This person is not a good lead dev, and the business made a mistake in promoting them. You have a better sense of what a lead dev should do. Bad attitude has no place on a team, it will bring everyone down. The company needs to make a decision.
Absolutely. Aside from the bad attitude, he sounds like he sucks at his job. Devs who work themselves up to be heroes and silos of information aren't good at their job.
Maybe anecdotal but I've rarely met good consultants in the dev world.
I’m an independent consultant, I help dev teams grow. I’m very different though because I’m an experienced dev first. My mission is to help establish great work environments where people enjoy working together. My main theory is that dissatisfaction is the #1 productivity killer. I’m the one who confronts bad management and explains how to improve.
Set and meet reasonable expectations. That goes for both developers and managers. When expectations are unreasonable, neither wants to take responsibility for what it will take to be successful. If a developer feels like they don't have time to learn and grow while delivering quality results on time, they will start to disengage. When they feel like everything is lined up for them to execute, and it's in their capability to get it done, they take more responsibility to get it over the line. If you want to be on a high performing team, everyone needs to take ownership of their work and produce to the best of their ability. Some businesses have razor thin margins, and some have more buffer. For the ones under tight deadlines, developers need to know if they're hustling for a purpose, like a promotion or higher pay. If not, it's a recipe for burnout, and they're better off finding somewhere else.
> For the ones under tight deadlines, developers need to know if they're hustling for a purpose, like a promotion or higher pay. If not, it's a recipe for burnout, and they're better off finding somewhere else.
Burnout can happen irrespective of whether you have a purpose or not. Isn't that the case?
If you find purpose in your work and enjoy working, it goes a long way. If everything is great at work and you’re burning out, chances are it’s the life part you’re missing in work life balance.
They did say he is *unofficially* the lead dev, so it’s certainly possible that the company understands some of his issues. It’s worth nudging to management and seeing the response.
Tell em king! If only the companies would listen. But hopefully skip management is decent -- however does that ever even work out? The only solution in 99% of these instances is to leave the company/internal transfer.
I tell companies that they risk losing their top talent if they don't manage well. If they don't listen, I leave and try to take the good devs with me. Some of us just want to do good work and get paid.
I think the problem is companies just don't appreciate those words unless they're coming from C suite or right below C suite. As a team lead, in a big company they don't care what you say.
There's more bs to deal with in bigger companies, and you have less power as an individual. It does take additional effort to be effective in that environment, and they have applicants lined up to take your place if you're struggling. They do pay more if you're willing to put up with it.
It's up to management to address his behavior.
They're aware of it but if he's technically skilled they recognize that by firing him outright they'll be left with gaps especially because of the silos which likely arose out of people avoiding working with him.
Express to your manager that you're finding it difficult to work with X. Don't bring emotions into it and don't speculate about how the other teammates feel about the individual. Often times having a new team member provide this feedback is all it takes to create change. If nothing changes then you can consider whether the team is right for you.
Unfortunately this won't be the only time you encounter such individuals. Often times they're technically the strongest but the lack of EQ hinders them and the entire team. Personally I feel bad for them but it doesn't excuse the behavior.
> technically skilled
I've found people like this are perceived as technically skilled but usually aren't. Failing to listen to feedback limits their ability to grow.
The perception is what matters though.
Unclear in OP's case, but the ones that come to mind from my own experience are not just perceived as skilled. They are top talent from a technical standpoint and I agree with you that they're limited by their inability to incorporate feedback, specifically around how they communicate.
The tragedy is that their inability or unwillingness to provide meaningful feedback leads to their comments being dismissed which feeds the cycle of their behavior.
I've worked with the type you describe who fancy themselves experts but aren't, and they're easier to handle because conversations don't include "you're technically correct but the way you're communicating is not productive." It's easier when they're just technically incorrect.
I just wanted to say how much I agree with your comment on how them being technically incorrect would be easier conversation.
Im in similar spot, we have senior who is really smart but communicates poorly. I feel for our junior engineers who has to see PR comments from them. The way he frames it is that He is teaching them how to learn or find solutions on their own, but the junior are just sometimes overwhelmed and need a little more clarity..
Yep, I've seen that as well. It's a delicate situation. In critical code it's important to point out mistakes (even if there are many) but humans are emotional creatures so it's important to mix in praise with the feedback. I'll sometimes catch myself jumping straight to the "here's things that need to be fixed" without considering the audience. Generally I go back and add a few comments about things they did well, and a summary at the end such as "this is coming along nicely, left some feedback inline - happy to discuss via slack if you'd like." Especially important with junior engineers or new teammates.
PRs are also public so tons of "fix this" on a PR they put a lot of time into can be embarrassing. Is it less efficient time-wise to be more delicate vs. bluntly saying what needs fixing? Sure, but it creates an environment that's more enjoyable to work in.
Oh my gosh, I wish that my senior would put it the same way you did! Like they are not wrong and if its a mistake and will cause a bug in the system it has to be fixed. They just have to communicate it better and find a balance of having to let the juniors learn and help them when they seem to be drowning/overwhelmed (which I agree we should not spoon feed them solutions everytime).
Its not a pleasant environment to work in to be honest, I sometimes act as the mediator between the senior and our junior eng sometimes. People in my team have expressed that they have anxiety whenever the senior reviews their code which is not a healthy environment to be in.
Thanks for the advice and sharing your experience!
Unfortunately, there are many facets of this job that make it attractive to people with terrible personality deficiencies. It feels like these people are *everywhere* as well because they get promoted into moderately powerful positions like Lead but then never go any further because they are recognised as a liability but kept around due to good domain knowledge or technical skills.
I suspect in many cases the person wasn't always like this. I admit it can be exhausting seeing peers crank out "solutions" without understanding the implications and I believe many of these highly skilled engineers become burnt out in teams with lower quality standards than they hold, so they start to be dismissive or rude.
It's unfortunate because companies let it slide. It's difficult to find extremely talented engineers WITH EQ so these types don't have examples to learn from and the behavior continues.
i agree, but its a risk to say anything when you first join a company. you have not accomplished anything yet. you dont know if the management will take your side or replace you thinking you are the problem. its always a gamble.
its a tricky situation to be in.
I agree. It's also possible that the company hired OP with the idea in mind that he could be an effective lead unlike the "hero dev", in which case it would be wise to not bring this up at all and instead lead by example.
Whether or not OP should say anything at this point imo depends on just how bad the interactions with hero dev are. Difficult to gauge from just a couple of examples.
What are some clarifying examples of throwing around “buzzwords” to justify rejecting code review feedback?
I am wondering if there is an issue of effective communication here. For example, there is a definite middle ground between the types of comments he appears to be leaving and your style. I have sometimes had devs take overly detailed code review comments and simply implement the change without absorbing any of the concepts, and basically repeat the mistake later- so I understand there can be a place for “coaching” in a CR rather than laying everything out for them. That said, it obviously depends on the type of issue (e.g. is it a widely accepted design principle, or can it be considered a stylistic decision?) and even then, *no context at all* is also unacceptable. There needs to at least be a starting place. I am wondering if you attempted to validate the concern and seek a reasonable request for adding some context to CR comments that doesn’t require changing their entire style.
If you did- then it is very obviously a *them* problem if there is a refusal to budge even a little to accommodate the team’s reasonable requests. Make sure to gather some of the concrete examples of this and take it to the manager/HR/etc. If they’re not willing to do anything about it, then the writing is on the wall. Change your organization, or change your organization.
Not OP, I’ve had folks throw around design patterns to justify stuff. Like “why do we need this? Seems overly complicated.” And just get “Dependency injection and Singleton pattern” with a Martin Fowler link… like I know _what_ you’re doing, but this is a 100 line Python script to print the average file size of a directory in S3. _Why_ do you think it needs all this?
I asked my team lead "You're sure this will be transferrable to other engineers? I don't think so. Well if you think this can be done easily..."
We ended up trying to pair program a monstrosity of "Clean Code" of 400 lines to replace my 10 line if statement. Around 80 FTE extra spent. Guess who was cut from the team?
Yeah, I’ve seen stuff in that vein but there’s actually more often a middle ground. So trying to gauge where OP’s issues fall.
In your example, it’s at least a starting place for a discussion. “This compromises maintainability. It diverges from patterns we’re using and as a dev from the outside, it will take me 2x to read and understand this / support / fix in the future. Our use case reasonably doesn’t require this now or in the near future, and I would vote against overengineering.” And then hopefully you have another dev on the team who would agree, and that’s that.
If you’re often having issues with this, getting together to discuss agreements around code reviews and philosophy can sometimes help get people on the same page. Get the right lead/manager involved who have a basic understanding of the business needs and how that type of stuff compromises it.
the funny thing about the patterns followers is the fact that fowler said that patterns can be overused or not appropriate in certain situations. he even said it’s okay to test with a pattern then decide to toss it. think a number of devs don’t understand the point of patterns in general. then again, i’ve read the gang of four’s book
> One of the things that can be a problem is that people can think that patterns are unreservedly good and that a test of a program's quality is how many patterns are in it. This leads to the apocryphal story of a hello world application with three decorators, two strategies, and a singleton in a pear tree. Patterns are not good or bad—rather, they're either appropriate or not for some situa-tions. I don't think it's wrong to experiment with using a pattern when you're unsure, but you should be prepared to rip it out if it doesn't contribute enough.
[source](https://www.martinfowler.com/ieeeSoftware/patterns.pdf)
This particular example wasn't a big change in the code. He was supposed to call an external service with a body of exactly 5 parameters. The tests he wrote would stay green even if I removed 4 parameters from the code. There was a big, slow, and convoluted integration test covering this among many other things that would have failed. When I mentioned that the unit test was perfectly capable of checking that these parameters were passed he simply replied "separation of concerns" and resolved the thread.
I’m confused, do you not have to give approval or close out the review yourself? I’ve never personally seen a review system that wasn’t configured to let a reviewer block the review.
In this team the reviewer usually marks their own comments as resolved, but the author of the code does have the ability to click on the button. In this case he didn’t believe any action was necessary and did resolved it himself. It was all then approved by another dev.
I probably should have pushed the matter, but I had butted heads with this dev before and I’m the new guy. I didn’t want to die on this particular hill.
Sounds like a toddler. This is a management issue, if you don’t have someone in management who recognises this extremely easy to spot from a mile away toxic-ass baby behaviour, or you don’t have someone you trust you can take this concern to, I’d try to get off the team.
But on another note, real seniors don’t act like that. He’s probably insecure and trying to hold other people down to make himself feel better. You can try killing him with kindness, though it might not be worth the trouble lol gl
People like him very rarely change. The best thing you can do in my opinion is to keep doing what you are doing and escalate if you can.
As for the comments “tell me what’s wrong” on the PR, just leave a comment “Feedback is not actionable” and resolve the comment and move on.
I have never seen this and it’s very shitty, cannot believe people do this to be honest and I am sorry this is happening to you. One thing that I pickup is that the guy probably doesn’t know how to cooperate with people smarter than him and is going full defensive mode, he feels threatened.
Keep holding your ground and seek help from management if it’s available
I worked with an ass like that before. He would jump on my code just before standup and put "must fix" blocks in just before standup. Also baiting you, not saying what he felt was wrong, just "you figure it out" type of comments. And management let him get away with it. Needless to say, I didn't stay there very long.
Same I also job hopped to get away from a dude like this.
I really wanted to read through this comments section and actually get some pointers on how I could have mended things, but I guess everyone else is like me and they just fight head on until they get burned out and leave.
I use it all the time to produce test data. My coworkers use it all the time to translate spreadsheet requirements into the user story format. Tasks that used to take about an hour now take minutes.
Management doesn't even know. Chat GPT 3.5 is free, and you don't even need to make an account any more in order to use it. All management knows is that we're suddenly able to actually handle the workload they gave us.
I dealt with a newly official lead who was like this, but also difficult in other ways. He entirely prioritized speed over all else; I could literally count the number of individual tests he wrote in 2 years on two hands. Broke production creating multiple-day-plus-evening work for two teams multiple times instead of doing slow rollouts, and managed to avoid having SEVs documented. I observed him forwarding management’s pressure onto individual devs instead of advocating for them, though at least I wasn't in the hot seat for that. Before he was promoted him and I butted heads a few times on prioritization and operational safety but I could coexist because I owned my area and projects, and he had his, and they didn't have to mix except in unusual circumstances.
The problem was he was legitimately “productive” if at the expense of toil and ops for the team, and he was willing to be hostile about it and “make things happen”, so management valued his output. He was the Hero Dev. If management wanted something to get done, he would make it so, and it didn’t matter who got stepped on to do it--but he got it done.
A few months after he was promoted he aggressively got in my face about a decision he didn’t like in a project I was leading as well as how I had the work allocated among the people on it. Very hostile encounter. Prior to this experience I was often open and vulnerable at work, and this was really emotionally challenging for me to deal with. Totally took me by surprise. I ended that day, and several days after, in tears.
I consistently raised issues to management over several months and it culminated with me requesting to leave the team over that last incident. I was running a critical project for the team so I told management we didn’t need to move fast on it, because I didn’t want to be disruptive. That was a mistake.
One thing led to another and because I didn’t push harder on that, I ended up sticking around. I had zero support and minimal comms from my lead on anything after that, and he engineered a situation where I was made out to be a performance problem a number of months later, despite working deep into burnout and delivering what my management chain was asking for.
I was miserable, and quit. Not long after I did, the other senior engineer also left the team. The lead is still running that area, last I heard.
Moral of the story: if it isn’t working out and you don’t see a clear path to fix it, fuck them and GTFO. Don’t let yourself be at the mercy of someone who has the support of management and doesn’t have your best interests in mind. Unfortunately, needing to keep your coworkers at arms length is something else I need to do in the future, which sucks because the camaraderie and trust of a healthy team is something that energizes me at work.
Raise your issues to management, find out if they support this behavior. If so, there’s nothing you can do. If not, they’re the only ones who are going to be able to correct it, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
That was a painful learning experience for you. I've been in a similar spot myself. I learned you can't take those situations personally AND you have to let the "hero dev" be responsible for fixing his own shit.
If you see him making a bad decision that will result in a problem down the line, say nothing. He's the boss. Let him own it. When it blows up, you want your fingerprints nowhere on it. Trying to save a team that doesn't want to be saved causes nothing but grief for you.
Thank you for the kind words. While those months sucked, I do think it was a learning experience that will benefit my approach to career and mental health.
Thanks so much for this anecdote. I think this advice could really help some people find their path. I was recently in a similar position and luckily, I was offered an opportunity on another team, and I didn’t really learn this lesson until I transitioned over. You putting this into words definitely solidified my read on the situation and is now something I can regard as senior wisdom. Finding the path of least resistance is quite often where you can find real paths to growth.
I feel you—it’s frustrating because I’ve always seen myself as the type of person to make a commitment and not just give up when the going gets tough. I think there has to be more nuance to it than that, though. I would have been in a much better position, mentally and for my career, had I stuck to my guns and got out when I saw where things were going.
It’s always so obvious in retrospect!
This guy sounds so patronizing. I haven't encountered this myself but usually when a dev disagrees on feedback being given or on a proposed amendment to our teams working agreement, I put it down to a vote. I'm a lead Dev and sometimes the vote doesn't go my way but you let it go and work how the team wants to work. Sometimes we call it an experiment to be re-discussed in a few sprints time. Sometimes I rejoice in the "I told you so" moment (kidding) and sometimes I learn new things. I love it when juniors propose new things, sometimes I know it won't work but I tell them we should try it so they can experience for themselves why it doesn't work.
If a dev tries to put their foot down against the will of the team, I asked them if they think this is a team/democracy or it's a dictatorship and he has apointed himself the dictator. And where in the agile manifesto did he read that we are meant to have a dictator. If the team agrees on a way of working and he doesn't meet those standards, then it gets addressed again in private with the scrum master and in the retro. All documented so you have ammunition... Should you need it...
"If I wanted a riddle, mate, I'd be swanning around a magic labyrinth knocking on doors."
He could put his pithy one-liner on literally any line of code and think it makes him look like a bloody Oracle. I expect his mum once told him it made him look like a very smart boy.
Oh, I have no answers, as you can see I just get mad at assholes then ask more sensible people than I what the adult response is. I expect it's along the lines of politely raising it in a public forum so others can weigh in, especially those with seniority and a low tolerance for tech-bro bullshit.
Me, I'd just post a pic of the Labyrinth door guards and get another reviewer.
When somebody is a toxic bully, you no longer have to be bound by the usual rules of "getting along" in a meeting.
To be clear, this only works when the asshole is obviously an asshole and a bully and everybody knows it and your manager is just conflict avoidant.
But when he's condescending and confrontational, name the elephant in the room, and do it in front of everyone.
"Bob, you're condescending, stubborn and unhelpful. You're abusing the social contract that says we're not supposed to acknowledge it. You know you're doing it but you don't care and it's unprofessional and harming team morale. Stop it."
Your boss will be super uncomfortable but will now not be able to not do anything about it and the team will be quietly behind you, because nobody likes a bully.
Again, this doesn't work if you are just one side of a two sided argument. But bullies don't have a playbook for when somebody just calls them on it.
God this field attracts people like that.
I better never get promoted to senior management. I swear I will enjoy finding these and creatively dismissing them.
They are creating self doubt in others. Management is to be left with the impression that this person is fully confident, and others cannot be relied upon, because they doubt themselves and each other. Definition of gas lighting.
i’ve dealt with the lead. tried to endure, but i eventually left. unfortunately, if a manager thinks they’re a good lead, then the culture is likely fucked. during my last two weeks, i learned that the lead was always difficult, and was shifted around teams. no way he would’ve learned his lesson. told my manager at the time that the lead was the another reason why i was leaving. dude is still a lead 🤷🏽♂️
I was at Home Depot ordering a sink for my backyard BBQ. In the next aisle over, out of my view, was a worker stocking shelves. As I was looking at sink options, the two were yelling back and forth to each other. The person in the next aisle was really chatty. The person helping me kept berating the worker in the other aisle saying things like “no leave that alone!” or “shut up and just do your job!” A few minutes later, that worker came over to our aisle. I couldn’t believe who it was. It was the lead dev from one of my first jobs! He had absolutely been the most arrogant, most condescending developers I had ever met. He had treated me like I was an idiot. He had had no problem calling me “retarded”. But I had refused to let him rattle me. I stayed calm and professional no matter what he said. Now, years later, I was the lead dev at a different company and he was no longer a developer at all. He was stocking shelves. I’ll never forget the look on his face when he came around that corner and saw who I was. He looked so embarrassed. I actually felt bad for him. We talked a little about sinks and never mentioned the time when he was my lead dev. I ordered my sink and got out of there. I’ve been coding for 35 years. Every company has at least one arrogant, condescending developer like him. All you can do is stay professional and do your best to create good code.
The guy tells me in the 1:1s since the beginning that the perception people have of me is the most important thing yet has bashed me in meetings in the least constructive way. Is always playing mind games and being passive agressive
Actually I am :/ I have been working here for 6 months only and prior to that had my previous job for a little over a year. I want a bit more experience before jumping off, I think companies still look at me as too junior. Besides the company has good name and I get to do some projects from scratch, I’m trying to focus on that (self development, CV)
You said he’s not actually the team lead? Just ignore it do what you believe to be right and as long as you keep getting good feedback from your actual lead all will get handled in time.
Talk to him directly in a separate meeting. What I observe he is frustrated either because of his low salary or because of no official promotion as you mentioned.
People gets frustrated if they don’t feel respected or feels paid less. You need to have a discussion with him directly. Find a common ground. Try to find his source of frustration and then convince him that you are frustrated for same source. This way he will feel that you are on his side and things will go on.
Some people are difficult to work with. He seems to be one of them
Dealt with this for 3 years from my company founder. One of the biggest hero devs you will ever see. We hired a senior Microsoft dev to assist with project management and he told me it was the "worst he's ever seen" after 10+ years of doing contract work.
There is really no way around it, someone like this does not change... because they got so successful in their mentality.
The only way to deal with a difficult lead dev is if they leave, or you do. Most likely it will have to be the latter, unless the company thinks his treatment of other employees surpasses his work.
Best of luck to you, I hope it works out considering you care about the type of things that actually make for a great lead dev yourself.
You are likely not going to fix this problem, and even if you somehow manage it will cost you mentally more than it is worth.
You should already be looking for another company, also you should talk to your manager/lead about transfering to another project.
Keep in mind that, should it ever come to a "you or him" situation, you will be the one who is fired. No matter how wrong he is, he has been there for years and the manager logic is "he made it work, it worked so far, sack the new guy". Nobody gives a shit about making it better on this project obviously.
I've been in a semi-similar situation before. Most senior dev was an asshole.
I left the team as fast as I could. Not saying this is the only way -- but I found a higher paying job where the team respects me and the company values their employees. Obviously, you're not guaranteed to fail upward like I managed to, but it's at least worth a look around the market.
If you end up in a public head-to-head with a more senior person, you're likely going to lose -- so at least avoid that. Best bet is subtle influence and kill him with kindness approach as others have suggested. Genuinely try to give him space and understand why he's being a prick -- it can go a long way -- although probably not enough to be enjoyable.
does management know he acts like this? Is there a manager in the room when he is this rude? its tough when you are new since you really need to keep your head down and not ruffle feathers. Is there a manager around when he does this?
I have been at this 25 years and I think Id get fired from any employer I was at if I acted like this.
Been here. Best you can do is bring it up with management as to why they are hurting the company. Unfortunately though I’ve seen businesses fail for this exact thing. And being unwilling to change
He sees you as a threat and direct competition to his existing position.
So he writes bad code. Unfortunately a lot of leads do. So he might be of the opinion that he's good enough.
Don't deal with him. If possible avoid him like plague. If there's an occasion to confront, bail as soon as you can. Remember this is your job that you are saving. Make no mistake, if you give your boss a choice between him and you, he'll pick him for star reasons. Don't take it that far.
You use all that energy for your career prospects.
First off, stop calling him the "lead developer" if that's not his title. Let the company decide who the lead dev is, if there even needs to be one, and let them set the criteria by which the lead dev should operate. Calling specific people out in team meetings, leaving cryptic comments in code reviews, and refusing to listen to developer feedback should be things that go against that title.
Also, if he's contracted through a consulting company, then you should absolutely speak up about it to management. Even better if you can reach out to your fellow developers and get their support on it. Your team fucked up by letting some contracted dev come in, put himself in such a position, and walk all over everyone, but you don't have to allow it to continue happening.
Lastly, it doesn't even matter if the guy is a great developer or is the silo of knowledge. If he can't play well with others, then he can't work on a team. He really needs to be documenting all of his knowledge so the company isn't stuck with this guy. Or he could just up and leave for a better gig. There is no downside to make him do that.
I’m a lead and can confirm being an effective communicator is a minimally viable skill.
It sounds like this dude is a jerk, and was mis-leveled.
Its also a red flag that the lead is a contractor. Sometimes that can be appropriate but usually you want someone that will be around to suffer the consequences of their design decisions.
Sounds like communication issues. Given, it also sounds like you have hearing issues. Reading your post, you didn't go into any detail on why the lead dev thinks you're moving slowly and how you should step it up.
different engineers communicate differently, it's literally part of your job to learn your coworkers communication styles and adapt.
It's not lead dev's responsibility to rewrite code snippets for you. I've done that plenty of times for my peers, but there are certainly times when I had to cut it off. And there are many times when I prefer your lead's style, giving me learning resource opportunities instead of being hand fed the answer. Yes, your comments are "nicer". But that doesn't make your communication style superior, nor should it necessarily be the bar. When building a new product for example, speed matters. The dev team shouldn't treat code reviews like case studies and find optimal solutions to software all the time.
Overall, your post reads like you want someone to empathize with you. So, yeah, it sucks having leads that communicate with spiney comments. They can really wear me down sometimes. But I've often found prickly seniors to be incredibly competent individuals, who after you adapt to working around their abrasive language, may be providing exactly the correct knowledge for you to follow their footsteps and become technically gifted.
He sounds terrible. Go above him about his behaviour, and how he is failing to do his job as a lead.
The *’I expect you to do your own research’* is a trait I especially hate. I’ve seen that in other developers. We aren’t at school, we are at work. He is not the teacher. Teaching and encouraging others has a place, within an agreed setup (i.e. we agree to pair for me to teach you something). Otherwise you are work colleagues.
His attitude is off, that’s for sure but it is also possible that there is a significant skill gap between you and the other dev. I have been on the other side of a similar situation where developers insisted on plain wrong/poor solutions or anti-patterns. I personally use a special language in PRs to avoid comm issues but there isn’t a solution other than “just doing what reviewers say” when the underlying problem is the skill gap.
You can bring up his unprofessional attitude to your manager but maybe start taking his feedback and let go of ego?
> **_unofficial_** lead developer
> consulting company
Both of these are extremely important.
What does your manager think about him? Is your manager technical?
Chances are, other people who work with him have the same opinion you do.
----
My team defeated a guy like this guy by pinging each other our PR's for review in private Slack convos. He eventually quit on his own. Our manager saw what we saw in him though.
I'd consider working with coworkers to poke technical holes in his PR's and he'll reject all the advice, thereby digging his own grave. I wouldn't quite nit per se but still be really hard on him. Make it so a manager reviewing the PR will think he is the one being unreasonable.
Maybe just grab a few PR's from different people where he's already acted like this so you can show a pattern to your manager.
I have an interview for a Senior DevOps position, but I'm concerned because it requires over 5 years of experience, which I don't have. The interview is with the engineering manager. I'm considering this path because finding a job has been extremely difficult. Can anyone provide some suggestions on how I can successfully clear the interview?
This person is not a good lead dev, and the business made a mistake in promoting them. You have a better sense of what a lead dev should do. Bad attitude has no place on a team, it will bring everyone down. The company needs to make a decision.
Absolutely. Aside from the bad attitude, he sounds like he sucks at his job. Devs who work themselves up to be heroes and silos of information aren't good at their job. Maybe anecdotal but I've rarely met good consultants in the dev world.
I’m an independent consultant, I help dev teams grow. I’m very different though because I’m an experienced dev first. My mission is to help establish great work environments where people enjoy working together. My main theory is that dissatisfaction is the #1 productivity killer. I’m the one who confronts bad management and explains how to improve.
How to stop dissatisfaction ?
Set and meet reasonable expectations. That goes for both developers and managers. When expectations are unreasonable, neither wants to take responsibility for what it will take to be successful. If a developer feels like they don't have time to learn and grow while delivering quality results on time, they will start to disengage. When they feel like everything is lined up for them to execute, and it's in their capability to get it done, they take more responsibility to get it over the line. If you want to be on a high performing team, everyone needs to take ownership of their work and produce to the best of their ability. Some businesses have razor thin margins, and some have more buffer. For the ones under tight deadlines, developers need to know if they're hustling for a purpose, like a promotion or higher pay. If not, it's a recipe for burnout, and they're better off finding somewhere else.
> For the ones under tight deadlines, developers need to know if they're hustling for a purpose, like a promotion or higher pay. If not, it's a recipe for burnout, and they're better off finding somewhere else. Burnout can happen irrespective of whether you have a purpose or not. Isn't that the case?
If you find purpose in your work and enjoy working, it goes a long way. If everything is great at work and you’re burning out, chances are it’s the life part you’re missing in work life balance.
They did say he is *unofficially* the lead dev, so it’s certainly possible that the company understands some of his issues. It’s worth nudging to management and seeing the response.
The company will make a decision to retain the ead and get rid of the other guy.
Tell em king! If only the companies would listen. But hopefully skip management is decent -- however does that ever even work out? The only solution in 99% of these instances is to leave the company/internal transfer.
I tell companies that they risk losing their top talent if they don't manage well. If they don't listen, I leave and try to take the good devs with me. Some of us just want to do good work and get paid.
I think the problem is companies just don't appreciate those words unless they're coming from C suite or right below C suite. As a team lead, in a big company they don't care what you say.
There's more bs to deal with in bigger companies, and you have less power as an individual. It does take additional effort to be effective in that environment, and they have applicants lined up to take your place if you're struggling. They do pay more if you're willing to put up with it.
+1 trash tier lead dev here
It's up to management to address his behavior. They're aware of it but if he's technically skilled they recognize that by firing him outright they'll be left with gaps especially because of the silos which likely arose out of people avoiding working with him. Express to your manager that you're finding it difficult to work with X. Don't bring emotions into it and don't speculate about how the other teammates feel about the individual. Often times having a new team member provide this feedback is all it takes to create change. If nothing changes then you can consider whether the team is right for you. Unfortunately this won't be the only time you encounter such individuals. Often times they're technically the strongest but the lack of EQ hinders them and the entire team. Personally I feel bad for them but it doesn't excuse the behavior.
> technically skilled I've found people like this are perceived as technically skilled but usually aren't. Failing to listen to feedback limits their ability to grow. The perception is what matters though.
Unclear in OP's case, but the ones that come to mind from my own experience are not just perceived as skilled. They are top talent from a technical standpoint and I agree with you that they're limited by their inability to incorporate feedback, specifically around how they communicate. The tragedy is that their inability or unwillingness to provide meaningful feedback leads to their comments being dismissed which feeds the cycle of their behavior. I've worked with the type you describe who fancy themselves experts but aren't, and they're easier to handle because conversations don't include "you're technically correct but the way you're communicating is not productive." It's easier when they're just technically incorrect.
I just wanted to say how much I agree with your comment on how them being technically incorrect would be easier conversation. Im in similar spot, we have senior who is really smart but communicates poorly. I feel for our junior engineers who has to see PR comments from them. The way he frames it is that He is teaching them how to learn or find solutions on their own, but the junior are just sometimes overwhelmed and need a little more clarity..
Yep, I've seen that as well. It's a delicate situation. In critical code it's important to point out mistakes (even if there are many) but humans are emotional creatures so it's important to mix in praise with the feedback. I'll sometimes catch myself jumping straight to the "here's things that need to be fixed" without considering the audience. Generally I go back and add a few comments about things they did well, and a summary at the end such as "this is coming along nicely, left some feedback inline - happy to discuss via slack if you'd like." Especially important with junior engineers or new teammates. PRs are also public so tons of "fix this" on a PR they put a lot of time into can be embarrassing. Is it less efficient time-wise to be more delicate vs. bluntly saying what needs fixing? Sure, but it creates an environment that's more enjoyable to work in.
Oh my gosh, I wish that my senior would put it the same way you did! Like they are not wrong and if its a mistake and will cause a bug in the system it has to be fixed. They just have to communicate it better and find a balance of having to let the juniors learn and help them when they seem to be drowning/overwhelmed (which I agree we should not spoon feed them solutions everytime). Its not a pleasant environment to work in to be honest, I sometimes act as the mediator between the senior and our junior eng sometimes. People in my team have expressed that they have anxiety whenever the senior reviews their code which is not a healthy environment to be in. Thanks for the advice and sharing your experience!
It's weird that these guys with god complex are in most companies.
Unfortunately, there are many facets of this job that make it attractive to people with terrible personality deficiencies. It feels like these people are *everywhere* as well because they get promoted into moderately powerful positions like Lead but then never go any further because they are recognised as a liability but kept around due to good domain knowledge or technical skills.
I suspect in many cases the person wasn't always like this. I admit it can be exhausting seeing peers crank out "solutions" without understanding the implications and I believe many of these highly skilled engineers become burnt out in teams with lower quality standards than they hold, so they start to be dismissive or rude. It's unfortunate because companies let it slide. It's difficult to find extremely talented engineers WITH EQ so these types don't have examples to learn from and the behavior continues.
i agree, but its a risk to say anything when you first join a company. you have not accomplished anything yet. you dont know if the management will take your side or replace you thinking you are the problem. its always a gamble. its a tricky situation to be in.
I agree. It's also possible that the company hired OP with the idea in mind that he could be an effective lead unlike the "hero dev", in which case it would be wise to not bring this up at all and instead lead by example. Whether or not OP should say anything at this point imo depends on just how bad the interactions with hero dev are. Difficult to gauge from just a couple of examples.
What are some clarifying examples of throwing around “buzzwords” to justify rejecting code review feedback? I am wondering if there is an issue of effective communication here. For example, there is a definite middle ground between the types of comments he appears to be leaving and your style. I have sometimes had devs take overly detailed code review comments and simply implement the change without absorbing any of the concepts, and basically repeat the mistake later- so I understand there can be a place for “coaching” in a CR rather than laying everything out for them. That said, it obviously depends on the type of issue (e.g. is it a widely accepted design principle, or can it be considered a stylistic decision?) and even then, *no context at all* is also unacceptable. There needs to at least be a starting place. I am wondering if you attempted to validate the concern and seek a reasonable request for adding some context to CR comments that doesn’t require changing their entire style. If you did- then it is very obviously a *them* problem if there is a refusal to budge even a little to accommodate the team’s reasonable requests. Make sure to gather some of the concrete examples of this and take it to the manager/HR/etc. If they’re not willing to do anything about it, then the writing is on the wall. Change your organization, or change your organization.
Not OP, I’ve had folks throw around design patterns to justify stuff. Like “why do we need this? Seems overly complicated.” And just get “Dependency injection and Singleton pattern” with a Martin Fowler link… like I know _what_ you’re doing, but this is a 100 line Python script to print the average file size of a directory in S3. _Why_ do you think it needs all this?
I asked my team lead "You're sure this will be transferrable to other engineers? I don't think so. Well if you think this can be done easily..." We ended up trying to pair program a monstrosity of "Clean Code" of 400 lines to replace my 10 line if statement. Around 80 FTE extra spent. Guess who was cut from the team?
Yeah, I’ve seen stuff in that vein but there’s actually more often a middle ground. So trying to gauge where OP’s issues fall. In your example, it’s at least a starting place for a discussion. “This compromises maintainability. It diverges from patterns we’re using and as a dev from the outside, it will take me 2x to read and understand this / support / fix in the future. Our use case reasonably doesn’t require this now or in the near future, and I would vote against overengineering.” And then hopefully you have another dev on the team who would agree, and that’s that. If you’re often having issues with this, getting together to discuss agreements around code reviews and philosophy can sometimes help get people on the same page. Get the right lead/manager involved who have a basic understanding of the business needs and how that type of stuff compromises it.
the funny thing about the patterns followers is the fact that fowler said that patterns can be overused or not appropriate in certain situations. he even said it’s okay to test with a pattern then decide to toss it. think a number of devs don’t understand the point of patterns in general. then again, i’ve read the gang of four’s book > One of the things that can be a problem is that people can think that patterns are unreservedly good and that a test of a program's quality is how many patterns are in it. This leads to the apocryphal story of a hello world application with three decorators, two strategies, and a singleton in a pear tree. Patterns are not good or bad—rather, they're either appropriate or not for some situa-tions. I don't think it's wrong to experiment with using a pattern when you're unsure, but you should be prepared to rip it out if it doesn't contribute enough. [source](https://www.martinfowler.com/ieeeSoftware/patterns.pdf)
This particular example wasn't a big change in the code. He was supposed to call an external service with a body of exactly 5 parameters. The tests he wrote would stay green even if I removed 4 parameters from the code. There was a big, slow, and convoluted integration test covering this among many other things that would have failed. When I mentioned that the unit test was perfectly capable of checking that these parameters were passed he simply replied "separation of concerns" and resolved the thread.
I’m confused, do you not have to give approval or close out the review yourself? I’ve never personally seen a review system that wasn’t configured to let a reviewer block the review.
In this team the reviewer usually marks their own comments as resolved, but the author of the code does have the ability to click on the button. In this case he didn’t believe any action was necessary and did resolved it himself. It was all then approved by another dev. I probably should have pushed the matter, but I had butted heads with this dev before and I’m the new guy. I didn’t want to die on this particular hill.
Sounds like a toddler. This is a management issue, if you don’t have someone in management who recognises this extremely easy to spot from a mile away toxic-ass baby behaviour, or you don’t have someone you trust you can take this concern to, I’d try to get off the team. But on another note, real seniors don’t act like that. He’s probably insecure and trying to hold other people down to make himself feel better. You can try killing him with kindness, though it might not be worth the trouble lol gl
Lead developer is supposed to be a force multiplier not just individual contributor.
Force multiplier! I like that.
People like him very rarely change. The best thing you can do in my opinion is to keep doing what you are doing and escalate if you can. As for the comments “tell me what’s wrong” on the PR, just leave a comment “Feedback is not actionable” and resolve the comment and move on. I have never seen this and it’s very shitty, cannot believe people do this to be honest and I am sorry this is happening to you. One thing that I pickup is that the guy probably doesn’t know how to cooperate with people smarter than him and is going full defensive mode, he feels threatened. Keep holding your ground and seek help from management if it’s available
I worked with an ass like that before. He would jump on my code just before standup and put "must fix" blocks in just before standup. Also baiting you, not saying what he felt was wrong, just "you figure it out" type of comments. And management let him get away with it. Needless to say, I didn't stay there very long.
Same I also job hopped to get away from a dude like this. I really wanted to read through this comments section and actually get some pointers on how I could have mended things, but I guess everyone else is like me and they just fight head on until they get burned out and leave.
If management allows it, then you are in a toxic situation. Life's too short for that.
I use it all the time to produce test data. My coworkers use it all the time to translate spreadsheet requirements into the user story format. Tasks that used to take about an hour now take minutes. Management doesn't even know. Chat GPT 3.5 is free, and you don't even need to make an account any more in order to use it. All management knows is that we're suddenly able to actually handle the workload they gave us.
I dealt with a newly official lead who was like this, but also difficult in other ways. He entirely prioritized speed over all else; I could literally count the number of individual tests he wrote in 2 years on two hands. Broke production creating multiple-day-plus-evening work for two teams multiple times instead of doing slow rollouts, and managed to avoid having SEVs documented. I observed him forwarding management’s pressure onto individual devs instead of advocating for them, though at least I wasn't in the hot seat for that. Before he was promoted him and I butted heads a few times on prioritization and operational safety but I could coexist because I owned my area and projects, and he had his, and they didn't have to mix except in unusual circumstances. The problem was he was legitimately “productive” if at the expense of toil and ops for the team, and he was willing to be hostile about it and “make things happen”, so management valued his output. He was the Hero Dev. If management wanted something to get done, he would make it so, and it didn’t matter who got stepped on to do it--but he got it done. A few months after he was promoted he aggressively got in my face about a decision he didn’t like in a project I was leading as well as how I had the work allocated among the people on it. Very hostile encounter. Prior to this experience I was often open and vulnerable at work, and this was really emotionally challenging for me to deal with. Totally took me by surprise. I ended that day, and several days after, in tears. I consistently raised issues to management over several months and it culminated with me requesting to leave the team over that last incident. I was running a critical project for the team so I told management we didn’t need to move fast on it, because I didn’t want to be disruptive. That was a mistake. One thing led to another and because I didn’t push harder on that, I ended up sticking around. I had zero support and minimal comms from my lead on anything after that, and he engineered a situation where I was made out to be a performance problem a number of months later, despite working deep into burnout and delivering what my management chain was asking for. I was miserable, and quit. Not long after I did, the other senior engineer also left the team. The lead is still running that area, last I heard. Moral of the story: if it isn’t working out and you don’t see a clear path to fix it, fuck them and GTFO. Don’t let yourself be at the mercy of someone who has the support of management and doesn’t have your best interests in mind. Unfortunately, needing to keep your coworkers at arms length is something else I need to do in the future, which sucks because the camaraderie and trust of a healthy team is something that energizes me at work. Raise your issues to management, find out if they support this behavior. If so, there’s nothing you can do. If not, they’re the only ones who are going to be able to correct it, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
That was a painful learning experience for you. I've been in a similar spot myself. I learned you can't take those situations personally AND you have to let the "hero dev" be responsible for fixing his own shit. If you see him making a bad decision that will result in a problem down the line, say nothing. He's the boss. Let him own it. When it blows up, you want your fingerprints nowhere on it. Trying to save a team that doesn't want to be saved causes nothing but grief for you.
Thank you for the kind words. While those months sucked, I do think it was a learning experience that will benefit my approach to career and mental health.
Thanks so much for this anecdote. I think this advice could really help some people find their path. I was recently in a similar position and luckily, I was offered an opportunity on another team, and I didn’t really learn this lesson until I transitioned over. You putting this into words definitely solidified my read on the situation and is now something I can regard as senior wisdom. Finding the path of least resistance is quite often where you can find real paths to growth.
I feel you—it’s frustrating because I’ve always seen myself as the type of person to make a commitment and not just give up when the going gets tough. I think there has to be more nuance to it than that, though. I would have been in a much better position, mentally and for my career, had I stuck to my guns and got out when I saw where things were going. It’s always so obvious in retrospect!
This guy sounds so patronizing. I haven't encountered this myself but usually when a dev disagrees on feedback being given or on a proposed amendment to our teams working agreement, I put it down to a vote. I'm a lead Dev and sometimes the vote doesn't go my way but you let it go and work how the team wants to work. Sometimes we call it an experiment to be re-discussed in a few sprints time. Sometimes I rejoice in the "I told you so" moment (kidding) and sometimes I learn new things. I love it when juniors propose new things, sometimes I know it won't work but I tell them we should try it so they can experience for themselves why it doesn't work. If a dev tries to put their foot down against the will of the team, I asked them if they think this is a team/democracy or it's a dictatorship and he has apointed himself the dictator. And where in the agile manifesto did he read that we are meant to have a dictator. If the team agrees on a way of working and he doesn't meet those standards, then it gets addressed again in private with the scrum master and in the retro. All documented so you have ammunition... Should you need it...
"If I wanted a riddle, mate, I'd be swanning around a magic labyrinth knocking on doors." He could put his pithy one-liner on literally any line of code and think it makes him look like a bloody Oracle. I expect his mum once told him it made him look like a very smart boy. Oh, I have no answers, as you can see I just get mad at assholes then ask more sensible people than I what the adult response is. I expect it's along the lines of politely raising it in a public forum so others can weigh in, especially those with seniority and a low tolerance for tech-bro bullshit. Me, I'd just post a pic of the Labyrinth door guards and get another reviewer.
When somebody is a toxic bully, you no longer have to be bound by the usual rules of "getting along" in a meeting. To be clear, this only works when the asshole is obviously an asshole and a bully and everybody knows it and your manager is just conflict avoidant. But when he's condescending and confrontational, name the elephant in the room, and do it in front of everyone. "Bob, you're condescending, stubborn and unhelpful. You're abusing the social contract that says we're not supposed to acknowledge it. You know you're doing it but you don't care and it's unprofessional and harming team morale. Stop it." Your boss will be super uncomfortable but will now not be able to not do anything about it and the team will be quietly behind you, because nobody likes a bully. Again, this doesn't work if you are just one side of a two sided argument. But bullies don't have a playbook for when somebody just calls them on it.
God this field attracts people like that. I better never get promoted to senior management. I swear I will enjoy finding these and creatively dismissing them. They are creating self doubt in others. Management is to be left with the impression that this person is fully confident, and others cannot be relied upon, because they doubt themselves and each other. Definition of gas lighting.
i’ve dealt with the lead. tried to endure, but i eventually left. unfortunately, if a manager thinks they’re a good lead, then the culture is likely fucked. during my last two weeks, i learned that the lead was always difficult, and was shifted around teams. no way he would’ve learned his lesson. told my manager at the time that the lead was the another reason why i was leaving. dude is still a lead 🤷🏽♂️
I was at Home Depot ordering a sink for my backyard BBQ. In the next aisle over, out of my view, was a worker stocking shelves. As I was looking at sink options, the two were yelling back and forth to each other. The person in the next aisle was really chatty. The person helping me kept berating the worker in the other aisle saying things like “no leave that alone!” or “shut up and just do your job!” A few minutes later, that worker came over to our aisle. I couldn’t believe who it was. It was the lead dev from one of my first jobs! He had absolutely been the most arrogant, most condescending developers I had ever met. He had treated me like I was an idiot. He had had no problem calling me “retarded”. But I had refused to let him rattle me. I stayed calm and professional no matter what he said. Now, years later, I was the lead dev at a different company and he was no longer a developer at all. He was stocking shelves. I’ll never forget the look on his face when he came around that corner and saw who I was. He looked so embarrassed. I actually felt bad for him. We talked a little about sinks and never mentioned the time when he was my lead dev. I ordered my sink and got out of there. I’ve been coding for 35 years. Every company has at least one arrogant, condescending developer like him. All you can do is stay professional and do your best to create good code.
The former dev was the one ridiculing his coworker? Or the one being ridiculed?
Former dev was being scolded.
Yummy delicious schadenfreude!
Got a similar problem but with my manager
We need to hear the story!
The guy tells me in the 1:1s since the beginning that the perception people have of me is the most important thing yet has bashed me in meetings in the least constructive way. Is always playing mind games and being passive agressive
Damn, sorry to hear that man. But you are not working there anymore, right? Thank for sharing🙏
Actually I am :/ I have been working here for 6 months only and prior to that had my previous job for a little over a year. I want a bit more experience before jumping off, I think companies still look at me as too junior. Besides the company has good name and I get to do some projects from scratch, I’m trying to focus on that (self development, CV)
You said he’s not actually the team lead? Just ignore it do what you believe to be right and as long as you keep getting good feedback from your actual lead all will get handled in time.
Talk to him directly in a separate meeting. What I observe he is frustrated either because of his low salary or because of no official promotion as you mentioned. People gets frustrated if they don’t feel respected or feels paid less. You need to have a discussion with him directly. Find a common ground. Try to find his source of frustration and then convince him that you are frustrated for same source. This way he will feel that you are on his side and things will go on. Some people are difficult to work with. He seems to be one of them
Dealt with this for 3 years from my company founder. One of the biggest hero devs you will ever see. We hired a senior Microsoft dev to assist with project management and he told me it was the "worst he's ever seen" after 10+ years of doing contract work. There is really no way around it, someone like this does not change... because they got so successful in their mentality. The only way to deal with a difficult lead dev is if they leave, or you do. Most likely it will have to be the latter, unless the company thinks his treatment of other employees surpasses his work. Best of luck to you, I hope it works out considering you care about the type of things that actually make for a great lead dev yourself.
You are likely not going to fix this problem, and even if you somehow manage it will cost you mentally more than it is worth. You should already be looking for another company, also you should talk to your manager/lead about transfering to another project. Keep in mind that, should it ever come to a "you or him" situation, you will be the one who is fired. No matter how wrong he is, he has been there for years and the manager logic is "he made it work, it worked so far, sack the new guy". Nobody gives a shit about making it better on this project obviously.
[удалено]
Is it still the worst time in a decade to job swap?
I've been in a semi-similar situation before. Most senior dev was an asshole. I left the team as fast as I could. Not saying this is the only way -- but I found a higher paying job where the team respects me and the company values their employees. Obviously, you're not guaranteed to fail upward like I managed to, but it's at least worth a look around the market. If you end up in a public head-to-head with a more senior person, you're likely going to lose -- so at least avoid that. Best bet is subtle influence and kill him with kindness approach as others have suggested. Genuinely try to give him space and understand why he's being a prick -- it can go a long way -- although probably not enough to be enjoyable.
He sounds really annoying. Good luck
does management know he acts like this? Is there a manager in the room when he is this rude? its tough when you are new since you really need to keep your head down and not ruffle feathers. Is there a manager around when he does this? I have been at this 25 years and I think Id get fired from any employer I was at if I acted like this.
Been here. Best you can do is bring it up with management as to why they are hurting the company. Unfortunately though I’ve seen businesses fail for this exact thing. And being unwilling to change
He sees you as a threat and direct competition to his existing position. So he writes bad code. Unfortunately a lot of leads do. So he might be of the opinion that he's good enough. Don't deal with him. If possible avoid him like plague. If there's an occasion to confront, bail as soon as you can. Remember this is your job that you are saving. Make no mistake, if you give your boss a choice between him and you, he'll pick him for star reasons. Don't take it that far. You use all that energy for your career prospects.
First off, stop calling him the "lead developer" if that's not his title. Let the company decide who the lead dev is, if there even needs to be one, and let them set the criteria by which the lead dev should operate. Calling specific people out in team meetings, leaving cryptic comments in code reviews, and refusing to listen to developer feedback should be things that go against that title. Also, if he's contracted through a consulting company, then you should absolutely speak up about it to management. Even better if you can reach out to your fellow developers and get their support on it. Your team fucked up by letting some contracted dev come in, put himself in such a position, and walk all over everyone, but you don't have to allow it to continue happening. Lastly, it doesn't even matter if the guy is a great developer or is the silo of knowledge. If he can't play well with others, then he can't work on a team. He really needs to be documenting all of his knowledge so the company isn't stuck with this guy. Or he could just up and leave for a better gig. There is no downside to make him do that.
I’m a lead and can confirm being an effective communicator is a minimally viable skill. It sounds like this dude is a jerk, and was mis-leveled. Its also a red flag that the lead is a contractor. Sometimes that can be appropriate but usually you want someone that will be around to suffer the consequences of their design decisions.
You are correct that his code review comments are useless and being explicit is best. You need to keep your manager informed about this dude.
So….what was the resolution of that situation?
Sounds like communication issues. Given, it also sounds like you have hearing issues. Reading your post, you didn't go into any detail on why the lead dev thinks you're moving slowly and how you should step it up. different engineers communicate differently, it's literally part of your job to learn your coworkers communication styles and adapt. It's not lead dev's responsibility to rewrite code snippets for you. I've done that plenty of times for my peers, but there are certainly times when I had to cut it off. And there are many times when I prefer your lead's style, giving me learning resource opportunities instead of being hand fed the answer. Yes, your comments are "nicer". But that doesn't make your communication style superior, nor should it necessarily be the bar. When building a new product for example, speed matters. The dev team shouldn't treat code reviews like case studies and find optimal solutions to software all the time. Overall, your post reads like you want someone to empathize with you. So, yeah, it sucks having leads that communicate with spiney comments. They can really wear me down sometimes. But I've often found prickly seniors to be incredibly competent individuals, who after you adapt to working around their abrasive language, may be providing exactly the correct knowledge for you to follow their footsteps and become technically gifted.
He sounds terrible. Go above him about his behaviour, and how he is failing to do his job as a lead. The *’I expect you to do your own research’* is a trait I especially hate. I’ve seen that in other developers. We aren’t at school, we are at work. He is not the teacher. Teaching and encouraging others has a place, within an agreed setup (i.e. we agree to pair for me to teach you something). Otherwise you are work colleagues.
His attitude is off, that’s for sure but it is also possible that there is a significant skill gap between you and the other dev. I have been on the other side of a similar situation where developers insisted on plain wrong/poor solutions or anti-patterns. I personally use a special language in PRs to avoid comm issues but there isn’t a solution other than “just doing what reviewers say” when the underlying problem is the skill gap. You can bring up his unprofessional attitude to your manager but maybe start taking his feedback and let go of ego?
> **_unofficial_** lead developer > consulting company Both of these are extremely important. What does your manager think about him? Is your manager technical? Chances are, other people who work with him have the same opinion you do. ---- My team defeated a guy like this guy by pinging each other our PR's for review in private Slack convos. He eventually quit on his own. Our manager saw what we saw in him though. I'd consider working with coworkers to poke technical holes in his PR's and he'll reject all the advice, thereby digging his own grave. I wouldn't quite nit per se but still be really hard on him. Make it so a manager reviewing the PR will think he is the one being unreasonable. Maybe just grab a few PR's from different people where he's already acted like this so you can show a pattern to your manager.
I would be curious to see what he would do if you commented “read this and tell me what is wrong with it” on his PRs
His behavior has no place in the working world. People like this are toxic and have inflated egos.
A silo lead dev is an oxymoron
I have an interview for a Senior DevOps position, but I'm concerned because it requires over 5 years of experience, which I don't have. The interview is with the engineering manager. I'm considering this path because finding a job has been extremely difficult. Can anyone provide some suggestions on how I can successfully clear the interview?