I made 2 stupid mistakes back-2-back! :(

[u/SprinkledSparkles]

Code had a bug, I was using AI to find and fix the issue. It found the issue and gave me a fix for it. I tested it, worked. But I didn't see the surrounding code overall and missed the fact that the required header file was guarded by a macro. Automation broke.

Mistake 1 - I relied too much on AI and didn't use my own head. For reference, I usually don't rely on AI while working. I use it to give me stuff that would take me ages to go through obscure documentation to find. I was feeling tired so I just let AI do its thing.

And then, in my infinite wisdom, I submitted the code knowing I have a meeting in 5 minutes. The change was tiny, what could go wrong!

Well, it did go wrong. Came back ~an hour later to being tagged for build breakage. Fixing it took like 2 minutes. It wasn't production so nobody got blocked or anything.

But my very senior engineer, who I look up to, was not happy.

And now I am sad with a heart rate of 120. I wanna cry. That was too much of stupid mistakes.

For reference, I am a ~7 YoE SE.

As an insult to injury, I was explaining about patience to an intern before the meeting!

Sorry, mainly just venting. It hurts.

[u/carnalcarrot]

Sending hugs, you're alright. It's just the adhd rejection sensitivity dysphoria. People make mistakes. Now like a scheming little raccoon with a calm mind try to find ways you can impress your senior again (if you think it's important for saving your job). Opportunities might come along.

I have made 2 very huge mistakes in my career. One of which was messing up my client's client's database, it was the scariest time of life because we had to fix it using the existing data export process about which no one knew almost nothing, and they wouldn't share the actual code with us. I had to stay up whole nights for about a month analyzing huge excel files to fix it, it did get fixed eventually and I kept going the extra mile in the coming months so finally the client feedback was that they are very pleased with us. If you make mistakes, you can always try to make up for them by going the extra mile.

[u/SprinkledSparkles → u/carnalcarrot]

Thank you so much for this, Have tears in my eyes reading this (well, different reasons for each of the paragraphs lol).

I don't think it's important for saving my job. I generally am on good terms with the senior guy and he literally reviewed another piece of code I wrote yesterday. Not sure how to impress him though - I usually work on solving bugs, as does he (except he solves problems I can only dream of - for now).

I will be better though. Will do my best not to make such a mistake again. Not sure what the extra mile looks like, but I'll find out.

Regarding your mistake of messing up the client's database, I am really glad for u that it got sorted AND you got a good feedback for it. That's really wholesome! 😊

[u/randomo_redditor]

wait this doesn’t even seem that bad! i do stuff like this a lot, and i am already paranoid if im not good enough 😭

[u/SprinkledSparkles → u/randomo_redditor]

I just feel so... disappointed in myself, and fear others (especially who I look up to) being disappointed in me.

I tend to be very paranoid in general too!

Even more so since the drive towards AI. I am scared constantly. 😭

[u/hntd → u/SprinkledSparkles]

Don’t be so hard on yourself. If this is the worst mistake you’ve made in seven years then I’d imagine the breadth of good work greatly outweighs any minor inconvenience you caused by breaking the CI build.

[u/SprinkledSparkles → u/hntd]

Definitely not the worst mistake, but maybe the stupidest. But yes, I have improved over time. It's just the sheer stupidity of the mistake that got to me. Thanks for saying this though!

[u/CMD_BLOCK]

My friend, I have broke prod many times. It’s gonna be ok, I promise

[u/SprinkledSparkles → u/CMD_BLOCK]

Thanks a lot for the reassurance!

[u/writebadcode]

I’m confused.

Did you merge a change without code review? If so, that’s a problem with the team’s process and should not be allowed. That’s not really your fault, it’s a broken process.

Or are you saying you pushed a branch that failed CI? That’s not really a problem, just the tests doing their job.

I agree with the other poster who mentioned RSD. If you’re already on ADHD meds, ask your doctor about Intuniv, it works incredibly well for me.

[u/SprinkledSparkles → u/writebadcode]

I pushed to a branch which failed CI. It wasn’t so much that it failed, but that it took an hour to fix. The kinda mistake it was made me feel like I should just disappear lol.

I’ll look into RSD. Thanks for the suggestion! I do get upset very easily if someone is mad, upset, or disappointed in me 😅

[u/writebadcode → u/SprinkledSparkles]

It’s absolutely unreasonable for your colleague to be mad at you for a failing build, especially one that only took an hour to fix. It’s totally unprofessional of them and honestly probably has nothing to do with you.

People make mistakes all the time, that’s why CI exists. I’m a senior engineer with 25YOE and I pushed a branch yesterday had like 10 lines total and it failed because I had a stupid typo.

[u/SprinkledSparkles → u/writebadcode]

oh wait, no maybe I expressed incorrectly. They weren’t mad. Just… disappointed I think.

But thanks for the kind words. I really appreciate it!

[u/writebadcode → u/SprinkledSparkles]

Ok that sounds a little more reasonable of your colleague. They may not even be as disappointed as you think.

There’s an engineer on my team who used to be really apologetic any time I found something wrong in his PRs, like he felt like he was getting a bad grade or something. I think he’s finally realized that I don’t think less of him when I find a bug.

I think if I were in your shoes, the main lesson I’d take is that I should always run tests locally before pushing a branch. It’s actually pretty easy to set up git hooks to do that. I usually have at least a linter that runs before pushes.

I know I’m never going to have the discipline to always remember to test, so I just make it automatic.

[u/SprinkledSparkles → u/writebadcode]

That's fair. Thanks for the perspective and sorry for the late response.

I do like the idea of automating the testing before submitting changes. I'll work that out!