How to respond: coach or escalate

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I’m a new listener to the podcast and work as the sole developer for a sports team, which is the only company I’ve worked for since graduating from university 8 years ago. I listened to episode 493 while clenching my teeth as you told a listener to absolutely not take the job with the European football club as a solo developer. Yikes! While I feel I have continued to grow my skillset in my role, I’m now feeling vulnerable about having no professional experience working alongside other developers or on large-scale applications.

   I feel very conflicted about leaving my current company. I have a respectable developer salary for the (non-American) low cost of living area I’m in, have a great manager, and have built up a ton of good will and trust within the organization. I get all the freedom I could ask for to make design decisions, implement devops practices, try out new technologies, and make mistakes. I also find the work interesting and there’s always something else to do! I’m a little scared of the horror stories that I hear about the real dev world and don’t want to take my current situation for granted.

   I would really appreciate guidance on what you think I should do. I have clear skill deficits in certain areas, but would have to give up a lot of liberties with a role change.

2. Listener Brian asks,

   My job is mostly okay, but could be better because of the people in it. I joined a greenfield project a few years ago as my first software engineer role after transitioning from other data work. I grew up with the project and improved my engineering skills. A year ago we hired two new people. They had relevant experience and seemed to know what they were talking about in the interview, and had five & ten years of experience (aka, more than me).

   Onboarding the first few months was whatever, BUT they’ve never really improved afterwards. They turn in work that has clearly not been tested or does not meet the ticket’s requirements, barely review PRs and have never (!) left any comments/feedback, and despite their level (senior+). I don’t really trust them to work on anything more than the smallest, simplest stories.

   I’ve provided specific feedback in PRs and in performance reviews (sometimes very low-level and specific, and sometimes very high-level about guiding questions or principles), but nothing’s changed. I’ve felt frustrated, drained, and confused - why is it such a struggle to get someone with an entire decade of development experience to turn in a straightforward PR? One other teammate has admitted (privately) that some work was sloppily done, which is consoling but otherwise I’m not sure if it’s bothering others as much as it does me.

   They’re offshore so maybe it’s just a communication thing? The rest of the team has been on the project since the beginning so maybe we’re poorly set up for new devs. I have high standards for myself and others and I’ve always been the most junior developer on the team and am new to the senior role.

   Am I just being a perfectionistic jerk? Is that a bad match for (essentially) junior teammates? Should I just reset my expectations and accept that their level and years of experience don’t translate into high performance? Thanks for any insights.