As a Team Lead, When Do I Tell My Manager This Dev Sucks?

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Hey folks, we're going to go to the experienced dev subreddit. And this one is about being a team lead and working with a underperforming junior engineer. And so this person had wrote on Reddit that they're trying to look for some input on when to start letting a manager know that they're working with someone that they're I don't know, I guess, trying to coach as a junior engineer on their team. And uh I think they said it's been 20 or 24 months or something that they've been working with this person trying to help them out. They actually feel like this person's regressed. So not only like has it been kind of challenging to work with them and get them up to speed, but in fact if they compare where they were at previously, it feels like they're actually working in the reverse direction.

Um, and I assume this has to do with technical aptitude, uh, as well, but they did go on to mention things like, um, they're not being proactive kind of thing, like the they have some different expectations, I guess, around how this employee, uh, you know, should be trying to to approach work and things like that. So, they're they're really not seeing what they're expecting despite all their coaching. So their their framing for this was essentially like hey it's been like you know x amount of time like in the range of like 18 20 months or so and uh when when should I bring it up to the manager that uh we're having some difficulties with this employee and so um I don't know like as I say that I'm assuming some of you might already have like strong feelings about if you're kind of paying attention to the timelines and stuff like that.

You might say like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa." Uh, others might not. Um, cuz I think it's a little bit open for interpretation exactly uh what's going on and what's happening at what time frame. But a lot of comments on this thread where people were like, "Come on, man. Like, don't be basically like, don't be an idiot. The time to raise this was like basically 20 months ago." Um, and then other people kind of stepping in to say like, hey, like, you know, for all of you saying like 20 months or whatever, um, 20 months ago, you know, people need more than than a couple months to kind of, uh, get ramped up. And I think it's just kind of like the this is open for interpretation for exactly the timelines and and what this person's asking. So, if you were to say like when should they have started raising it?

I'd probably take the perspective of like a lot longer ago. Um, what's the magic number for how long you wait working with someone that seems like they're struggling? I don't think there's a magic number. I think every situation is going to be different, but I I would have expected probably, you know, within within a couple months of working with someone if you're not really seeing progress. um you know that you'd kind of let the manager know and not I want to be clear about this. This isn't to say like I'm not seeing progress therefore terminate this person. This is to give the manager a heads up. In fact, if this was a new hire to the team or a transfer into the team, right? So they're they are for whatever reason new to the team. Um, this would be something I hope the manager is actually having conversations about uh with the team lead like semi-frequently in the beginning to be like, "Hey, how's the new person doing?

How's the new person doing?" Um, not necessarily that you need like a detailed documented report on it, but like I would my expectation in a situation like this would be that if there was a new person on the team that was working with my team lead or technical lead and I had them kind of uh, you know, being accountable for this person's onboarding, that kind of thing, making sure that they're getting integrated, getting the the support they need um, sort of on the day-to-day like yes, a lot of that is my responsibility as a manager, right? Like I I do those things. But even for uh like interns, we have intern buddies for new hires to the team. Even if it's not with my team lead or technical lead, I might have them paired up with an engineer on the team. And part of that is for uh load balancing.

Part of that is to give opportunities to uh you know people on the team to be able to do some coaching and mentoring. And the other thing too is like it creates in my opinion, in my experience, a nice dynamic with the new person on the team that they're getting integrated with their team members. They don't always have to to come to me as the manager to ask what they feel like might be like, you know, I got a stupid question. I don't want to bother my manager and look dumb. Um, by the way, I don't personally believe in that. Like I I want you to ask me anything kind of thing. Like there are no stupid questions. I don't expect you know everything. Please ask.

But I despite like how much you know lip service is done for that I think that uh a lot of the time people end up feeling that way right they can feel more comfortable maybe with a colleague to be like hey can I can I bother you about this so that I don't have to bother my manager so if those are the expectations set come on buddy you're going to do this to box me in. Um, those are the expectations I set. Then I would be working with this team leader, technical lead in the first few weeks, like checking in to see how things are going. So that if they had to tell me after a few weeks or a couple of months, hey, like I'm working with I keep I think I keep calling the person in my example's Bob.

So I'm sorry if your name's Bob and you feel attacked by this, but you know, hey, Bob's on the like, you know, ramping up on the team, but uh it's been a few weeks now and I feel like we're missing the mark a little bit or might need some extra support or here's what that's looking like, whatever it happens to be. like that shouldn't be a surprise to me at that point. It might feel disappointing, but that should also be kind of congruent with our previous conversations, right? I don't want to be a few months into it and you're like, "Yeah, Bob's not really working out." And I'm like, "Wait a second." Like, "What? Like, why why is this coming up for the first time?" Um, there should be some hints along the way that if I'm hearing that from you, I'm like, "Oh, like that actually kind of adds up based on what we were saying." Unfortunate, right?

But adds up. Um, so there there's a balance to this kind of stuff, right? The the reality is um some people were saying on this Reddit thread like, "Oh, I'd know in like a week if someone was going to be good or And it's like, okay. Um, I'm glad glad you you know everything about people. Um, probably not, but okay. Uh, if you want to live in your bubble, that's cool. But I I think that I think that people need a little bit of time. You might be able to have a good indication of how someone might operate, but people need a little bit of time. And so, like I said earlier, there's no magic number. or it's this x amount of time, but um it's not something that you just want to leave, right? Because the the earlier that you understand, you know, if you're trying to coach someone and work with them on on things, the earlier you understand like if they're having some um whether it's technical aptitude challenges, right?

So, their skill level is maybe not where you expected or they need more specific direction, right? This could just be a thing. they're new to the team and they're like, "Hey, like someone's got to like give me a playbyplay here so I understand how to operate and once I know that then I'm good." Um, it could be interpersonal challenges. It could be any number of things. Every single person is going to be different. And I think the earlier that you can identify some of this stuff, the earlier that you can get some support for this person. Um, that's not to say that, you know, every person is going to be someone that, uh, like, as unfortunate as it sounds, is uh, is worth investing heavily into, right? I would say that if you took the opportunity, you put all the time and effort into hiring someone, like if you end up having this pattern frequently where you're like, we hired someone and they're just not great.

Like, you probably have some maybe something else to change about your hiring process or whatever that looks like. But, uh, I would say, you know, someone's new to the team, you're going to want to make sure that you spend a little bit of time trying to figure out how do we get this person the support they need. I think that with team lead positions or tech lead positions, I mean, these are not the exact same, but often kind of lumped together. Uh if you're in a a role where you're, you know, offering some type of like informal leadership this way in coaching, um the what's a good way to say this like there's okay like that that's definitely a manager's like responsibility as well. So I think that there's some you need to clarify with your manager what the expectation is uh in your role for facilitating that kind of stuff.

Um you might be working with a manager who is expecting you to be a lot more proactive with this kind of thing. So sure for example you might be keeping the manager up to date like hey this person's maybe ramping up a little bit slower whatever it happens to be. Um and and like and then you are actively working on it and they're expecting that of you. So they're just like cool my team leader tech lead has let me know. Um and given expectations I've set before I I must trust that they're just working on this. Uh in other cases that might not be the expectation or it might not be clear. Um, and in either of those latter cases, I would say like make sure that when you're raising awareness, you are you are asking for support as well, right?

Because if if that's not an expectation on you that you're already proactively, you know, driving different coaching or whatever other type of support mechanisms with this person, um, then the expectation should be that that you're asking for it cuz otherwise, what what do we expect happens, right? Hey, Bob's new to the team. Just letting you know he's not ramping up very well. And then and then nothing, right? Like, there has to be something that happens. So, either the expectation's been put on you that you're proactively coaching and dealing with this or you should be asking for support. Um, and I don't like personally, like this is just me speaking, if I had um if I had someone on the team that I'd set up uh as like someone's intern buddy or, you know, pairing them up with someone new to the team, my like my expectation on that person would never be like, you have to go figure this out on your own, right?

Like that wouldn't be the thing. Uh, and also like ultimately I'm accountable for everyone on my team at the end of the day. So it would be not in my best interest to to do that to be like, hey, this is all on you. Like you better figure it out for the same reason that I wouldn't hire someone to the team and give them zero support in general. Like it's not in my best interest. If someone's coming on the team, ultimately they're my responsibility and I need to be accountable. And then I think there's opportunities to pair them up with people on the team like I was saying. I think that can make a good um good experience on on both sides. Actually, all all sides, including my own, right, where I can load balance, too.

But but that does mean that I set the expectation that if someone's paired up like hey like you let me know any support that you need like that's what I'm here for right like you let me know if you're having any challenges and depending on the person's experience right um if they're more senior I would uh maybe clear up some expectations like hey you should feel empowered that if there's some things you want to pry in terms of coaching and things like that. Like I want to give you some of that flexibility. And then for people that are more junior and I'm I'm not saying like interns like onboarding other interns necessarily, but um if you have more junior people that are paired up this way, it's like hey don't like my expectation on you isn't like to go solve the problem. My expectation is like you're trying you know to help this person.

you're onboarding with them and I'll check in with you and I'll check in with them too, right? Like if they're I'm obviously going to be trying to do one-on- ones and catching up with the new person on the team or the junior person on the team. So, I'll get their perspective for sure. And I'm hoping that by having them paired up with someone, I get yet another perspective. I If you think about it, if I'm doing one-on- ones with say uh a junior or new person of the team, they might be telling me, "Hey, things are looking good." Yep. uh making, you know, trying to make progress on this thing and like uh oh yeah, we're hitting some weird uh roadblocks, but like I'm working with uh Billy on the team. Now it's Bobby and Billy um or Bob and Billy and you know, we're just hitting some roadblocks, but like Billy's been great and uh you know, plan to get unblocked on just some you know, some of this other stuff.

And then I go talk to you know, my more senior person on the team and I'm like, "Hey, how's how's Bob doing? how's the new person doing? They might have a totally different story, right? They might say like, "Hey, um, I've noticed that it's really challenging to work with this person. Uh, they're not taking any initiative. Um, you know, and and here's where things can get interesting, right? If we take an example like this where we're getting some mixed signals, this is like again as a manager where I need to step in to try and understand like, wait a second, I'm hearing two different stories. Like what's going on, right? like how do I how do I make sure that the people are supported properly? Uh because now if I'm getting two stories, I don't actually know exactly what's going on. It could be it could be that uh maybe the new employee is uh you know, not taking a lot of initiative.

They're not doing much. They're kind of coasting, whatever. uh or they're they're truly not understanding things, but again, they're not asking questions or seemingly being curious and and trying to learn and understand. And that could be for a bunch of different reasons. So, we could have that. On the other side, we could have the more senior person. Maybe they think they're helping and they're actually perpetuating the problem, right? So, they might be saying, "Hey, I've been trying to help this new person, but what does help look like?" Maybe maybe they're screen sharing and uh they're clicking all the buttons, right? They're like, "Hey, just watch me do this." Like, "I will do it for you. Watch me do it." And then they get bothered when the new person isn't able to do those things on their own. Right? So, like if I understand these things better, then I can try to uh you know, help coach from both sides.

I might tell that senior person, "Hey, by the way, when you're trying to help this person out, like you should try getting them to screen share, get them to drive." Right? When you have someone else that's actually going through the stuff and they're the ones driving it and you can give them guidance, it might feel slower, but at least they're getting to like actually practice doing the thing versus just watching you. So maybe try that next time, right? Or if it was the other way around, I might say like, "Hey, maybe there's something else we could try here um around like if someone's not taking initiative or it seems that way, maybe I can spend some more time see like are they interested in the work? Are they engaged in it? Um are they are they not understanding some of the domain and that's like getting them disengaged because they're like this seems really complicated and it's not clicking.

Maybe I can spend some extra time with them and give them more background on like why why we do what we do like why is it important because sometimes that can you know it's a could be a non-technical thing and just having a better understanding of like you know why why this space matters to us. Sometimes people can, you know, change their outlook when they're like, "Wow, like hold on." Like it's not just it's not just changing part of the tech stack. It's like actually enabling these different users to do certain things. And that's that's why it's significant. Um that can that can make a difference for some people. So anyway, all this comes back to like uh I think there's multiple sides to every story. I think that there's no perfect timeline for how long someone needs to ramp up, but I do think that the earlier you can communicate to a manager around if you're having any challenges or not, if things are going well, the earlier and more regular the better.

I like I I don't know. I think that brazing it early, even if you're not sure yet and you're like, "Hey, like here's just what I'm seeing. I need a little bit more time." Just raising awareness early, I think, is super helpful. Raising awareness early does not mean that automatically like you're tattling on someone for being terrible and they're going to get fired and like you need to feel guilty about it. But at the same time, like you're being accountable, right? You're saying, "Hey, like here's how I'm approaching things. here's what I'm observing and I'm letting you know because at the end of the day if if unfortunately that person has to go on a performance improvement plan and it doesn't turn around then like it's been understood since an earlier point in time it's not a surprise for people involved. Um but yeah I think earlier is better.

So, back to the very, you know, crux of this Reddit thread. When should they do it? They should have raised awareness earlier on, but that doesn't necessarily mean that that employee who is struggling should have or would have been like terminated earlier. We don't know. Maybe they could have gotten the proper coaching they needed and things could have turned around. Maybe it could have been bad bad team fit and there's another team where they do really well. could be anything, but there's a different time horizon for actually coaching and mentoring someone and trying to turn things around versus raising awareness. And I think that's why when I was reading through that Reddit thread, there were so many weird conflicting views. It's because they're discussing different things. But hope that helps. If you got questions about software engineering, career development, leave them below in the comments or go to codekameete.com.

You can submit stuff anonymously and I'll make a video response just like this one for you and everyone else to watch. Take care.