Toxic Software Dev Culture And Ramping Up The Job Search

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forgot my mic there it is um was going to talk to the camera with the mic sitting far away from me that wouldn't go so well I'm going to go to LinkedIn for a question this is the second one for this evening should have mentioned it actually snowed what I would consider a large amount for a Seattle um today and I've been kind of stuck at home when I say large amount I mean like not a lot at all I'm from Canada and this is not a lot of snow but they don't plow the streets here so no one can drive and it's not their fault the streets aren't plowed they're not salted sucks so I'm trying to catch up on videos here um mentioned on the last one and videos from earlier this week I'm burnt the hell out and I apologize because I

would like to be a little bit more animated a little bit more exciting it's not happening um we're going to go to LinkedIn though I'd love to answer this person's question and try to help um because uh would mean a lot to me if I can make a little bit of a difference so it's a big message I'm not going to read the whole thing to you I've read the whole thing to myself but um I don't think all the details are necessary for you and of course I'm trying to keep someone Anonymous and with that said if you have questions you want answered leave them in the comments if you have a lot of details and want to be kept Anonymous please send a message look for Dev leader on social media that is my uh my sort of personal brand that I use

it's my main YouTube channel or Nick centino on LinkedIn and that's where I'm going right now so this person have has four years of experience I worked at a big finance company and currently doing a small Health tech company they've been looking for a job for the past year um and then they just had recently like the past couple months been upping their efforts greatly so a lot of elite Code system design every day awesome so you know one of those things once you start trying to apply like you don't want to say I'm going to start applying today and then like not have actually started practicing anything so you got to practice um unfortunately it's just how things work um applying every day cold messaging emailing recruiters okay so it seems like they're trying to be very active and like they said ramp it

up so last year I probably sent out uh 200 300 applications I got one interview and failed the DSA portion so that's unfortunate um the past month I put out over a 100 applications to started messaging recruiters still nothing um on numbers just by the way um I'm not speaking from my own experience because my experience will be different as a software engineering manager uh um and like different timing as well so the last time I was applying for jobs was like roughly just under five years ago to Big Tech as a software engineering manager like diff different times in general and different role likely than you watching this so I I I don't have numbers to share I actually don't remember how many I applied to during that time frame at least 100 um Within a couple of months I would say but I

had like a couple of companies where I'm like I'm I'm going to these companies and the other ones it's like those are just there in case something interesting comes up so I have heard people say though 80 to 100 a week for applications I know that number seems like outrageous I said this in a video earlier this week that someone responded to me or messaged me or commented I can't remember and they said they were doing like over 70 a day I was like I don't even I don't even comprehend that but there's a bit of a hint that like the volume like people think they're doing a lot and it's like don't get me wrong I feel like that is a lot but there's people doing more and that's part of the reason why there's so many applicants for all these jobs so it

kind of sucks but it's like other people are playing the game and if you're it's a numbers game for the interview part in particular so really challenging but I'm not not talking this person down I think they're doing a great job taking those right steps I'm just saying from a numbers perspective they they truthfully might actually need more just because it's statistics and it sucks to say that but um let's keep going applying to larger companies they don't want to be in the situation they're in again at another small company okay so we'll talk about that in a little bit um and I'm also only applying to remote and where they're living and so they did attach the I'm not going to I'm not going to go through their resume on this video uh I am going to try and do resume and project reviews

on my main Channel Dev leader so if you're watching this um if you rewind at the beginning when I said how to reach me which is just look for Dev leader on social media contact me we can talk about that um if I get an overwhelming response I might do like members only kind of thing I just don't like I have to do it on my main Channel and if I do it on my main Channel they're edited if I edit them it's at least 35 to 100 bucks out of my pocket and the YouTube ad Revenue it's not very much so I lose basically I lose money to go review your rumes doesn't seem great but I'd like to try and help but um now they're having some challenges at their current company so um I guess there's a couple ways to to to

go about this this message we can talk about um their challenges with applications and the job hunt so I want to touch on that but I also want to touch on the second portion of this message which is some of the things they're experiencing at their company and want to kind of talk through some of those too so um they say where do I start dot dot dot so you know there's there's a bunch there's a bunch of coming up um they don't have processes or procedures at the company in college when I was learning about agile scrum thought it'd be a waste of time um just plan and then code but yeah like if there's no processes and procedures like there's a balance I think like if there's nothing you're like what the hell's going on and if it's like overly prescriptive you're like

what the hell's going on um they say they felt like meetings were Overkill at their last job now there's no processes so they're like again what the heck um no structure no hierarchy working on a project that's customer facing non-technical employees um they got a high priority assignment but there's no due date no testing dates but it needs to be done as soon as possible right it's very nebulous um and I get that like it's that's challenging um they say they do love scrum and agile and Sprint planning meetings now okay that made them do a 180 not many people love that um they don't really have a backlog just customer requests that are triaged by non-technical people and thrown in a bucket for engineers to grab okay that's uh kind of challenging from a project perspective there's no mentorship um probably they say probably

pretty common at a startup SL small companies um and and I agree I think that that can be challenging depending on what you know what the team structures and stuff are like it's almost like you would think and you want places to structure and make sure that there's like mentorship opportunities and kind of build this out as they're building teams but sometimes um that almost has to take a backseat because if you're not doing the things in the very short term that allow you to stay afloat the company will not survive so you might say well that's dumb because like if it there they start getting some momentum aren't they screwed and it's like they're probably going to be a little tough but they're going to if they're able to at least stay afloat as a startup then they can keep trying to get themselves

out of this hole a little bit if you haven't worked at a startup that just unless it was like magically just very successful startups are hard as hell most of them fail and uh I think people don't realize that they're kind of just expecting places like startups just be perfect and you don't have to worry but it's like no and it's like they're a lot of startups are just fighting to stay alive so I think this person's kind of fair in their you know their their observation like it's probably not common but if this person's looking for that maybe yeah small company or startup maybe that's not sufficient for them and there's nothing wrong with that right so I don't think that they're they're not like ragging on their company for it I think they're just kind of saying like I don't really think we

have that here so they proposed to their manager about Sprint planning and doing some triaging um we get to collaborate scope projects and Tas while Juniors contribute and learn he said it was a good idea never happened okay um we saw the issues of Engineers assigned a ticket told their client okay and then so that's interesting right so it's good that they brought this up that would be my suggestion but like no action was taken so I want to talk about ownership I'm saying that out loud so I don't forget it because I will now that I've said it out loud out I'm probably going to forget it and someone's going to comment and say hey Nick at whatever time stamp 928 you didn't say it you never went back sorry in advance um they say also asking questions is frowned upon once you pass

maybe five months no documentation and they're saying yeah like not asking questions or not being able to and no documentations is a recipe for disaster so totally agreed um where to start um okay let's there's a lot of stuff in this one and that's good um okay let me go back try to wrap up the beginning part about job applications and stuff um I talk about getting jobs in like three phases I'm oversimplifying it but this is just my framework for it so you have this phase where you're trying to get seen as in you are trying to get the interview the second phase is actually performing well in the interview and the third phase is once you have the job how are you performing on the job now many people are stuck at step one and I understand um not trying to minimize that

uh but I think that we have to look at these phases in terms of like we're accom we're trying to accomplish different things I wish that they were all like you know you invest 100% into one and it's perfect carry over to steps two and three it's just like not like that good example as I would tell people like you in step one you should be do you need to invest in lead code in step one to get noticed not necessarily it's going to be super important for step two though when you're interviewing so you probably want to get a head start in step one are you going to need lead code for step three which is when you're on the job no like probably absolutely not so it's really important for step two you got to start it in step one while you're applying

because if you get an interview and you haven't practiced at all you don't want to be caught off guard so um I just like this mental model of kind of framing these steps that means that if we understand the different goals of these different steps we can focus on different things so um I think this person's doing a good job in terms of they're starting their practice right you don't like I said you don't want this to be a last minute thing so they're starting to practice I think that's really good um they don't go into detail about how they're practicing and stuff but we don't have to focus on that in this video um I kind of touched on the numbers I'm saying it's a numbers game unfortunately I do not like that maybe try upping the numbers a little bit maybe um something

to consider I don't have like a good it feels like a such a half-ass kind of suggestion like just make number go up I understand how that sounds but I'm I'm also being genuine that perhaps because it's a numbers game if you make number go up you might have S more success or chance of success um and I should comment on that too I actually think that there's a lot of randomization and chance in step one which is getting noticed and I mean that genuinely and I think it sucks so I'm not saying that because I support it I'm saying that because I think that's the case and I don't like it but I'm trying to be transparent about it I think that there are so many people applying to many jobs that I don't okay maybe a weird analy because maybe people haven't done

this or enough of this but I I want to throw it out there you might have another comparable type of scario um I remember when I I'm getting older now so I have bought my first house at some point in my life I remember when I was shopping for my first house which by the way I think is a super overwhelming experience because you're like number one I've never done this before number two this is the most money I've ever had to go spend on anything and I don't know what I'm doing like that's a weird spot to be in um and I remember talking to the realtor who was very helpful very appreciative of that and I remember him saying when we were checking places out he's like we want to make sure that we don't go visit like a hundred houses and his

reasoning was like after you see a few of them what starts to happen is that like everything starts to look the sameish and you're like how do I how do I have a comparison when everything starts to look the same and that's what I'm saying I don't know if people have done this I had that experience when my wife and I moved into this house we we were starting to get there where it was like Hey we've seen a bunch and it's like ah yeah but that house but it's kind like they start to blur together so um I think that actually is what's happening with some people going through job applications yeah the the people reviewing the rums and stuff coming in is it's like there's no perfect way to quantify them right do you put it through a computer and it gives you

a a quantitative score sure if we could do it but then like that algorithm to do that properly like is it like what's that based on it's just like I think there's too many variables and unfortunately because there's so many applicants I think that there's a lot of randomization so what I would say is that step one in these three phases is the highest likelihood of failure as in you apply no answer or you're rejected I just think that there's too much randomization there and too much competition so if we can think about step two which is the interview maybe what are some ways that we can try and circumvent step one which is I send in my resume and hope for the best networking I think networking is a great opportunity it's not a guaranteed job not a guaranteed interview or job offer but

if you're able to network I talked about this in a video earlier this week where someone was basically talking to someone in their Network their close Network and they were able to apply for a job and get an interview so they they basically skipped the let me review your resume part with the pile of other rums they skipped that part that's the in my opinion I don't have stats on this this is anecdotal I think the biggest opportunity for drop off and they skipped it so I think you can explore things that way I'm not trying to say it's trivial but if you're not exploring it at all and you're just applying I know this person said they are networking so kind of just trying to generalize this a little bit I would say try to practice networking more because you may find different types

of opportunities that way um the third phase is just when you're on the job but um I think this person's doing a good job on that my take might be like um I don't know how they're networking maybe that's something that you could dig into more and like how to network more effectively Strike Up connections uh on LinkedIn or do meetups and stuff go like actually meet people in person I think there's a bunch of different things that could be done I don't know the details but between that and maybe upping the the job applications but personally I like the idea of networking because I think if you can get really good at that it's a bit of a cheat code it just feels like you're you may be able to work around that first uh that first hop so uh I think that's where

I'll leave that one um now I wanted to talk about some of the things going on at their company um because I I was really fortunate when I worked at a startup that I was given a lot of autonomy I had great leadership um I could suggest things we had a safe place to fail like when I think back on it it's like I got really lucky that I had that as my first sort of full-time job and that I could spend a lot of time there um yeah I H like if it was any other place I can't say that I would be uh where I am today in my career so I don't take that for granted and when I'm reading with this person's writing you know some of it I I think is is good The Stance they're taking like they're they're

observing things that make them uncomfortable right like it would be nice if we had more process it would be nice if if we could change this and I like that they brought it up with their manager I think that's good but it's like their manager is not taking action now I don't I'm not going to sit here and say oh they must have a manager like definitely their fault their manager might be in a spot where they're like I have to kind of have a Little Bit of Sympathy for managers sometimes I know some people are like well my manager sucks I've only had bad managers I hate managers like I've been doing you know a middle manager for 12 and a half years it can sometimes be a super job where you're trying to help people that report to you you feel like you're

getting getting it from above like it's a it's a spot to be in let me tell you and um I don't know what's going on with their manager they might actually genuinely think that some of the ideas proposed are are good and the manager's like but I'm overwhelmed I don't know how we even make changes I'm just trying to stay afloat not a great not a great excuse it might just be reality right I've I've certainly felt overwhelmed many times in my career I talk about when I'm feeling burnt out I get overwhelmed and I can't do simple things I stop taking vitamins I don't wash my vehicles like just stuff that's like easy I can't do it and that's my personal life like work is you know you could imagine that things at work fall off too but I'm not trying to make an

excuse for the manager I'm trying to just say like this kind of stuff can happen doesn't mean it's good so what I like is that this person tried to bring it up um what I would say though is like there's something there's something to be said about you know look I don't know if I've ever like framed this up the way that I'm going to try and do this so bear with me this might be the first time first time these thoughts are like coming into into words um I'm thinking about when people have talked about suggesting ideas and sometimes it comes across like complaints so I'm raising awareness of something the automated builds suck the all the unit tests are flaky we don't have any process um builds take too long tests take too long um planning poker sucks standup sucks we can never

do anything about tech de everything I'm saying is like an observation about things I don't like in a cont scenario right we call that complaining so it's good to raise awareness but the fact that I'm I'm stopping there I'm just saying things I don't like basically what happens is like when you stop there and only say this is the thing I don't like people are like okay like basically stop whining like I'm like people get sick of it right that's you're a complainer but there's another step to it which is like I said bear with me I'm trying to put this together the next step is like I'm going to complain about it to raise awareness but I'm coming with suggestions I think that's what this person is doing which is good I think this is a very good step which is hey the builds

are slow I think we could spend some time and go look at what those the build system looks like and I have some ideas there maybe we could um not rebuild everything every time maybe we could split up some of our projects to have pre-built packages um the tests are flaky I think we should spend some time in the next Sprint actually going to fix some of those flaky tests maybe we can propose some patterns going forward where um as soon as we identify a flaky test we address it right away so it's not perpetuating in our codebase like complaint with suggestion right potential course of action which I think is really good I think that's what this person's done and I'm wondering do we have a third step which is I give enough of a about this I'm taking ownership on it I'm going

to do it this person and I understand what I'm about to say given some of the things they're talking about like the the planning and all that you don't want to step on toes but like if it's not happening are you actually stepping on toes I don't know why why don't you just go do the planning why don't you be the one right it's it I'm what I'm hearing is the stuff's put in a bucket the engineers pick from it okay you be the one to try and prioritize it apparently it doesn't matter right everything's a high priority everyone's just picking from the bucket why don't you try prioritizing it and I'm not I I just kind of realized I might be sounding like I'm you know nagging on this person I'm not I'm I'm trying to say like I think this is a cool

opportunity but this is like this is called ownership I'm going to take something that I feel strongly about and I'm going to see it through to the end I realize that given the environment you're working in when I say you it's to this person that wrote this question in or it could be you if you find yourself in a similar situation maybe your environment isn't very good for supporting that kind of stuff and you feel like you're going to get in for proposing it that sucks right that's not a good environment there isn't what I would call psychological safety there where you're like I want to POS ideas but I'm going to get in trouble for it based on what this person was saying about asking questions and the psychological safety part I don't think that's a really good environment if it's frowned upon to

be asking questions dude I am five years in or almost five years into Microsoft I got questions every day I got tons of questions my job is questions I be out there asking questions let me tell you so I think that you never want to be in a spot where ask ask questions is not okay you can ask better questions but uh to be asking questions being frowned upon not okay so anyway back to my my other thought tangent um I think that maybe trying to take some ownership on some of these things that are being proposed because sometimes when we prove things we take some ownership we start proving that it can have a positive effect oh okay like we like that or someone goes well why are we doing this like I think this is a funny one right so be careful with

this but it's kind of cool someone so you start doing the prioritization stuff and then someone instead of going wow so good that you're doing this prioritization work as as your peer like I'm so thankful that we now have some priority on the work items to go pick out of this backlog what could happen is you get someone going like they have some complaint about the prioritization they go well this priority doesn't make sense they're not complain aining about prioritization being a thing they're complaining about some part of the process and it's like great invite them in help make it better awesome okay yeah you know what that prioritization you're right here's how I was thinking about how would you like to think about the priority of this well no that's like this you know this one's not important this other one over here super

important we should get that brought in okay let's talk about that great like what things do we value as a team like why is that one a higher priority right and like now you start to like bring in other people to this because clearly someone decided out of nowhere they had passion about it right they went from being like I don't give a nothing's prioritized I'm just going to keep picking stuff to now I care because it's prioritized great take that leverage that energy bring it in let's go let's let's talk about the priority right you can you can start to bring people along for the ride I know we're talking about prioritization as one example but I think you can see this with other things too um you know I'm going to make the build system faster we're going to not build everything on

every build we're going to have uh you know archived packages and stuff well no no I think that's not a good way to optimize it we should go do this other thing oh great idea like maybe we should talk about that more maybe maybe you other person maybe you could be the champion of this wouldn't that be so awesome if you could just you could go do that yeah you should go do that go do it right now you have like I'm just I'm being a little bit sarcastic but you try to bring other people along for the ride so um I I say that because it may feel like you're like getting resistance and you're like why the hell am I even trying right like I'm just trying to do a good thing and people are like crapping on me for it but like

maybe you can twist it and get them to help so these are just some ideas I realized like there's a lot written here I feel like I'm not doing a good job of kind of addressing as much as as person wrote so I do apologize um I would like to do a better job like I said I'm feeling I'm feeling pretty burnt out so um I would like to um do a resume review for this person when I might even be able to get to it this weekend and do it on my main Channel and then have my editor edit it maybe for early next week depending on when I can sit down but I've had a couple resumés come in and I think I'll start on that so I'll try my best disclaimer is like I'm going I'm not I'm not the source like

of uh truth on what the best resume is I'm going to give you my opinion so like that's what it is right I I hope people recognize that it's like everything I'm saying like this is all my opinion my experience in general so uh that's why if people are like I think you're wrong I'm like that's great you're allowed to think I'm wrong like it's cool man like I'm not telling you that I'm perfectly right about everything I'm wrong on a lot of stuff am I um but yeah I think I think I'll wrap it up there so thanks for watching if you got questions leave them below you want to be anonymous send them in I'll see you next time folks