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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?

#461

Post by confidantlake »

rendall wrote: post #332
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #228

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. 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 b…

I can assure you there is nothing "cutesy" about mental health. Feeling severely depressed/suicidal is much more serious than some minor cold. Thank god the US is moving in the direction where mental health is recognized as a serious issue. Comments like this show that we still have a long way to go.

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

#463

Post by faangiq »

Your boss sucks. Responsibility for a junior RCG’s success/failure in their first year rests mostly on their managers and senior peers. You have to fuck up pretty severely for the blame for any shortfall to shift to your shoulders. Unfortunately this industry is full of clowns we call managers. Yours sounds like an immature noob.

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

#464

Post by jokethrowaway »

Nbox9 wrote: post #350
dbcurtis wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a theory about why it is so difficult for great IC's to make the jump to being a great manager. As an individual contributor, you need two things most of all: 1. quiet uninterrupted time to focus your mind and get into flow, and 2. quick responses to any blockers or questions that you have so that you can get back into the work. As a manager, a key part of your job now requires you to be infinitely interruptab…

> I have a theory about why it is so difficult for great IC's to make the jump to being a great manager I find it very odd that most ICs take the path of management. This seems like an unnatural transition, like going from being a minister to playing in a death metal band.

I'm fairly sure it's done mainly because if you want to make more you need to become a director of something.

In companies when expensive tech only people are allowed you see less techies among managers.

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

#465

Post by JamesBarney »

pdonis wrote: post #246
JamesBarney wrote: post #128

The first thing you should do is go to your direct manager and discuss the feedback you got. See if they feel the same way. One of three things is happening. Either your boss went off on you without communicating with your direct supervisor.(unlikely) Or your direct supervisor feels this way and is too chickenshit to them yourself. Or they are throwing you under the bus. The second thing you should take into account…

> Either your boss went off on you without communicating with your direct supervisor.(unlikely) I think whether this is unlikely depends on the boss. I've worked under higher level bosses who would say lots of things in the spur of the moment in a meeting that they would have forgotten ten minutes after the meeting ended, and which certainly would not have led to any longer term consequences. They were just venting a…

That's fair. But I haven't seen that communication style very often in engineering managers. I've only seen it once in an engineering manager in the last 12 years of professional development. (I saw it all the time when I worked service industry or sales jobs though.)

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

#466

Post by wildzzz »

zwieback wrote: post #8

The first meeting where your manager just abandoned you and you ended up talking to your manager's boss is totally inappropriate. Being so new to the job basically all the responsibility is with your direct manager and her boss is wrong to dump on you without your manager present. I'd give it another chance though, sounds like the work is fun and maybe you can communicate your concerns to your direct manager.

I'm sure the vast majority of the criticism of the project should have just been directed to the manager. Taking too long on a single part can definitely be directed towards a junior dev but there should be some guidance attached to that (check in more often, etc). Anything that doesn't fall under the specific tasks given to the engineers is entirely the manager's job.

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

#467

Post by BackBlast »

First you need to understand what is actually happening here and who is responsible.

Deadlines are creative fiction. It's nice to hit them, but they are almost always management tools to extract work from engineers. Only sometimes are they intimately connected to actual business needs. Don't get me wrong, they can be a helpful tool, but equally they can be harmful.

Scoping and requirement changes are program management issues. It's useful to push back on obviously bad requirements and scoping. But this requires understanding of the business space and what likely is good and what isn't for the end user. Sometimes you can save program management blunders with the right questions and friction to the desired feature set. But this is more the in the realm of experienced devs correcting management issues (an invaluable skill). Customers certainly can change their minds, and it's often appropriate when figuring what the real needs are. But it does cost additional schedule and money to pivot. Sometimes significant amounts of both when fundamental assumptions are changed. This should be understood by management or they are not doing their jobs.

You experienced some common management issues. Your boss was expressing his frustration to you and that may or may not reflect on you down the line. A lot of people don't own up to or recognize failings.

Engineering issues also can happen, but that typically involves failure to build the thing to spec. Also can involve over engineering or under engineering given the communicated business needs. This happens plenty too.

Unless you're just lazy and not working, that's when delivery time is your fault.

Good management of engineering projects is pretty rare. In twenty years I have only experienced it a couple of times.

As for what you can do, ask your direct manager questions like "I really liked working on this project, how can I be successful here?". This helps align your interests with his and communicate your willingness to pitch in/contribute.

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

#468

Post by pdonis »

JamesBarney wrote: post #465
pdonis wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Either your boss went off on you without communicating with your direct supervisor.(unlikely) I think whether this is unlikely depends on the boss. I've worked under higher level bosses who would say lots of things in the spur of the moment in a meeting that they would have forgotten ten minutes after the meeting ended, and which certainly would not have led to any longer term consequences. They were just venting a…

That's fair. But I haven't seen that communication style very often in engineering managers. I've only seen it once in an engineering manager in the last 12 years of professional development. (I saw it all the time when I worked service industry or sales jobs though.)

> I haven't seen that communication style very often in engineering managers.

It might depend on whether "engineering manager" means "an engineer who has risen to management" or "a manager who happens to manage engineers even though they have no engineering experience themselves". The communication style I described is indeed very rare in my experience for the first type of engineering manager. But in my experience it isn't for the second. It's not clear from the OP's account which type their manager's boss is (or their manager, for that matter).

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

#470

Post by SilasX »

nlh wrote: post #35
myowz wrote: post #7

This boss telling you that they felt the project should have been done a long time ago: I wonder who that comment benefits? Feels like no one. You get bummed, they give late feedback without a lot of constructive aspects to it. I am trying to think of one way it was useful to tell you that, but I can’t. Seems like you should feel justified in not being a fan of working under this person. What you do with that is hard…

I agree with this sentiment. And in fact, I’ll take it further: I’m not sure any “you should have” phrase is ever beneficial UNLESS it’s in the context of giving guidance about the future. And even then, it’s better to phrase it as “next time, I would suggest…” This has been a pet peeve of mine for a long time. “You should have” phrases are often used to berate or make the recipient feel bad while acting as a vent fo…

More generally, I would say that any advice of the form "don't do X" is useless unless paired with "instead, in that kind of situation, for the goal(s) you were optimizing for, do Y".
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