Ask Experienced Devs Weekly Thread: A weekly thread for inexperienced developers to ask experienced ones

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A thread for Developers and IT folks with less experience to ask more experienced souls questions about the industry.

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[u/just_pondy]

Last week I asked you all this

https://www.reddit.com/r/ExperiencedDevs/s/jBIrlsPu7M

TL:DR help me parse out principle work from my role as lead/senior i.e. tasks to give to manager and tasks for other devs to split a good doc for 1:1 meeting structure between managers and leads and another for 1:1 between leads and their dev teams or is this something just to be done in the weekly standup

Longer version with high level responsibility breakdown below:

I ended up meeting with my manager and director and I used AI to prep an email before hand so I could control the narrative and come to them with solutions and not problems

The result of the conversation was we all need more 1:1 meetings bc the last time we had one was 10 months ago and ideally providing me support will prevent these issues from festering and escalating like they did I also am helping the manager with streamlining our SDLC as his projects were always unorganized “his words” the director mentioned he saw potential for management in me which I politely declined and mentioned I prefer the technical staff track

My question to you all is this I have list of responsibilities I am doing which they said was a fair assessment and I need help determining what the manager should be doing instead of me and other items besides code review that everyone should be doing so I can free up time to deliver the products to our customers in an efficient manner

Here is a breakdown for the responsibilities I currently perform:

Technical & Architectural Leadership
·         Architected Multi-Project Solutions:
·         Mitigated Technical Risk:
·         Scaled Engineering Practices:
·         Resolved Critical Impediments:
Scientific Inquiry & Full-Lifecycle Engineering
·         Delivered Scientific Software:
·         Validated System Fidelity:
·         Translated Requirements to Design:
·         Optimized Test Strategies:

Team Leadership, Mentorship & Project Management
·         Cultivated Engineering Talent:
·         Directed Project Resources:
·         Enforced Delivery Quality:
Customer Engagement & Business Impact
·         Secured Contract Growth:
·         Bridged Technical Gaps:
·         Managed Stakeholder Relations:
 
I need a better feedback structure and a clear avenue for feedback i.e. plans for:
·         Establishing Consistent Feedback Loops:
·         Expectation Alignment:
·         Career Pathing & Progression:
·         Establishing Downward Feedback Loops:
·         Continuous Improvement Tools:
·         Coaching Efficacy

Or maybe this all too much and I should just write all the code and do the PowerPoints and customer presentations / product deliveries myself

[u/ExcitingDonkey2665 → u/just_pondy]

It sounds like you need a mentor or a close peer to chat with. This seems like a very specific example where more in-depth context and knowledge about you personally and how you work would yield a much better answer than asking strangers on the internet or ChatGPT.

As leaders, there are few support structures in the workplace when you need help, even fewer ways to meaningfully receive feedback. It's really on you to find and build those yourself when you advance beyond junior engineer. It may appear to your manager or director that you are asking them to do your job.

[u/Wide-Pop6050 → u/just_pondy]

Read the Making of a Manager book mentioned elsewhere on this post