How I Set Boundaries as a Developer in a Startup

Transcript is auto-generated and may contain errors.

Hey folks, we're going to go to the experience dev subreddit. This person was asking about setting some boundaries for work life balance. And so the context is that they are at a startup. I guess they recently started there. They said it's around 200 people. Um they've worked at uh startups big tech. They think they even mentioned they founded a company at one point that they were trying out kind of thing. So, it's not like they're talking about this from a spa where they they've never heard that like startups or smaller companies might have some um I don't know different perspectives on like working hours, that kind of thing. Um, and I mean even at 200 people, I would say like like as someone who's been through a startup that grew to over 200, um, I would say by that point too, a lot of the time there's some shift in in some of that that culture that's like kind of grindy, but not always, right?

Every place is going to be different. So um again the context is that they're not they're not surprised by the fact that there is a um you know uh a a company that maybe has some some work life balance expectations or culture that seems to be a little um more aggressive on the work side. But um the question that they have is really around like how do they approach setting those boundaries and so they were saying you know they were having a conversation with their wife like they there is this sort of agreement like hey like probably do need to figure out how to set some boundaries. I just wanted to talk through this because I think it's important. Um, I think that, um, when I make other videos and I talk about the things that we value and prioritize, uh, this I I realize like starts to take us away from what feels like a software engineering conversation.

But, um, like I think this kind of stuff is really important on the career side and like longevity. So, uh I I don't I don't want to talk about it and make you think like, oh, this has nothing to do with software engineering. I'm like, I think it has a lot to do with your career. And if your career is in software engineering, like hopefully this feels pretty relevant. Um so, just wanted to give you that kind of heads up. But when I talk about this stuff normally from a values and priorities perspective, I will say that like, you know, the things that you value and prioritize will change over time, right? And I I like using myself as an example because I've seen some of that. Um, you know, when I was earlier in my career, like single, no kids, uh, you know, the what I could focus on was literally just myself and that was fine.

Uh, and I had colleagues that had, you know, families or like, you know, they had a spouse and then same people, you know, working with, they go from spouse to kid. So like I'm I'm even seeing them in this like transition phase where like yeah like at the same time maybe they had uh significantly more flexibility like like I might have and then things change. And that's I'm not saying that in like a bad way, right? I'm not saying oh like you know these these people just like weren't able to to work as hard and like they weren't as useful. Like no nothing like that. Please please don't misinterpret it. The point being that, you know, they they go from this place of like perhaps they can just spend lots of extra time because we were a startup and we're small and like scrappy, but over time it's like, you know, even even if they wanted to, I guess is my point.

Even if they really wanted to, it's like it's not actually the right balance, right? As in uh from their, you know, their own life perspective, it's not the right thing to to prioritize. they literally have a family and you know children and so yeah like that obviously takes more time and like you know uh for others to decide I suppose but like my argument would be that yeah if you have you know uh spouse and kids like that's a a really important thing to prioritize that's my wife in the car beside us she's not paying attention she's not a she's not a good car vlogger come on Leah Yeah, say something to the camera, Leah. No. Okay, jeez. That's fine. We'll have to work on that for next time. But um so yeah, uh your the things that you value and prioritize are going to change, right?

And so like this person was saying like they had tried founding a company at some point. Maybe at that point uh I I don't know maybe the from a work life balance perspective at that point maybe it was the same as what they're kind of looking at right now in terms of uh what what they're what they're aspiring for. Maybe it was different. Maybe at that point in time they were like hey I want to found a company and like I'm able to kind of adjust what my work life balance expectations are to be able to found this. Again people are different. Some people will kind of go like if I were to go found a company, I think I'd have to have a serious conversation with my wife to be like I need like I need to sort of be on the same page as you that this is probably going to be more demanding in different ways um than we're used to, right?

some like things might change from work where I'm not like say on call um or I'm not getting pulled into a security thing but like there's also going to be other types of demands on me um and thus demands sort of like on our relationship and life and I'd want to be on the same page as her. So I think that these types of things change for people over time. There's no right or wrong answer and there's no right or wrong answer even for one individual because it will change. So in a situation like this, this person's now working for this company, 200 person smaller, you know, small mid-size company. It's not big tech necessarily. Um, and they're kind of caught in this situation like some of the examples they were saying like, hey, people are sending, you know, messages on Sundays, right? They're sending Slack messages or they're emailing or some people are even having a meeting on Sunday.

Um, and they're like, I just, you know, I I don't think I can do that. I need to be able to set boundaries. And I and I fully agree, right? Um, I think that this is the kind of thing where again if you are like maybe how I I might have been personally years back like I probably wouldn't give too much of a I was like I was I'm working anyway on a Sunday. Like I don't care. Uh yeah, send me a Slack message, right? Like I just I don't care. Whatever. I there's work to do. I'm going to be doing it. But like that that isn't I I realize that's not everyone's way of going about things and I don't think that's a healthy thing. Like in hindsight I'm like that probably wasn't the best thing to be doing but that's what I did. And so in this person's situation they got other people doing that kind of And so I I think that it's important to find this balance.

And what I want to talk about in the rest of this is like kind of two two sets of things. One is like when we think about ourselves and the balance that we want to have, how do we make sure we set that boundary properly that people can hear it, respect it, right? And they will need to work around it with some flexibility. And then what I want to kind of put in front of you or challenge you with is is also the inverse. And I I will talk about this a little bit more from like even my perspective as a manager at Microsoft. And the inverse is like if that's what those people need to do for their work life balance and their schedule, then like how how can you find a way to respect what they're doing, which doesn't mean go to their Sunday meeting, but it does mean if they need a Sunday meeting and other people are doing it with them, then like let let them go be.

Okay. So on the first part of this, I do think you know uh figure out the boundaries that you're looking for, right? So again, that's some introspection. That's understanding. It sounds like in this person's case, they've had some of that going on, right? They were at least realizing like, hey, some of these things absolutely don't work for me. The uh the weekend messages, the Sunday meetings, like that's a no. Um, it sounds like they have some alignment with their spouse, right? Like I think that's good, but like trying to figure that out. I don't think you have to have it all at once. I'm not saying that like you have to sit there and do like a self-study research project for, you know, 6 months and then figure out, okay, I have it all perfect. Um, I think you can start with parts of this. And I think you could and should start with parts of it.

So that means like in this person's case, if they're like, I absolutely know the Sunday meeting thing is like just that's not okay for me. Like cool. Like when someone tries to put you on a Sunday meeting, like you reject it. And like you can do that in a way that's not, you know, to the latter part of this conversation, not being an Like you got invited to a Sunday meeting, you're not available. That's that, right? uh it's a Sunday. Like you don't owe anyone an explanation for why you're not available. If you choose to add that and say like, "Hey, it's Sunday. I'm not working on Sunday." And you want to add context, I think that's fine. I would say the same thing for Saturdays. I would say the same things for things that are outside of normal working hours, right? Being able to set those boundaries and like and communicate them, right?

If if people that you're working with, for example, this company, if people getting together on a weekend to have a meeting is not unusual company culture for them, I'm not I'm not going to jump in to say that's wrong or whatever. Like, I don't I think that's unusual, don't get me wrong, but like I'm not the arbiter of of what is right and wrong. I just think that's unusual, right? And like maybe that is considered wrong depending on labor laws and other things. Like I don't know. I don't know where this person's working or what they're doing. And I don't know what the labor laws and stuff are. I simply don't know. But that could be a factor. This truck is not supposed to be in this lane. Don't do that, buddy. You're going very slow in the fast lane. Um, so yeah, like I think it's important to set those boundaries.

Um, now depending on where you work too, like for example, I'm at Microsoft and I have people on my team that um, you know, we have people that we work with in China, right? So I'm in the US, we have people that we work with in China. uh hopefully obviously completely opposite times of the day uh for working hours and that means that sometimes we have to have meetings that that overlap, right? So there's sometimes where we'll have a meeting that's like at the end of our workday. That's usually how the time overlaps better versus the other way around. And so that might happen, right? So people have some awareness. Hey, there's like team meetings that are like that. But I would also say like if anyone told me like, hey, I I simply can't make that meeting because, you know, and and they don't have to give me a specific reason like that's outside of, you know, sort of typical 9 to 5 hours and I can't make that.

Okay. Like that's you can't make that. That's fine. So like if you're needed for that meeting, like how do we get you represented there, right? Is that you know is that me? Is that someone else on the team? Is that do we have to come up with a different way to do the meeting? Right? If it's not a different time, can it be done asynchronously? Is it something where you can delegate that uh information that you want to relay to someone else and then someone else can represent you there and bring the information back? Like how do we make that work, right? How do we have flexibility? But we we like as our team try to make it clear like we literally have a counterpart in China and there's actually some other places in the world too. So knowing that like we're setting up this expectation that like that's how our team operates and if that's not going to work at least for me as a manager I'm like I I get it.

So, you need to let me know if that's not going to be compatible with your schedule. I'm not like I'm I can't possibly hold that against you because it's just things outside of it's outside of work, right? So, I need you to understand that that's how the team operates. But also, I need to make sure there's flexibility and I can't give you that flexibility if I don't understand that you have uh something incompatible, right? Like if you kind of never say it and then you resent the team and then you're like, "This team sucks. They have a meeting with China." I'm like, "I'm happy to help make it flexible for you, but I I don't know how if you don't let me know." Right? So, I think communicating that is super important. Again, you don't owe someone all the details, but if you're like fine sharing them, that's that's nice, too.

Um the other thing too that I want to mention is that there's this aspect at least for for my teams where uh I want to make sure there's flexibility the other way too right so if an employee says to me hey look like um I have a you know my kid has an appointment or I have an appointment or um you know for this period of time my my parents are visiting I have family visiting whatever Like my my job is not about trying to enforce like super strict rules. I got to get this lane over, man. Someone's got to speed up. Someone's got to do it. Okay, one sec, folks. Cuz come on, man. You got to move over. Holy cow. Person's going 40 in the lane beside me and the person in front of them was going at the most awkward speed, too. Okay.

So, yeah, I I need to make sure I'm giving them flexibility in their working hours, too, right? Because I think that's important. I I'm hoping for some flexibility like from them in terms of the fact that we have teams in different time zones. Um, and I want to give them that flexibility. And then the, you know, the inverse like is if they have some things going on, then I want to make sure that I can I can accommodate that. The goal is not like strict enforcement. The goal is like how do I make sure that my employees can be engaged and do their be best work possible? And if they're constantly worried about what the hell's going on for their own schedule, like that's not going to work very well. So balance. Um now the big sort of message there is I think like two parts right?

One is understanding what your boundaries are and you can do that over time and then communicate them. You don't owe people deep explanations but you do need to be able to communicate them so that people can figure out like oh that's not going to work. if you don't communicate them, you'll probably resent people and then overall that's not like a good good spot. Okay. Flip side of this whole thing is that um just like you have uh sort of boundaries that you want to set, other people might have the need for uh different flexibility in their schedules. And that doesn't mean that because they need flexibility that you must uh you know kind of do whatever they say in terms of when a meeting is scheduled. That's not what that means. What that does mean is that if they need to schedule a meeting at a different time to to meet with certain people and that's how that works for them that like you don't get uh up in arms about that necessarily, right?

if that's their way of being able to work effectively, then that might be what they have to do. Um, I want to talk about the messaging stuff too and I want to do that before I get to CrossFit. But to wrap up this part very quickly, right? Like um, for example, I I said I wanted to use myself here because, uh, I do work with people that are across the world, whether that's in China, there's sometimes people will come online, uh, from the UK. Um I don't often uh work with people that are working from India but that does happen as well. So I like I find myself as a manager in situations where like yeah I might be online like at a weird time, right? Like and I might have to be meeting with people at a weird time. And if someone was like, "Well, my work life boundaries are X and that looks different than yours, so you shouldn't be allowed to have meetings." I'd be like, "That's ridiculous.

you don't have to be at those meetings and I'm not expecting you to be but like I need to be because that's how I need to do my job right uh so my point is that like I think you need to understand that like you might have a particular way of working and boundaries and that's important and the flip side is that other people may have their own and they may need their own flexibility uh I've had employees like I was kind of saying where whether it's family visit setting or other things going on. Um they they shift their entire schedule, right? So instead of working a 9 to5, they might actually work like a noon till 8, right? And like that's that, right? Like that's that's how they're going to be working for a bit. Like that's cool. So understand that other people will also need flexibility in their schedule just like you need boundaries in yours.

Um on the messaging front uh the thing I wanted to add here is that I think this requires uh it's a culture thing on a team and I think that it requires like a lot of transparency. So uh some messaging tools and stuff allow uh like delayed send and I would say lean into that where you can. It's just I feel like a a thing that avoids some of this friction. Um but you know my I saw like even my manager kind of did this uh I think effectively personally he's in like a a situation like mine except you know even more extreme. So like he's yeah like I got to be online at weird times sending messages. I'm working because that's how I I work with other teams. And so in his like signature, it's like, hey, like just because I'm sending you a message doesn't mean that I have the same expectation you're replying, right?

It's like I I need to be able um to do that to work and that's not my expectation of you. he has it more elegant in his message and we've talked about this even with the team and I think it's important that someone like him is able to work and able to send those messages but he needs to communicate that effectively that just because you get a message from him doesn't mean to reply now you can't dictate a culture by saying it on a team because if he says that I don't expect you to but people still feel that way it's going to be kind of shitty right so I think it takes overcommunication I think it takes an understanding depending on a team and at the end of the day if that's not what's working for a team then I would say like you

have to find a way to to make that work which is maybe that's delay sending things maybe that's with your emails and your messages maybe that is like hey people are okay with that but we just have to communicate it more we have to uh you know live that by example all sorts of things I got to run into crossfit though so I'll see you here.