Episode 514: Trust issues and underperformers and my coworker resents me for being faster

More from Soft Skills Engineering All episodes →

1. 

   29 Jun 2026 · 34 min

   Episode 519: Why does my team not have a tech lead and rumors!

   In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Hi D&J! Question from Sweden! I’m a senior dev that have seen a lot of orgs without tech lead and/or staff engineer roles. I know some companies have them, but mostly newer more techy companies. Bigger older less techy companies usually have non-coding “architects”. Though that’s one title I have no good experience of, just neutral ones or worse :) In particular I’ve been in many teams without a tech lead (all developers are equal, no tiebreaker vote). It’s often successful due to a leader and/or consensus emerging organically and…

2. 

   22 Jun 2026 · 33 min

   Episode 518: stuck at startup and is my employer mistreating me because I'm on a visa?

   In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I have been at a small startup company for 5 years now. It’s a very small technical team, 4 devs and a tech lead that contributes code & architecture. I am getting a small raise this week for my 5 years but it’s a smaller raise than I was expecting. We’re an all remote team across the globe but I had a dev co worker in the same city as me just leave the company. This has put more pressure on me as I’m the only dev in the primary time zone we operate in, everyone else is east coast or opposite side of the world. With the added pressure…

3. 

   15 Jun 2026 · 32 min

   Episode 517: Is it good for my career to work at a SaaS company and why am I being asked to manage two teams?

   In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Hey guys. This question comes all the way from New Zealand. Recently discovered your podcast about a month ago, and have been catching up with older episodes on morning walks ever since - you guys are awesome. Anyway - the question: Is it more beneficial to work for a company where the software itself is the product (SaaS etc) or does it no longer matter given the rise of the robots anyway? For context - I’ve been working for a telco/internet company for just over five year. Initially when I joined there was a huge roadmap of software…

4. 

   8 Jun 2026 · 37 min

   Episode 516: Not a baby and my product manager doesn't know the product

   In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: My company follows scrum, with daily standups. We got a new scrum master. He is very formal and procedural and I struggle with our daily meetings. He goes through a long list of assigned tickets, asking each ticket owner about status and info on progress. We are all engineers with many years of experience but it feels like we are in the kindergarten. We don’t have deep expertise about each others work. It is important to know what each of us is doing more or less, but going deep in these issues makes me disconnect, and I think these…

5. 

   1 Jun 2026 · 35 min

   Episode 515: My junior team member won't listen to me and will I be the dumbest employee at a quantum computer company?

   In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Hi from a long-time listener and first-time caller. I need some advice on a toxic workplace situation. I’m currently unhappy with my job due to a difficult dynamic with a colleague. My manager put us on the same team, meaning we share responsibility for our output. Although this colleague is technically a level below me, they act as though they have seniority. This creates significant friction: they’re resistant to advice, insist they’re always right, and refuse to accept reality even when they can’t deliver what’s required. They’re…

6. 

   18 May 2026 · 37 min

   Episode 513: Forgotten employee and what skills actually matter in the AI world

   In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: How long until I am ethically obligated to let my company know I’m doing no work? There was a big re-org at the company I recently joined. It’s a huge financial company, so there’s a lot of bureaucracy. Somehow in this mess I was kicked off the first team I joined so that I was pending re-assignment. It’s been a month and I haven’t been re-assigned. Instead of being in between jobs not working, I am currently in between teams, but still getting paid! This feels unintentional on the part of the company as no one has followed up with…

7. 

   11 May 2026 · 43 min

   Episode 512: Can non-engineers really contribute code with AI and not sharing

   In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Should I declare my struggle with this AI world we live in here? Nah. I mean, I’d like the hype to die down, a lot, but we keep getting new tools and I get to experiment, so here we are. My real struggle, and this podcast is implicated in it, is around non-technical people contributing to production systems. Why are we so obsessed with this idea? COBOL tried it. Low-code and no-code tried it. BDD and Gherkin aspire to it. Yet time and again the field demonstrates that you need people who know their stuff. To “democratize” software…

8. 

   4 May 2026 · 35 min

   Episode 511: Should I take a temporary management position and performance-based bonuses

   In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I’m approaching 15 years of experience with the last 7 years at fang. About a year ago I was promoted to staff engineer (thanks to the podcast) and switched to an adjacent team under the same director. I have never actively pursued a management role but I’ve been starting to think about it more. A colleague of mine just announced they need to take extended medical leave (1-2 months) and I was asked to fill in as a temporary manager while they are out. How do I go about managing a team if everyone knows it’s short lived? Should I just…

9. 

   27 Apr 2026 · 34 min

   Episode 510: Old and behind and how do I hang on for the last few years until retirement?

   In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I work at a large remote company. We meet up once or twice a year. I don’t really know much about my engineering coworkers aside from the 5 people on my team, so the in person meet ups seem like a good place for me to get to know people from the other teams. I am a career switcher, and am currently a mid level IC (borderline junior) in my late 30s and a youthful appearance. At these meetups, my position and appearance (and honestly, possibly my demeanour) makes me feel like I am expected to socialize with other ICs in their 20s.…

10. 

    20 Apr 2026 · 36 min

    Episode 509: I hate AI software dev, so should I become a manager and leading, not doing

    In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I am a senior software engineer at big tech and need a career change. With the rise of AI, I no longer enjoy this profession and panic everyday just waiting for a huge round of layoffs. At this point I feel like I am on some assembly line hitting enter like a monkey. Therefore I have been thinking of changing lanes and would like to get into engineering management. On the one hand I have enjoyed mentoring, strategic planning and coordinating projects across vendors and across teams, but besides that I don’t have clear evidence that…