Last Employer Won't Leave Me Alone!! What Should This Developer Do?

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Hey folks, I'm just leaving CrossFit here. Um, going to go to Reddit for a question. I guess a topic. It's for CS career questions, not experience devs today. There wasn't a lot going on in experienced devs. The CS career questions one. Um the topic is about an employer that is bothering I should I don't know bother is a strong word but maybe um they're chasing after someone that's left the company uh about like bugs right so they're saying worked at this place you know worked there for a bit and then left the company for a different opportunity kind of sounds like they're doing contract work or something um or just employed there temporarily whatever And uh now they moved on to a different role. They were saying it was like $15 an hour. Now it's $30 an hour for this new role. They're saying their boss where they used to work is like messaging them about hey like there's this issue like can you help us fix it kind of thing.

That's what they're saying like how do you guys go about navigating this? So I have opinions on this. Uh just a friendly reminder that if you want to have your questions answered, leave them below in the comments. Uh otherwise you can message me on social media. Just look for dev leader. That's my main YouTube channel with uh edited tutorials for .NET and C. There's a podcast and then sometimes uh general software engineering topics like this, but I'll edit it down uh much less of a stream of consciousness and more succinct. So with that said, um I will try to give some different perspectives here, but I'll start with kind of like my own. um because it's probably the easiest one to talk through, but I I think high level um literally they're not paying you. You don't even have to answer that. Block the number, block the email, whatever if you want.

If it's bothering you, um you owe them nothing unless there's something in your contract that from before that states otherwise. It sounds like not. Um, and if that's the case, if it's causing you any sort of uh grief at all, discomfort, annoying, you name it, if it's a nonpositive feeling, ignore it or block it. And I think that's the end of the story. Uh, if you don't have in some type of contract that you sign with them, some type of legal obligation, I just would not worry about it. um the trade-off that you make with this is of course like if you're burning bridges this way if you are um then like referral stuff right that could be probably the only thing uh that I can really think of being a negative or if you ever wanted to go work for them again I don't

know how big the company is or whatever I'm assuming you know going to back to work for that team or a peripheral team might be challenging if you're just outright ignoring people but the reality is you do not have, I'm assuming based on your contract that I've not seen, you don't have a legal obligation to be responding to them. So, don't. Right. Um, your time is valuable. That's why you went on to another place. It seems like they're compensating you more fairly for your skills and experience. Great. Awesome stuff. You're not employed by the previous place. You don't owe them anything, so don't Um, that's my opinion. um to give you a slightly different opinion. If I think about man, why is it so bright I know the answer that the answer is the sun that's why it's so bright.

Um but uh if I think about where I used to work before Microsoft, if um if I had friends that would have messaged me and said like, "Hey, like do you remember how this works or like any thoughts?" Like I don't have access to the code or anything, right? I can't just like tell them, "Oh, go to this line." Um, but there's a lot of stuff that I built there that I would have built from the ground up or would have been around for ages. And if people had questions on things, like if I had friends that would have sent me a message, I would have tried to help. Um, but that's, you know, up until a certain point, right? If it would have gotten to a point, and I don't think anyone did, not at least not not on code.

a lot of people stayed in touch um you know kind of looking for some type of mentorship which is really nice um especially just because they went through so many different growth pains like after I left not because of me leaving but just after like in that time that I was gone there's a lot of change so I think some people were like hey like you were here for a long time like you know can I get some perspective from you kind of thing but on the technical stuff. No one really reached out. Um, and maybe because they're like that's now like a private business thing, right? Like I don't work there, so it would be weird if they were discussing how to how to solve problems, how to write code, how to debug code with someone who's not an employee there anymore, right? I would think that's probably a breach of something.

But anyway, my point is that if I had friends from where I used to work reaching out, I probably would have tried to help up until a certain point where sounds like this person's saying like they're they're bothered by it. So then I would just set my boundaries, right? So there's two slightly different perspectives on it that I have. Um I quickly scan the comments. Um, I think one of the first ones was someone was saying, "Hey, like if you were doing contract work for them before, like set up another contract, right? You guys want more help debugging stuff, fixing things or whatever, navigating different issues? Cool. Here's my rate." And that kind of goes back to my first point, which is like they're not your employer. You don't owe them anything, right? So if they want more time out of you, get something for it.

The the thing that I want to call out that's like a bit of an assumption here is like the assumption is like that you weren't being malicious, writing garbage code to put yourself into this situation, right? And I'm I'm assuming not. I like, you know, assuming best intentions of people that if someone was employed somewhere that they were doing their best work. When I say their best work, I don't mean that that means they wrote perfect code. That means that given the resources and information they had, they did their their best job that they could. And I think that's often all we can ask of people when when we're employing them. So, if that's what someone was doing and there happened to be bugs or happened to be things that they didn't account for or uh Oh my god, that was a huge rock. Oh man, I think that chipped my windshield.

I'll have to check after. It's either a bug on the far side, but I think that's a a crack in my windshield. Uh, I'm pretty sure these windshields are covered by insurance though cuz we had a crack in this windshield before and I remember being like some my wife's very cute. I don't think sometimes she realizes the cost of some of these things. Um, and then if I'm ever It's funny if I complain about the cost. It's like, well, you wanted you wanted the nice car. Like, you're supposed to know. And I'm like, I know it's going to cost. Doesn't mean I like it, right? It's like changing the brakes on this car. It's like few,000 to have brakes done on the car. Oil change, not cheap, right? This is what happens when you buy higherend cars. This isn't even like a super car or anything.

So, I'm aware that it costs. Doesn't mean I like it. Um, so when this windshield cracked, I was like, you don't see many uh uh GTs that are driving around. There's actually a couple in our area, but uh probably a bit of a unique shape. And I'm like, that windshield is not going to be cheap. And uh I think it took a few weeks for them to the glass shop to order in the windshield, but um it was covered. So, that was nice cuz I don't want to have to pay. It's really crappy to have to pay for something like you're driving and a rock chips your windshield and you're like, there's nothing like what am I going to do? Dodge the rock I can't see. Um, no. And I'm just on a public roadway, so anyway, I'll check that out. Not looking forward to it, but it's life.

Um, yeah, I think the last thing I was saying is that, you know, if you had a contract with them, you could explore that again. But yeah, it was uh, sorry, the idea was people doing their best work, right? not being malicious about it. If you're going into it being like, "Hey, I'm going to write crap code, but just good enough so that the stuff's getting done, but crappy enough that they have to keep me coming back so I can like keep my job." I I don't know, man. Like, I just feel like there's a way to go through your your career doing better than that. Like, you're already doing the work. You might as well just try to do a good job. Personally, that's my philosophy. But if we assume that this person was doing their best work, right? Um proposing another contract I don't think is outlandish.

They uh they might not like that. They might say, "Well, you wrote this, so like you owe us." And it's like, "You don't you do not unless you wrote something or had something in your previous contract that said after this period, there's some other period of like support without seeing a contract. Impossible for me to say. If you're if you're confused about that and you don't know, you may want to go ask a lawyer. That might be a, you know, few hundred and it's like a crappy crappy lesson, but going forward on future contracts, it might be something where you go look for something like that, right? Um, so might be something you want to explore if you're completely uncertain about the legal implications. But, uh, you know, I can't sit here and and say one way or the other because I just quite literally have never seen the contract.

But, uh, I think that's maybe it in a nutshell. We'll keep this one pretty short, but just to summarize, right? Like if you have something in a contract that says you must offer X amount of support for some period of time after, then that's what's in your contract. Okay, everyone's uh slamming on the brakes. Excellent. It's a great way to have an accident. Uh so that's part one, right? If you have something in the contract that says you have to support, then you have to support. Part number two is that if you don't um if it's bothering you, right, and you have no interest, it's consuming time from you or you're uninterested or whatever is not positive, ignore it. Block it if you need to ignore it. Get it out of your face. you have no um no uh responsibility owed. So so don't um and then sort of that last final perspective is like uh I may maybe two parts.

One is like if you have I had friends where I used to work I might just do that because because I don't hate trying to help them until it becomes a point where it's too much for me and then I would kind of set my boundaries. But the second part to that is if you ever want to explore um something in the future with that place and you're not trying to burn bridges, you may want to still entertain some things, whether that's, hey, yeah, I can help you out with a couple things before you set more clear boundaries andor uh doing uh another contract or something proposing that because again, you do not owe them anything if it's not in your contract. So, focus on you. Focus on your current work. And that's that. We'll keep it short, keep it sweet. Hope that helps. If you have different thoughts on this from your experience, please share them in the comments.

We can discuss. Uh if it's a bigger topic, maybe something I've missed completely, we can follow up in another video. Happy to hear from folks as always. So, thanks so much for watching and I'll see you next time. Take care.