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My tech lead is an idiot

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11–20 of 44 posts

Re: My tech lead is an idiot

#11
You should always be job hunting to some extent or other. You should take other offers if they are more appealing to you than your current job. You should not take other offers if they are not more appealing than your current job. You should have an offer in hand before you quit.

This is true regardless of if your tech lead is an idiot or a genius although you should include that as one of the criteria by which you evaluate other offers.

You should also calm down about this and not take it personally. You're using your skills and talents to put food on the table. Your tech lead is using his. His manager is using his. They're not out to personally screw you. You do get credit. It's called money and it arrives in your bank account every two weeks or so. If you don't think the credit is proportional to what you bring to the table see the start of this comment.

Re: My tech lead is an idiot

#12
Coding brings out the hate because it's such a precise discipline and people, especially those in management, optimize for optics rather than correctness.

In my more sober moments I like to consider the smallness of the entire enterprise of my employer. Yes, everyone around me sucks but what other than my sanity is being hurt by the stupidity of it all? Nothing, really.

If that doesn't work (it doesn't for me), think: "I'm being paid to smile and nod when fed horseshit."

Re: My tech lead is an idiot

#14

Get him promoted. It's the https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilbert_principle

Really brilliant. For every promotion, we should ask ourselves if it was "Peter-based", "Dilbert-based" or really authentic, for good. It surely works as an evidence about the company's corporative culture.

Re: My tech lead is an idiot

#16

> And to top it off, he is not very productive — our junior engineers are lapping him on tickets closed. Tech leads have responsibilities that junior engineers don't have, such as architectural design, code review, mentoring junior developers, meeting with management and other groups, etc. Thus, they might spend less time on programming than junior developers and close fewer tickets. They might also be working on mor…

> definitely don't say your tech lead is an idiot

I’m curious to know why you recommend this. The poster should perhaps not use those same words, but isn’t it worthwhile giving honest feedback?

Re: My tech lead is an idiot

#17
post #16

> And to top it off, he is not very productive — our junior engineers are lapping him on tickets closed. Tech leads have responsibilities that junior engineers don't have, such as architectural design, code review, mentoring junior developers, meeting with management and other groups, etc. Thus, they might spend less time on programming than junior developers and close fewer tickets. They might also be working on mor…

> definitely don't say your tech lead is an idiot I’m curious to know why you recommend this. The poster should perhaps not use those same words, but isn’t it worthwhile giving honest feedback?

Mostly because OP will come across as unprofessional badmouthing his colleagues. Not saying the tech lead is not an idiot, but we only get OP's perspective and will just come off as a whiner if he rants about someone else instead of showcasing himself in an interview

Re: My tech lead is an idiot

#18
post #16

> And to top it off, he is not very productive — our junior engineers are lapping him on tickets closed. Tech leads have responsibilities that junior engineers don't have, such as architectural design, code review, mentoring junior developers, meeting with management and other groups, etc. Thus, they might spend less time on programming than junior developers and close fewer tickets. They might also be working on mor…

> definitely don't say your tech lead is an idiot I’m curious to know why you recommend this. The poster should perhaps not use those same words, but isn’t it worthwhile giving honest feedback?

The poster thinks the tech lead is in idiot partly based on the fact the tech lead doesn't close as many tickets as juniors.

Any good interviewer will figure this out if it's mentioned.

Then they will know the poster doesn't know as much as they think they do about the job of a tech lead, and that they jump to damning conclusions from dubious judgement. This correlates with "this person may be challenging to work with", which matters a lot.

They might still get the job, but it's not an advantage.

Instead, why not start a constructive discussion with the interviewer about how they found the way work was done disappointing at the last job and would like to know how things are performed in the new one, or if going for a lead job, how they envisage going about the lead role.

Re: My tech lead is an idiot

#20
post #16

> And to top it off, he is not very productive — our junior engineers are lapping him on tickets closed. Tech leads have responsibilities that junior engineers don't have, such as architectural design, code review, mentoring junior developers, meeting with management and other groups, etc. Thus, they might spend less time on programming than junior developers and close fewer tickets. They might also be working on mor…

> definitely don't say your tech lead is an idiot I’m curious to know why you recommend this. The poster should perhaps not use those same words, but isn’t it worthwhile giving honest feedback?

When I'm interviewing people, if they start to bad mouth a past employer I immediately write them off. There are ways to bring up issues with a past employer that isn't bad mouthing. If a candidate doesn't say anything about a past employer, I know that it wasn't good and respect they don't bad mouth.
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