Why Does Everyone Else Get The Good Projects On My Team?

Transcript is auto-generated and may contain errors.

Hey folks, we are going to the experienced dev subreddit and this individual was talking about a situation that they find themselves in where they're not really doing uh like consistent work on bigger projects and it's kind of demotivating for them. So they describe it kind of like when they look around at other developers on on their team and around them. It seems like everyone else is like working on core projects that kind of have like maybe a bit of a home base things that they're tied to and uh as a result like actively working on those things, delivering and uh they feel like they don't have that they're missing out on it and that's uh like I said like kind of demotivating and frustrating for them to the point where they're they're kind of considering leaving.

And so some of the other things they they add into for context, they're saying that uh like they have a I think they said they don't actually have like a dedicated PM that they work with regularly, but the one that they do like it's it's not really facilitating this uh you know sort of core project work and they said that they have a lot of time to basically you know learn like watch videos do like core ources like just like basically try to gain knowledge. Uh so they're like they have that. Um the pay they said is good. They like good work life balance. So it sounds like I don't know outside of I I realize for some people they're they're sitting there going, I don't see the problem here. uh outside of like not having dedicated interesting projects to to contribute to, it sounds like most other things are good, right?

It's it's really this uh like lack of I'm assuming like opportunity um to do these things. So, they were saying that there is another opportunity for them that uh you know pay would be similar. It's a contractor role. Um, I didn't read all the if they even had all the details about what that looks like, but they're sitting here going, should I entertain, you know, this other opportunity so that I have uh, you know, better chance of like working on on dedicated projects. So, I figured this would be kind of interesting to talk through, especially because like I said, I think for some people, they heard some of that and they're going, I don't see the issue. and uh might be relevant for some folks on both sides of this. So to start things off, I can personally see at least two major sides to this.

Um one I have a you know a bias against and the other one for. So I want to be able to share that early on as we talk through it. But the two sides I really see are that you know the given that you're not anchored to to projects and you have all this you know seemingly have all this time to do other stuff pays good. I'm assuming they're not getting you know uh reamed out for performance issues or something like that. So overall from a work perspective things look good. Um, I think that some people would really love that, right? Like what what is there to complain about? You get to learn, you get paid well, you don't have the pressure of delivering on things. Sounds like a dream, doesn't it? That's one side. And then the other side is like uh is not feeling like you're actually uh valuable, right?

So, you're putting in the time and the effort or you want to be because you want to feel meaningful. You want to have purpose. You want to be able to, you know, you're in this profession or you have, you know, career goals or whatever else happens to be there for you anchored to this idea that I want to, you know, offer value. And so for me, I I those are two sides I see. Uh if you've some of you who watch my content know which side that I'm probably uh you know personally more aligned with. But um for those of you that are new or can't guess uh for me it's I'm very much aligned with the latter. Uh and I'm not here to say like one is right or wrong by any means.

just I'm sharing my bias with you in the beginning of this so that uh you know as I try to talk about different sides of this you can you know uh you can see that and I'm being transparent about it. So the the thing for me is like I am personally motivated by being able to um to deliver value. I like I like working. I like building and I think that if I was in a position where um you know a large part of my day was that I couldn't contribute to building things uh that would that would like really bother me and even I don't know like as a as an engineering manager where my my own time is not hands on building things like that that was a you know a big challenge for me earlier on in my career because I transitioned

to a manager role pretty early on uh out of uh necessity at a company, not because of uh I'd love to tell people it's because I was so amazing at it, but no, quite the opposite, just necessity for a company. And I was hands-on coding, right? So, being able to build is a huge part of that for me. And I really do like, you know, feeling valued, being uh able to contribute in ways where uh like not it's not so much like I need someone to tell me, oh, like you did good. Uh but more that uh it's like a that's how I feel satisfied is like being able to see the finished product and being like I I was able to do that. Uh working through challenges and stuff like that. So that is like just a personal motivating thing for me. So I can really relate to a person who's saying like I'm looking around and everyone else seems to get to do this.

Like what the heck? Like I want to be able to to do impactful work. That would feel good. Now, what I don't know from what this person's written, and maybe they wrote it and I just skimmed and I missed it in their Reddit post, but I don't know if this is because of a, you know, a similar motivation that I'm describing. I don't know if it's uh you know the other another layer to this could be that how am I supposed to actually grow in my career or put things on my resume or whatever else if I'm legitimately not getting these types of opportunities and I mean that would be a factor for me too right if I was showing up to work at Microsoft and uh it was like oh there's there's nothing to do or um or there's nothing that I can contribute to.

I would be sitting here going like, well, what the heck does that not only is that like a demotivating thing for me, but you know, how how am I supposed to get anywhere in my career if I'm not doing anything, uh I I I maybe it's different for different people. Uh, but at least for me in my career now, certainly me just being able to read things online and watch videos and do courses to try and learn, like that's not going to I don't feel like that's personally going to to put me ahead. So, like all of that just would not be a great experience for me. Um, I think like anyone, if there was a period at work where I was very overwhelmed and then I had such an opportunity came up, it would probably feel good very briefly. Uh, but it's that's kind of just from being overworked and not.

So, the other thing this person says though is that they have tried uh making it clear. And so I don't know what that looks like because I don't think they go into detail about it. But you know that maybe that's a thought for some of you watching and listening. It's like well if you know they're bothered by this kind of situation why don't they they say something? And so they say that they have and that's kind of what I want to focus on maybe for the rest of this this video is like what does that look like? So, I've never I'm not saying it's impossible by any means, but in my experience, I've never been somewhere where there there isn't more work that could be done. And I'm trying to pick my words carefully because uh if I don't say them in a particular way and even as I say them that way, you can kind of take them, twist them to to say, well, what about this?

What about that? What I mean by that statement though is not that um you know there's there's always a situation where there's no friction and you can do anything you want. Uh, I'm not saying that cuz I know that there's situations where there is things that could be done and there's either red tape in the way or there is something political or there's whatever else going on uh that's kind of inhibiting you from being able to do things. What I'm trying to say is that there's I've never worked somewhere or experienced a situation where there aren't more improvements to be made, bugs to be fixed, uh you know, features to be delivered, whatever it is, however you want to slice and dice it, it's it's kind of like software is infinite, right? And that's not to say that it's not good in its current state or couldn't be um usable or whatever else, but there there's always more that you could do.

And with that framing to me is like I think this probably depends on people's personality types, their experience, um maybe like their the perception of title and um sort of your what's the right word? Uh like autonomy like that you're allowed to have. And I would say that if you feel like you're um you're not empowered, I think that's another word I want to use. If you're not empowered to go do things, then you're kind of in this this position where you're you're waiting. You're in like a holding pattern. And it sounds like that's what this person has going on. They're kind of waiting for the project. They're waiting for the work. Or I've said something about it, but I'm still waiting.

And my my thought is like, well, if you're still waiting and no one's giving the things to you, like it sound you're making it seem like your only other option then is to go, you know, watch videos and and read articles and try to learn, which I'm not saying is a waste of time. I think that's that's also a good thing. But I think what I would say is either or a couple things. One is that we probably have to reook at how you're communicating that to whom are you communicating that how how did that conversation go? Was it a single conversation? Uh so I want to talk a little bit more about that. But the other aspect is like this actually becomes a little bit of an expectation as people become more senior which is you know you're looking for the opportunities. You're being proactive on things and so I don't know this person's level.

I don't know their their sort of work history or um kind of like I was saying, I don't know their situation in terms of how empowered they are in their role, but I would kind of encourage more of that to happen too. you see the things going on around you which probably also suggests you see some of the things that aren't getting done or you can start looking for pain points that people are having whether that's internally to help other developers whether that's um you see patterns of bugs coming in or feature requests I don't know again the the industry the product or the service here but the two angles I see on this are and not that they're mutually exclusive, but how do we revisit communication around this so that it's not silent and just it's been given up on? And how do we then continue to be proactive?

The I'm not saying that this person doesn't do either of these. I just my assumption from how they've written this is that it feels kind of like they've given up on doing them or they never they never really gave the these two things a good chance. So in terms of communicating it uh this would be something that I you know would regularly be bringing up with my manager if that's not getting uh visibility. Are there conversations with skit managers that can happen? Like if you're not getting the support from your manager, I I don't know. I my expectation of people that report to me is if like I was consistently not supporting them, I would I would hope and expect that um you know, someone on my team would be able to go up to my my manager, so there's Skip, and say something about it.

That would that's my expectation. And I obviously don't want that to happen, but you know, I I would want them to feel empowered like they should be able to do that, right? That like if I'm the one getting in the way of them being productive, number one, I'm not doing my job, actually doing the opposite of my job. And number two, I would hope that they feel empowered to be able to go like I need to be able to do good work and like I need someone to unblock me. So, I would encourage this person to revisit conversations with their manager. Uh, if this is top of their mind to the point where they're like, I'm considering leaving, like, why isn't this the the the topic in every single one-on-one? And if your manager is the kind of person who is maybe they're driving the one-on-one and you go into those conversations and it's really like I don't know, like the conversation is all them.

they're asking for status updates or they're they're talking about things unrelated to this issue for you. Um my suggestion to you would be like in your next 101 like you sneak it in at the end and you say, "Hey, this is something I want to be able to talk about uh either for next time, right? You're kind of setting the your expectation of that. I want to talk about this for next time or I want to talk about this before next time. Right. It's not like I don't if one 10 one 10 one 10 one 10 one 10 one 10 one 10 one 10 one 10 one 10 one ones aren't the only time you're like allowed to talk to your manager. I I would certainly hope uh and maybe if that is the case, maybe that's a signal enough that maybe you're not in a great spot, but would want to make that clear with my manager to say like this is a topic I need to go over.

And like that in my opinion should be brought up every single time you're in a one-on-one. And if it's again not getting attention before the 101, not I'm not saying like minutes before. I mean like give it give it time and uh keep communicating expectations leading up to the oneonone. Hey, like want to talk about this, want to talk about this. Um so that it's very apparent to your manager. This is a painoint. This is literally the thing that is causing you the most disengagement to the point where you want to leave your job. In my opinion, as an engineering manager, I can't think of anything more important to be talking about, right? I would really want people on my team, if I wasn't picking up on it. I would really want people on my team to be able to say, "Look, man, like I'm just not engaged.

Here's why." And I would hope it doesn't get to the point where they're like they're on the brink of being like, you know, I'm just about ready. I'm got the interview lined up or I've done the interview deciding I want to sign before I talk to my manager. And again, if this person was doing this and they got to that point, like that is super unfortunate. But then I would say I think that's the right move. You're not getting the support. Now, I'm almost at CrossFit, so I'm going to wrap up the other sort of uh side of this one, which was like being proactive, right? I kind of mentioned that this starts to become more of an expectation with seniority.

And that's because not only are you uh you know openly communicating where there is uh friction where like hey maybe we could do a better job here or like this is a the build process is a pain in the butt the tests are flaky whatever it is you know our standups are inefficient our planning sucks. Uh not only just raising awareness to those things but also coming up with proposals for them. I would literally start having that expectation more and more of people on my teams to be able to be in a position where they can start saying I want to make these things better not just hey this is a painoint that's the minimum right to be able to raise awareness but coming up with proposals and then driving them right because when they make aware like have awareness of them they're coming up with solutions for me like we're almost always in a position where It's the opposite where there's so much going on where it's like, cool, let's measure this against priorities.

Okay, let's figure out how to carve time out for that cuz we want to make that better. And I'm just thinking in my head if someone was like, I don't have things to do. No one's giving me work to do. And somehow that wasn't getting visibility in sync meetings and other conversations, then I would really hope they're like, okay, I've identified x number of pain points. Let me just start making things better, being proactive and owning them. I would hope it doesn't get to a point where they're they don't have things to do, so they have to go do that. But it sounds like this person is in that situation. So, those are two angles I'd look at here. Hope that helps. If you have questions about that, thoughts, comments, leave them below in the comments or go to codemute.com if you want to submit stuff anonymously.

And I will see you in the next video. Take care.