Mental health in software engineering

This is a person that should have never been in a leadership position. I have worked under these types of people that were great engineers themselves but couldn’t lead worth shit.

No trust in the team. Always doing shit themselves. No discussion. Backdoor discussions. Always bending to the will of management. Everything is “important”/“critical”. It’s micromanaging to the worst degree.

At the same time, I would likely fail in the same way if given the position. Albeit, to a much lesser degree. I think management often puts us in these impossible positions without any good reason other than “to look good to X.” What’s even worse if it’s was just to earn fucking brownie points with some no name mid level director.

This is why I think unions in tech would be great. To set realistic expectations, approach management from a collective point of view.

Unfortunately companies today only aim to get that VC money with a quick exit and IPO. I think the general sentiment amongst the vultures is a union would make the quick exit less of a reality.

This piece teaches me almost nothing about Vadim but shows me a ton about the environment he worked in. Someone built that culture, who are they? Why did they do it? Was Vadim complicit? Why did he feel so little control?

Hustle culture is not challenging, it does not help anyone grow, it simply exploits people. It's common, banal stuff.

Worse is when it's a salesman, not the CEO. It's infuriating. I always wanted to tell that salesman that he got to go back to the customer and tell them that we weren't going to do it, since he was the one who promised it without finding out whether and when we could do it.

Of course, I never had the clout to force that to happen...

At one point many years ago I was Director of Engineering for a company that was planning a major new version of their product. After I'd been there a few weeks I said to the CEO that I thought I had a pretty good understanding of the scope and challenges for the new release.

The CEO said "no you don't" - which led me to ask why he thought this and he said he had thought up a new "must have" feature over the weekend - which was clearly very technically challenging. He then asserted that anything could be built in 48 hours....

I'm amazed I lasted as long as I did in that job.

At my current job, I can. Up to three days a year, I can take a mental health day and charge it to sick time.

Note well: I have never had this at any other job. But if you need the day, take the day, even if it has to be vacation.