency and improving the project as he is, and that I ignore his opinions, which is his term for not having the same opinion about tech stuff as he does. He doesn’t see the big picture and thinks he’s the only person on the team trying to make the code better. But the worst part is he never admits he’s wrong. I had to scramble to fix a bug he created when we caught it right before release, and he accused ME of introducing it! My manager know what’s going on, but I feel terrible about it. I have many different projects and responsibilities. I can not be as devoted to the codebase as he wants. Plus, I am not the architect and nor should I be. I see that it demotivates him (like the person in the 499th episode), only in this question I am the senior. I know my weaknesses and I am working on them, I don’t think I can address his feedback. More than that, I’ve always tried to maintain a good relationship with him and always gave him the freedom to work on tech stuff and develop his skills. But what to do when your child has grown and is now unthankful? 😂 Thanks for your advice!

    41 min

  5. 23 MARS

    Episode 505: Called to the principal's office and my team leads are super dogmatic

    In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I’m a senior software engineer at a remote company (~500–700 people), and over the last year a new HR org replaced our old people team. They’ve spent six months building a new goals/leveling framework. During a public meeting I asked in slack: “We’ve had goals before and then stopped using them. How will these be different?” Nobody answered directly. The next day I was pulled into a meeting. The new VP of HR had screenshotted my question and sent it up my management chain. My manager told me they were on my side but leadership didn’t appreciate it. Days later I was pulled in again and told the problem was my “tone.” I didn’t argue because we were at an impasse. It felt like tone policing and like being sent to the principal’s office. I didn’t feel like they were treating me like an adult. In yet another 1:1, my manager said leadership wanted it raised again and that they don’t want questions like that in public. I told him the meeting should’ve been an email and that would’ve avoided this problem. Is this normal? What should I do? It’s upsetting enough that every time this gets brought up, it wrecks the rest of my workday. I’ve already been passively job searching for about three years because of broader issues, and now I feel like leadership might be pushing me out. This also follows being labeled a “dissident” by our product director after I raised roadmap concerns in another all-hands. Most of the leaders involved are newer (2 years or less), while I’ve been here 4+ years, so I’m wondering if the culture is changing right in front of me. Thanks for the show! Y’all have helped my career a lot. Hi Softskillets! Love the show, thanks for making me laugh every walk break I take! I’m in an org where the Frontend Platform Team has adopted a fairly rigid rule—forcing all domain logic into pure functions—to prevent “bad code.” I see value in for the big picture, but the rule is enforced at every level, even within my own team modules. It feels incredibly unnatural and cumbersome. I see our team is often leaking logic into our UI layer to avoid boilerplate that usually come “out of the box.” (in this React(ive) framework). I’ve tried to address this a few times, but I always get shut down with “theoretically correct” answers that don’t actually acknowledge the pain we feel on the ground. Most of the feature engineers have tried to bring this up, felt unheard, and eventually just stopped trying. Recently, I used AI to help me synthesize these conversations and better understand the bottleneck. I wrote a long markdown file to validate with my teammates if they felt the same. The Platform Team got wind of it, and I shared it. This triggered a lot of frustration (understandably they felt it was AI slop sent their way). I eventually got a meeting with one of the platform engineers. I tried to stay focused purely on the problems, knowing my solution (allowing state management in the domain layer) would be pushed away. The meeting went poorly. I didn’t feel like the weight of our frustration was understood, and when I mentioned potentially allowing some optionality for senior engineers, I was literally laughed at. It feels like this rule is now followed like a religion. How do I rebuild this relationship and actually be taken seriously? How can I change a culture where the “builders” feel like the “gatekeepers” are limiting them instead of helping them?

    46 min

  6. 16 MARS

    Episode 504: Should I quit my AI job before my first day and professional button-clicker

    In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Hi Jamison and Dave. Eight years into my software engineering career, all of it at Series B and C startups, I’ve been craving two things: a recognizable brand name on my resume and the chance to work on real scale problems. After a long search, I finally got both. The catch? I got them in the wrong order. I accepted an offer at one of the hottest and fastest-growing AI companies in the application layer space. Exciting work, smart people, real momentum, but not quite a household name yet, and not quite facing the kind of scaling challenges that come with a billion users yet either. Two weeks later, I finally heard that I cleared the interviews from a big brand name tech company. I’ll be honest: it wasn’t my first choice brand name. I bombed interviews at a few others and this was basically my consolation prize. Here’s the thing about this mega tech company right now: the culture has … shifted. It feels less like a tech company and more like a social experiment with a $1.5 trillion market cap. So now I’m torn and the clock is ticking. My start date at the AI company is in a few weeks and I’m currently in team matching at the mega tech co. Do I renege before I even badge in? Do I start, survive team matching, and then quit? Or do I just honor my commitment and forget about the brand name for now? More broadly: under what circumstances is it ever okay to renege or quit shortly after starting? Have either of you been in this situation or been on the receiving end? I need stories, I need wisdom, and honestly I need someone to just tell me what to do. I’ve changed from a java developer role to OIC integration on oracle cloud. I’m not sure if that was a good move as it doesn’t feel like I’m doing much coding but lots of clicking. I was thinking that having cloud experience would benefit me but now I’m not sure. I’m not sure if I should run back to a java developer job or give it a chance and how much time would be a fair chance?

    32 min

  7. 9 MARS

    Episode 503: Hardware is hard and my PMs are pushing AI slop code

    In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I’m a software developer with about 15 years in the industry, and I am soon starting as the CTO of a robotics company with about 50 employees. Though I have years of experience and an academic background within the field of robotics, I have always been focused on the software side of things. In my new role, I am ultimately responsible for the hardware team as well. How do I go about earning the respect, and becoming an effective leader, of my new colleagues working in a field in which I am not an expert myself? Hi, I’m meowmeow, and I’ve enjoyed your podcast for a long time. I’m working at a small engineering company which don’t have lots of profit. Recently, the PMs at my company(including the CEO) have started “vibe coding” directly on our product. They’ve even added PMs to the project planning list as contributors. Whenever they open a PR, the code is AI-generated and reflects their personal working style. The code quality is fairly low and engineers end up spending a lot of time reviewing and fixing it, even though we’re already under a heavy workload. Our CEO comes from a product management background. He believes PMs should write code and deploy their own implementations, and that engineers are not fast enough and should simply move faster. I’ve already been feeling stressed due to the workload, and this situation seems to be making it worse. Engineering leadership doesn’t seem able to push back effectively. What should I do?

    37 min

  8. 2 MARS

    Episode 502: Management keeps leaving and I hate using AI to code

    In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Hi, thank you for the podcast, I am long time listener, first time asker. Something weird is going on at my company. A colleague of my always wanted to get promoted to management, he got the opportunity, but after multiple preparatory meeting for this new promotion, HE QUIT! He did not tell what happened there, only that “it was time for something new”. Now several months later my skip level declared that he wants to be a developer again. Another manager was offered his position, which is a significant promotion (basically head of engineering), which he accepted, but after being included into high level meetings he declared that he is also QUITTING! We now have an interim Head of engineering, who declared that he is only doing this until a replacement is found. Why does no one wants to be in the management? What is happening at these meetings that people leave? Btw. the financial state of the company is not great, but not horrible, the CEO even declared that there won’t be layoffs this year. So what’s going on? I really like working at this company, but I can’t shake the feeling after these events that I am up for a big surprise soon. Hi, I’m a senior dev at a megacorp. I’m struggling with AI. We’ve got a lot of initiatives around it and are expected to be using it with our work. The problem is every time I try to use it I get really frustrated. It feels like working with a junior dev who doesn’t know the codebase well but knows lots of language/framework trivia. I also feel displeasure in my work turning into just reviewing some generated code and fixing it up. Especially, when you have to be very thorough because we all know that a single line of code can cause an outage. I just find no joy in this kind of work and am starting to have an aversion to it even when I just try to learn more about it. I’m also having a hard time teasing apart the hype from the reality. I’m either hearing that “the models are so great, this is the future, coding isn’t a career anymore” or “this is hype, the bubble will burst soon and ruin everything.” Both of these outcomes seem kinda catastrophic but I have no idea which one to believe in (or maybe there’s a 3rd option?). So, how do I overcome this aversion? How do I make sense of the hype vs. reality? How do I learn to stop worrying and love the slop? Thanks, Dr. Strangecode

    41 min
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À propos

It takes more than great code to be a great engineer. Soft Skills Engineering is a weekly advice podcast for software developers about the non-technical stuff that goes into being a great software developer.

Informations

  • Créateur
    Jamison Dance and Dave Smith
  • Années d’activité
    2016 - 2026
  • Épisodes
    510
  • Classement
    Tout public
  • Copyright
    © 2016 Jamison Dance and Dave Smith
  • Site Web de l’émission
    Soft Skills Engineering

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