Helping This Software Engineer Get Their Spark Back

Transcript is auto-generated and may contain errors.

Hey folks, we're going to go to the experience dev subreddit with this damn beeping. Um, this topic is a engineer that is writing about uh trying to help a more junior engineer and kind of get their spark back is how they they phrased it. The post is kind of weird because it was posted as a title and then there's no post body and then I went digging and there's actually a post body just way further down. But um they were saying that it seems like there's you know this uh more junior developer more junior than them and uh I guess like historically or traditionally they've you know been a pretty good motivated developer and then it seems like more recently um things have kind of shifted and they actually brought it up with this person which is kind of interesting. So, um, the more junior developer had said something along the lines of this, uh, this kind of thing happening where they're kind of lacking engagement.

So, figured we'd talk through it because I thought maybe an interesting way to approach this would be like um, give you some perspective on how I try to address this as an engineering manager. And then if you're not an engineering manager, maybe we can talk through some of the things that like I don't know if I could talk to other people on my team and encourage them to you know have not that it's your responsibility to have these types of conversations with your peers. But like if you if you were in a situation like this person and you're like I I would like some guidance on like what I could do uh then maybe you could apply that as well. So, thought it might be kind of a cool conversation and we'll see how it goes. And a friendly reminder, if you're new to this channel, uh I generally try to take submitted questions, so you can leave them below in the comments.

Uh that's obviously public. And if you want to submit something anonymously, you can go to codecute.com and I will do my best to make a video just like this for you. I will keep you fully anonymous but of course the more details you provide on the situation the context is super helpful for me to try and share some of my perspective with you. Okay. So I I I really feel like it's an important part of an engineering manager's role to uh to help with engagement for for work. And so why do I say that? Well, when I talk about the responsibility and expectation of an engineering manager, and this is, you know, my opinion on this uh is that it's all about trying to ensure that you're helping your team do their best work possible and helping them grow in their career.

And I am a strong believer that if you are not engaged in the work you're doing, then you will never be operating at um your most effective level, uh especially for a sustained period of time. So yes, I'm you know, I suspect there's work that you could be doing that you're not super engaged in, but it's high priority and you bust your ass on it for a bit. and you're operating at a a high level. But I don't think that that's sustained. I think people burn out super fast from that. And I think that the inverse is actually true that when you have work that you find interesting and engaging and that can look very different for everyone, what that means that uh even if you are doing a lot of work, it's less uh less likely to lead to burnout. And I realize as I say that, there's probably some folks that are like, you know, that's crazy.

Like, a job's a job. Like, you know, um, doesn't mean I'm going to love my job or, you know, I don't know. Like, I'm not I'm not saying that you have to love your job. I'm not saying that you have to go work a ton or find work that you love so much that that you have to work a ton. Not what I'm saying. What I am saying though is that um I over time am really starting to shape my perspective that it's not so much how much work is being done and more about how how engaging you find that work. And I say that as someone who like I work a lot. Um I kind of just have done that since I graduated university. And uh there are some things that I could pour a lot of time into and even when I'm tired, whatever else, and there's lots going on, there's still like interesting and exciting.

And there's other things where like even if I'm not really at my limit, and there's a little bit more in there, I'm just feeling very very disengaged. And then I feel uh I feel like pretty terrible, like like I don't want to do anything. So, I do really believe that, you know, burnout comes from, you know, the sustained disengaged kind of work. Things that you're you're not interested in, you don't perceive as uh high value to you. And so that means in situations like this, if you have someone that's kind of lost their lost their spark is how the the post was framed, right? Um when I have employees like this, I think the most important part is uh being able to have open conversations about it, right? And so it's a tricky thing because I would say I would never I don't have the expectation of anyone and it's not a requirement that like as as your manager like you you have to like tell me everything that's going on with you.

That's that's your personal business in many cases, right? Like that's what's going on. If you don't want to share that kind of stuff, totally fine. Um, and I think that if there are, you know, challenging times that you're experiencing, whether that's that you're disengage or like anything that's going on, if you're like, this is impacting my work. Um, I think that if I'm like, I say this in from my perspective, right? if I as a manager am able to have like a really good working relationship with you where you uh there's like mutual trust and respect that when there are times where like you know performance is being impacted even if it's temporary right um that it's a lot easier to have a conversation about that from either side right so um definitely when people are having challenges like outside of work and that's affecting work.

Uh, obviously, you know, I I don't love hearing that because I don't want people to have like problems going on, of course, but um if you are able to focus on building trust and respect with people then and you express genuine curiosity and they know that you're trying to help, I've absolutely had people open up about all kinds of things, right? And that gives me some perspective to understand what they're going through. And that means that I can find ways as much as I can to try helping to to balance out what's going on, right? Uh situations where people um have like family things going on, health issues, whatever it might be. Um and in some cases that could be disengagement, right? that could be like, hey, like I've been working on this project for a long time or I've been working in this area for a long time and it's just not it for me anymore, right?

Like it sounds weird and I know that some people are going to like hate the idea of this because they're like, "Oh my man, like could never talk say to my manager like I'm not interested in the work." But like I I actually think that's super important to be able to have conversations like that. And let me explain why. If I have a team of people, right, and I think like Jim is good at thing A and Sally's good at thing B, and part of me is like going to make an association like, hey, if you're good at it, if you keep doing it, like perhaps it's a thing you're interested in, a thing that you like, right? and I need to be able to balance this kind of stuff out across a team. But certainly I might continue to kind of align you with work like that or whoever whoever the names are that I made up.

Um Sally and Jim. Yeah. Um, but the reality might be that like maybe Sally likes that kind of work that that keep aligning her with and that's great. And maybe Jim is like, you know what? Like I don't know why I keep getting this stuff, right? Like I actually don't like working on this is or this is like the only thing that I seem to know and it's not an interesting challenge for me. I'm kind of tired of it. And so I would much rather that people tell me this, right? like I don't read minds if I would love to be able to to just know this kind of stuff automatically, but um if I'm kind of getting signal from you that I think that you're interested in it, you're good at it, um there's area or opportunities to kind of like showcase your abilities and deliver impact that way, then yeah, I'm going to keep trying to align you that way.

But if if someone said to me, hey, like I'm kind of done working in this space. Like are there some other things that I could that I could do? Like I would like to learn about X or Y or even I don't know what else but I would really like to try something else out. Could we talk about that? I would much rather hear that than uh sort of not have created a space for someone to be able to talk to me about that. Right. I I don't see that as like a weakness or a problem or someone sucks. It's like there's there's stuff that I love working on that if I I don't know. I I can absolutely find myself being like I'm kind of getting sick of it and then starting to resent it and then being like, okay, now it's really disengaging. I I don't think that's an unusual thing, right?

So, how could I ever expect employees to to just love everything they're doing all the time for forever? It just doesn't make sense. So, I would much rather try to find them opportunities, you know, different projects, different whatever uh I can to make sure that they're engaged in the work they're doing. If you're engaged in the work you're doing, you're going to do a better job. Uh so, This is something that you know it's not like I would say it's not something that I regularly have conversations about like it's not like in a given week every week I have um you know this topic come up but certainly it's like it's not it's not rare and I think that that's good and I think that that's normal right I I actually think it's the best part about that is that people actually feel comfortable to be able to talk about it.

Um, I think yeah, I would I I I would feel like it's a bad sign if people weren't comfortable being able to say, "Hey, is there something else?" So, yeah, being able to pick up on this kind of stuff when people are feeling disengaged um isn't always obvious. And I again want to just re-emphasize, I think that's why it's really important to build like uh a lot of trust and respect with people so that they feel that they can talk to you about these kinds of things. That's applicable too, not only for managers, but like if you're a more senior engineer on the team, right? Like you're if you're able to build trust and respect with individuals, then maybe they'll talk to you about this kind of stuff. Okay. So, just to wrap up the manager side of this, like generally how I approach this is it could be from two ways.

One is like starts off where I'm picking up on some maybe it's performance challenges. Maybe it's like I'm observing like someone's uh I don't know like their amount of like outgoingness in meetings or whatever else is just changing, right? um it it seems like something's going on. So, that could be something I kind of bring up in one-on ones just to check in on them. Hey, how are things going? Um, obviously depending on the person, just try to navigate the conversation to see if there's anything that they are interested in sharing. Um, the other way that that goes is that people bring it up. As a manager, I would love to be able to get ahead of that so I can identify it, be proactive about it. But sometimes sometimes people identify for themselves early and that's great and sometimes it's late for them to identify and I missed it and that's an unfortunate real reality but try to help as much as I can.

So once it's identified there's there's something going on, right? I think it's important to have a conversation around like well what's the current situation? Like why are you disengaged, right? Like what's in as this person said like lost the spark? Let's talk about that. Like you are feeling different. So like did did something change? Is it because something hasn't changed in a long enough time? Let's talk about that. Let's try to like have a shared understanding of of the situation and then from there then I think we can start to come up with resolutions to it. And I would remind people that especially as an engineering manager, if I'm trying to help you, it's not like I can snap my fingers and like cure an engagement issue. But again, if we can get to the root of it, then like I it's my it's like my job role to try helping ensure that I can move you in that direction.

And there's going to be situations for sure. It's going to be situations where like it genuinely isn't in my control, right? If someone is disengaged with the work we're doing, they just don't like the domain we're in or they want to move to something else like they're they're ready for change. Uh hey, like if it's not in my team, is it another team in the org? Is it another team in the company? And if it's not like, okay, how do I have conversations with you about best supporting you in whatever else it is you want to be doing? Like I've said this in other videos, right? Like to me, it makes no sense as a manager to try and like, you know, hold someone back if they're, you know, convinced that the thing that they want and the thing that they need is is not where they're at.

I would much rather support them through that than try to keep someone in like they're disengaged and they're not, you know, working effectively. But yeah, once you once you have a shared understanding then like how do we try to take steps and this is very situational depending on what it is. It could be new projects. It could be um I've done things where are like helping getting people to work on uh partner teams tasks so they can get some exposure to some stuff. Could be any number of things, but let's kind of shift the conversation a little bit to talk about it from the perspective of hey, you're not a manager. How does this look? So this person was saying that, you know, the the more junior person came to talk to them about it kind of like shared that's again not always going to be the case.

You might be working with people and you also observe that there's a change, right? They didn't come to you and tell you that, but you're like, "Hey, like this person, you know, I I kind of know some of the whether it's work ethic or I don't like saying work ethic cuz it makes it sound like when you're having some challenges, your work ethic is bad. It's like that's not really true. It's more like I keep I want a different word than engagement and I it's kind of escaping me right now." But um you can see a shift in behavior, right? And so again, it's not I'm not saying it's your responsibility that you have to go talk to people and like make them tell you stuff or anything like that, but I I would say that you know if you have some kind of working relationship with this person, just being able to genuinely like express to them like check in on them, right?

You don't have to go like, "Hey, it seems like uh you're doing pretty terrible on the number of uh tickets you're doing, so like what's wrong?" Like exaggerating on purpose, right? But just you don't even have to say that like you've observed something that's off. You don't even have to do that, right? Liter like when is the last time that you just had a conversation with someone to just see what's up, how they're doing in general? like being genuinely curious as a human being and seeing what's up. Again, not an expectation. You have to do this, but this is more like if you're if you're curious and you're observing something, strike up a conversation, right? If um if you do have the like a good working relationship, then maybe people feel comfortable enough to talk to you about this kind of stuff.

Now, I think based on what this person was saying in their Reddit post, like they were I think they have the right idea where they're trying to correlate because they're saying like there was a more senior person on the team that left and I guess uh these individuals worked close together or something. So they're like, I actually I think that it's related to that because at least I guess like chronologically there's a correlation. And so not that that's the not that it's a matter of like getting to the answer that way, but just kind of understanding, right? Like I think this person said they asked the more junior person about that and they said it wasn't, you know, wasn't related to that. But like maybe it was indirectly, right? Maybe it's not even something they realize. Maybe they don't they don't really care that Bob left the team per se.

They're like, "Cool, Bob's doing some other stuff. That's great for Bob." But maybe um maybe they don't realize that, you know, Bob was someone that they could talk to um about different things they had going on in the team and they felt comfortable that way. And now all of a sudden they don't really have a person like that. Like they they're they're feeling like some of I don't know what the right word is. Uh words are not working well today. It's Friday. some of their like their people, right? The people that you like are very comfortable talking to, they might just feel more isolated when someone like that is is gone. And so it's they might not pick up on it as a specific thing. But then it's like, okay, well, what are you going to do about that, right? You're not going to got to bring Bob back.

That's the way we got to fix this. But it might just be realizing that like someone is maybe feeling more isolated on a team and that doesn't mean like you know the I'm not saying the solution here is we'll go eat lunch with this person every day kind of thing. It's more like okay maybe they were working closely with this person and now they're working on most of their projects alone or maybe they're not working on their projects alone. Maybe the projects they're still working on with other people, it's actually people they don't work effectively with, people that cause issues for them, right? And maybe that was kind of masked because they were working with Bob and they like working with Bob, so they can kind of tolerate it. So my point is just that you don't really know what's going on until you start having a conversation about it.

And it's not going to be your responsibility to to fix it or it's not your responsibility to get to the bottom of it. But if you have like if you are identifying this or you see something like this and you care, I would start with a you know simple conversation and check in with someone. Um, the I think the big thing that's probably happening for for a lot of people, I guess, is is is going to be focused around like AI. And I'm I'm saying that as like a a theme that's more coming up with around like disengagement and stuff like that. I How do I say this? I don't think it's like it's like quite as black and white as that as I'm saying like oh it's because AI I mostly mean like the effects of AI are kind of starting to exaggerate some

things and so whether that's more I don't know more senior people being like I I'm not I feel like I'm not writing as much code anymore and that's like the part I actually like doing. uh or you know you're stuck reviewing AI generated code and you have way more poll requests to do like things are shifting a lot and it's hard for like it's hard for me to kind of comment from the perspective of a of a junior developer but someone who is in the workplace as a junior even over the past couple of years like you are you're absolutely part of this huge shift. So there's probably like things are changing so rapidly, right? You might be changing tools a lot or the tools are evolving and you're like it's just it's too much all at once, right?

Someone in the in the Reddit thread was saying, hey, like when you have people that are graduating from college or university, um they might be coming from a place of a ton of structure, tons of structure in in college or university for many of us. And so you get into the workplace and it's like it's not read this chapter by this date and like submit your assignment on this date. It's more like there's a lot more ambiguity, right? It's not a fixed set of problems. It's like there's there is a problem and good good luck. You have to go figure it out and fix it and you have to go be resourceful and talk to people. there's just a ton less structure. So maybe people struggle with that and maybe it feels overwhelming, right? There's there's so many different things that are going on. But I I do really think that um I think AI absolutely exaggerates a lot of that.

Oh, come on. Come on. It's not a stop sign. Holy Yeah, this it's a tricky one to answer or like give suggestions to I guess for for like anything I want to say. I'm like I I understand that's not your role to like go have to support people like this, right? Um and some things might be kind of outside of your control. But maybe from some of the stuff I was saying from the like the from a manager's perspective, um, I don't know, maybe maybe you'll kind of uncover in your conversations like someone's working on something, they're like, I really don't like working on this, but like this is the project I've been assigned. You might be able to talk to them about that and say, hey, like, you know, maybe maybe make that clear with the manager, right?

Maybe maybe it's a matter of like hey get this this part of it wrapped up and like you know and kind of encouraging them that it's it's you know one project one part of it there's lots of other stuff to work on too and uh yeah I don't know like encouraging them to to have conversations because that might be part of it they might like I was saying with the isolation thing maybe they feel kind of isolated and they're not having conversations to the manager about it. They don't know how to bring it up. So, I think that could be an angle is like if you're starting to see um starting to get a little bit more insight as to what's going on or a bit better understanding, you might be able to say like, "Hey, if if it's not something that you're like actively

going to be assisting with, like is there something that you could suggest to them like, hey, like maybe talk to the manager?" Um, and then kind of giving them some guidance around that because I think that can be a scary thing for some people, right? It's almost like it seems like a I think for a lot of people it can feel like a weakness. Like you want me to go tell my manager a weakness of mine? Like doesn't that sound like a a really bad idea? But I I I will keep coming back to this as a manager like that's not how I see it at all. And in fact, it's like you are if anything you are helping me as a manager, you're helping me have the information I need to help you. So, I would just encourage it if there's I'm trying to think if there's anything like on the technical side.

I don't know. Like like there's so much of this is situational. One thing I'm trying to think of is like maybe someone's feeling disengaged because um I'm trying to think of like some common ones. I I think that I've observed especially this is for more junior people especially but getting you know putting poll requests up and getting tons of uh tons of comments right this is like a sustained thing it it's like maybe maybe they constantly feel like they're the code they write is not good enough right and they're they're they're feeling down about that and that's just kind of getting to them just having conversations with them about that I think could be helpful Right. It's like, hey, like are well, are there common things you see, right? Like are when you put up these poll requests, what what kinds of themes are you seeing where people are are commenting?

Um is it always new? Uh sometimes I there's absolutely situations where it's almost like it doesn't matter what you put up, but you're going to have some individuals that are like they they will seemingly gatekeep on anything. Those are some really difficult conversations, right? Maybe you can say to them like, "Hey, you know, like have you talked to that person about it?" I think I don't think I don't I don't think that some people realize how common it is to have like repeated workplace interactions that seem like pretty small. Something like uh you know blocking code reviews, not uh not doing code reviews timely. um just like some repeat behavior from the same people over and over. It seems like small in isolation, but it can really take a toll. Like think think about the I'm using pull requests as an example.

Think about a person who works on a team and there's someone or or multiple people that they need to get sign off from and you know they can get sign off from some people and others they just can't ever get it or they get it like a week later. So they're you know over time they're going to be figuring out like okay well I shouldn't add these people like they don't they never review my code. I'm not saying that's the answer, right? I I think maybe there's something maybe uh systemically that you can go uh look into there, but you're kind of like reinforcing like if I have these people, I got to wait. The same thing if you add people that are always gating on things and you're like, I feel like we're bike shedding here, we're not doing we're not having like a valuable conversation.

You probably don't want to add those people. You might have people that come across as rude on poll requests and you don't want to add them, right? This kind of stuff not only reinforces behavior for you to like change what you're doing to avoid that, but like it's going to be pretty disengaging over time because you are actively working around collaborating with people on your team. And not because you don't want to, because like this pattern is being reinforced for you where you're like, I I should just avoid this because it's problematic. and inefficient, right? So, you I think for some people they reach a point where they're like it's it's so hard to work on this team like this sucks. Like I don't even if you have cool interesting work to do. You're like I don't want to do it.

like I don't want to put up the pull request or I don't want to do the design dock and you know put all this effort in and no one's going to review it on time or I'm going to have like the most kind of feedback that's like maybe it's like it always feels stylistic and gating instead of like meaningful. I don't know. But I think if you have these types of conversations, you can try uncovering some of this, then at least you might be able to have um some perspective that you can share with this individual, but it's it's going to be super situational, right? So, it's hard to know. would just encourage you to encourage you to be like I don't know like good people to the people you work with and sometimes that's just simple conversation can go a really long way. Okay, we're getting home here.

This person's walking past my driveway. Take your time. Take more time. Okay. Take all the time. There we go. I guess one thing I should add in here is like in terms of uh Oh, this a my own driveway. terrible parking job. Come on. Come on, Nick. You can do better than that. One thing I want to add in is like if you're trying to have conversations with people like this, helping them out where you can. Um, if it ends up being like challenges with people on the team, um, I encourage you not to to gossip about it. I think that perpetuates problems. So, I would say if someone's expressing to you some difficulty with a peer and um that's the thing that's like kind of got them down and demotivated. Um it's not that you like aren't allowed to listen to what they're saying or something like that, but um I would I would caution against like feeding into it.

Um because I think that kind of perpetuates some problems. Sorry, I was looking in my my mirror because my my wife's dog is wearing a cone and one of my dogs was jumping up and his paw was like stuck in her cone. So anyway, um yeah, I I wouldn't perpetuate like gossiping and gossiping and shit-talking just like it's it's not helpful. Um it might feel good in the moment, but like don't do it. Uh, and that would be the kind of thing where it's like, hey, acknowledge what the person's saying. If you have any advice on navigating that, that's fine. And then ultimately, like I would try to direct them to either I guess two things. Either go talk to the other person about it. I will always encourage people to do this because I think that it's uh underused. Like literally go have a conversation about it.

uh or you know try to talk to their manager about it and get some support if needed. But uh I think the the shit-talking and stuff like that, it's like it doesn't help. It perpetuates things and over time just kind of makes for a worse uh work environment. So those are some thoughts on a Friday. Sorry I was kind of all over the place, but hope that helps. And if you have questions in general, leave them below in the comments. Otherwise, go to codemute.com and I will see you in the next video. Take care.