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Ask HN: My boss doesn't think I'm doing good work, how to proceed?

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Re: Ask HN: My boss doesn't think I'm doing good work, how to proceed?

#331

Post by kuhewa »

dazeandconfuse wrote: post #41
mushufasa wrote: post #24

> Part of the reason it had taken so long is because I put a substantial amount of work into a part of the project that's no longer necessary due to changing requirements, which I don't think I could have forseen. One of the things that I've experienced with new grad junior devs is that there's an adjustment needed to change from academic working to business working. In academia, usually the professor gives an assign…

Thanks. I definitely will take that into consideration in the future. I'm not sure if it would have helped in this specific case but I can definitely think of other situations at work where taking your advice would have helped me.

While changing requirements are outside of your control, clearly the consequences affect you, however unfairly. It's a skill to predict what might change and which parts of the project could end up being wasted time, and you will develop it with experience. I think being in continuing regular communication with your manager and team members as others are suggesting is also a good idea and partially for indirect reasons, because you might pick up on some clues of what these things outside your control may end up affecting how your performance is perceived.

Re: Ask HN: My boss doesn't think I'm doing good work, how to proceed?

#332

Post by rendall »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #228
HomeDeLaPot wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You called in sick yesterday and went to the beach with your buddies? I'm glad you did! We all need a mental health day once in a while. Being happy actually makes you more productive in the long term.

> You called in sick yesterday and went to the beach with your buddies? I'm glad you did! We all need a mental health day once in a while. Being happy actually makes you more productive in the long term. Not quite. It's great when employees take care of themselves and make a point to enjoy their time outside of the office. However, it's not really cool if you commit to be somewhere on a certain day, no-show, and then…

Cross-cultural programmer here, and I can help.

In Europe, calling in sick when you're not actually, recognizably ill is a pretty serious breach of trust. No cutesy "mental health break" exceptions. That said, you likely have at least 20 days of paid vacation, plus holidays.

In the US, where 10 days paid vacation is the norm and you're often punished in some way for actually taking it, the occasional "mental health break" of calling in sick is winked at.

Re: Ask HN: My boss doesn't think I'm doing good work, how to proceed?

#333

Post by [deleted] »

kmonsen wrote: post #220
rdtwo wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So i work with this person that is really slow. She should have accomplished a task in 2-4 weeks and it took her 6 months. We gave her 3 months to accomplish it. So at some point you do need to point out that a task should not have v taken as long as it did and ask the person why it did. Was there some sort of unknown issue that caused the task to take 4x longer than expected

(1) I don't think you can reliably say after the first suck project. Some people are a bit slow at picking up new things, but become very productive after a while. (2) Others pick things up super quickly, but never become super productive as the first group. And of course lots of variations of people that don't fit neatly into either group. I am in group (2) I think, but in my experience you really want people that b…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: My boss doesn't think I'm doing good work, how to proceed?

#334

Post by fshbbdssbbgdd »

aunty_helen wrote: post #265
fshbbdssbbgdd wrote: post #31

Tell your manager that you are scared by what happened in the meeting with the skip manager and ask if they want you working for them or if you should start looking for another job. Most likely you should leave in this situation, because if your skip manager thinks you suck, you don’t have much of a future at the company. They will likely need to approve promotions, raises, etc. However, you don’t have much to lose b…

Absolutely don't signal to anyone higher than you that you might start looking for another job. That's the worst thing you could possibly do and will leave you branded as a lost cause. What manager is going to stick his neck out or put effort into a subordinate that doesn't even know if they want to be there. It could also leave you in a compromised position under many circumstances if they wanted to get rid of you /…

I’ve successfully gotten promotions multiple times at big tech companies after talking to my manager about what other companies are offering and not-that-subtly threatening to leave. The pot is only so big, so sometimes it helps to be the squeaky wheel.

Re: Ask HN: My boss doesn't think I'm doing good work, how to proceed?

#335

Post by siva7 »

de_Selby wrote: post #124
Gortal278 wrote: post #3

Shrug it off and keep your head down. Keep on producing good work. Your manager should of deflected this sort of stuff and you are a junior developer. The responsibility doesn't really fall on you. Take some notes about what you can do better on future projects and try and improve. Rinse and repeat. Gj on delivering.

>Your manager should of deflected this sort of stuff Also keep in mind that there is a good chance the manager might have had OPs back in all this, maybe it's just the managers boss who has unreasonable expectations (maybe due to poor communication from the manager about changing requirements etc).

Unlikely because she left him alone

Re: Ask HN: My boss doesn't think I'm doing good work, how to proceed?

#336

Post by neltnerb »

dazeandconfuse wrote: post #315
neltnerb wrote: post #294

I doubt that this comment will surface to the point where the OP can find it, but just in case -- I'm not sure if it's obvious whether they're saying that you need to improve communicating or improving something technical. One of the things I needed to learn in a real job was that if things aren't going well they need to know loudly and early in order to fix it. They can't allocate resources if they don't know things…

Thanks. I'm reading all the comments. I definitely felt like what the boss was upset about at the meeting had more to do with the technical side, rather than communication. I feel like my communication with my manager was good. We have all-team meets (that the boss isn't a part of) where I gave weekly status updates, and there's a group chat on slack with my manager where me and the other person on the project discus…

That's very weird. I don't know much about office politics but it seems suspicious that your manager wasn't there to directly address your complaints.

Here's how I figure it. Let's say they felt they had conveyed the issues to you and that they could not get you to understand it. It happens, whose fault doesn't matter so much. But if that were the case I'd think a good manager would want to be in the room so that they can reinforce the thing being said and make sure everyone is on the same page.

Or what if they knew exactly what was going on but didn't see any issues. So then a good manager would go in and defend you because you did your best and if your manager knew what you were doing and didn't, well, manage you then who screwed that up really? But a bad manager might just conveniently not be there and who knows what they've been telling your boss you've been doing.

It really sounds like you three need to be in the room at the same time and agree on exactly what you're going to do and with what tools and how you'll explain what you're doing and get it approved. I don't see how else you can cover your butt, they need to take ownership of your technical choices or they aren't really managers or bosses.

But I suppose they could just honestly doubt your technical skills. If that were the case though then why would your manager and boss not both be there? No matter what happens it's really weird that the person who knew what you were doing and what needed to be done was absent.

Re: Ask HN: My boss doesn't think I'm doing good work, how to proceed?

#337

Post by rendall »

I'm confused about this scenario. Reading between the lines, it sounds like you were put solo on a project with very little guidance, just as you walked in the door on your first job. No team, no mentor, no buddy, no code reviews, no daily stand up, no issue tracking (which is a way of measuring progress). This sounds like a place that has not upgraded its software development practices in years, if they even know what they're doing at all.

The first feedback you get is from boss's boss, who directly criticized architecture, coding decisions, and timeline? No. This is not on you.

Here are lots of replies telling you to be a better communicator, which is always good, general advice, but this is not a good situation, and will not teach you how to be a better software engineer. "Do better" is just terrible feedback.

I know that you like this job, but know that there are better places out there, and that better places would never strand you like that.

Re: Ask HN: My boss doesn't think I'm doing good work, how to proceed?

#338

Post by kamaal »

>>First, he basically tells me this project should have been finished a long time ago and he can't believe it's taken this long etc.

>>He looks at the code and criticizes design decisions, some of which were made largely on my manager's explicit suggestions.

>>For instance he said I should have looked at other projects to see how they accomplished what I'm trying to do. That definitely would have been a good idea.

Very bad manager, in fact novice would be an understatement for these kind of practices, based on everything I've learned from these statements. Feed backs are a continuous, never ending process, given in a positive direction. Any surprise or a shock down the lane, implies the manager has utterly failed at their job.

Don't beat yourself up. You have done nothing wrong, and this is not the end of the road.

Re: Ask HN: My boss doesn't think I'm doing good work, how to proceed?

#339

Post by kamaal »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #189
prima-facie wrote: post #40

Your boss is gaslighting & intimidating you. - Do not be intimidated into thinking you did your work poorly. I've seen this happen many times with employees being guilt tripped, especially the younger more junior employees. You are a professional and the work you do is important for the company, you do it with pride and to the best of your ability. - Beware of gaslighting. Some bosses can be incredibly manipulative a…

> Your boss is gaslighting & intimidating you. The person giving the feedback was the boss's boss, and they clearly didn't have the entire picture of the situation. That's not gaslighting. The term "gaslighting" gets thrown around far too readily. Assuming malice and manipulation in cases of miscommunication is a quick way to sour any relationship, this one included. There's no question that communication wasn't grea…

>>The person giving the feedback was the boss's boss, and they clearly didn't have the entire picture of the situation.

Then why even have a discussion about something you don't know.

It looks a straight up case of cya, followed by manipulating a junior employee into believing it was their mistake all along- a.k.a gaslighting.

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