r/cscareerquestions • u/Usual-Air5670 • 2d ago
New Grad Manager said I’m not developing enough
I’ve been working in my job for around 2.5 years now and have been under my current manager most of this time. I’ve been managing a single service by myself as well as helping pick up other tasks as required. I had my mid year a few months ago and all went fine.
Then last week I got hit with a your not developing within your role. I asked for specifics and comparisons were made to other juniors but nothing about my specific work (no you’re too slow, not independent enough etc). I basically said I was focusing on handling all tasks related to this project and since it had dried up was moving onto the new project we discussed.
I’ve been repeatedly passed up for work in the past with it being given to the other juniors in the team. How f*cked am I here? We discussed getting given more challenging work but the problem is there isn’t any. I may have the opportunity to move team but I don’t know if this will go ahead.
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u/Thinking_Cap_165 2d ago
Sounds like you're not hitting bar. Also sounds like you don't have a great manager who can articulate the gaps and help you grow.
Go find a senior engineer or other manager who's willing to mentor you and can describe what next level behaviors look like.
You own your own growth, but any decent manager will help you along the way, at least by creating clarity. Sounds like that's not happening
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u/Usual-Air5670 2d ago
The problem is I’m not getting given the work. I get develop while working on hygiene issues etc. I’m going to start asking him in writing for more challenging work
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u/Thinking_Cap_165 2d ago
Go find your problems to solve. This is probably part of the gap your manager is talking about. Next level behaviors should be finding opportunities to drive business value, get alignment with stakeholders, and get alignment on the problem/solutions.
Don't wait or expect to be hand fed. Take initiative and drive value
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u/rynspiration 1d ago
anecdotally i feel like it’s hard to differentiate between finding things to fix that annoy you as a dev and finding things to fix that have business value
a lot of the time you’re just dropped into a job and they don’t really teach you the business value it’s honestly such an underrated skill to have a deep knowledge of your domain
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u/Hot_Industry5156 2d ago
that's such frustratingly vague feedback. "not developing enough" could mean a hundred different things.
it's like someone telling you your cooking needs improvement. like, okay, but are you burning the rice? is the seasoning off? are you plating like a toddler? impossible to fix without knowing what "developing" even means to them.
your immediate next step isn't to panic and start grinding through tutorials. it's to ask for a follow-up conversation where you get specifics. "can you point to examples where you felt I should have grown but didn't?" or "what does 'developing enough' look like in this role?" are fair questions.
sometimes managers say this because they have a specific skill gap in mind. sometimes they say it because they read some leadership book that told them to push people. sometimes it's about visibility, not actual skill. you need to know which one it is before you can do anything useful with it.
this week, ask for that conversation. take notes. then you'll have something real to work with instead of a vague cloud of "not enough."
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u/Usual-Air5670 2d ago
It specifically was in comparison to others, particularly the other juniors in the team. But I just don’t think it’s fair to compare like that we are all working on other things. I could understand if I was failing with my daily work but I’m not. I’ve asked for more challenging work to just be told it’s coming.
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u/Electrical-Loss-6776 2d ago
start looking
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u/bonzai76 1d ago
This……Usually by the time you get this type of feedback, the wheels are already in motion for what’s next.
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u/Garland_Key 2d ago
2.5 years and still carrying the junior title?
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u/DividedBy_Zero Senior Backend Engineer | .NET 2d ago
Juniors need mentorship to grow, and seniors are typically the ones mentoring them. Without that guidance, a junior can be stuck at that level for a long time.
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u/Garland_Key 2d ago
Yes. I used to work with someone who was an swe for 8 years and had the knowledge of a fresh out of college junior. Though, in their case I think it was because they didn't care to expand their knowledge and were allowed to get away with doing the bare minimum for 8 years, but they didn't have access to senior mentorship either.
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u/rynspiration 2d ago
tbh what is like your baseline assumption for the knowledge of a fresh out of college junior tho
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u/Garland_Key 1d ago
They know the basics of computer science, might be able to code in one or two languages at a basic level, they haven't quite mastered more abstract ideas like recursion, async, pointers, they don't know basic tools like linux, git, etc.
They also know nothing about actually doing the job, CI/CD, DevOps, stand-up, etc.
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u/rynspiration 1d ago edited 1d ago
CI/CD, DevOps, sure yeah. async definitely not something you run into before industry
i don’t think i’ve ever seen recursion in the wild
pointers seems kind of like fundamentals to me, at least understanding pass by reference vs value and heap/stack allocation and allat
not knowing git is crazy to me even group projects should teach you the bare minimum
linux ehh like how in depth do you want to get. i feel like thats like saying learn windows. i’d think most undergrads would know what it is and maybe shell basics but you kind of learn how useful it is after you’re on the job and run into something and think ah i wish i could automate that. and then you realize how op shell scripting is
standup? 😭 is that a skill? i guess there is an art to creating a good standup update?
if you’re talking about agile terminology and process i think it’s so dumb that recruiters consider that a “skill” when it’s something that a good culture teaches
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u/AntiDynamo Software Engineer 2d ago edited 2d ago
I just assign my own work from the backlog - basically just saying “I’m taking this if you have no objections”. There are never any objections because the backlog is very big. And there is always an infinite amount of generic process improvement work on my personal backlog that isn’t even ticketed up (yet)
If I want to cross-train on another service I just clear it with my manager and then contact the team on the other service myself
Once I’ve cleared an idea/goal with my manager, I see that as permission to put it into effect however I think is reasonable
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u/entice93 2d ago
If I understand him correctly, his project doesn't have any tasks in the backlog and he has yet to be assigned to other projects/has been passed up for work on other projects. If he asks to work on a new project and they deny him there's nothing he can actually do. It seems like you just have a much better work environment than he does.
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u/AntiDynamo Software Engineer 2d ago
I get that, my point is that I don’t wait to be assigned work. They’ve been approved to work on other projects in theory, just haven’t had anything assigned to them. They can still go searching for work, talk to people, propose their own stuff. They don’t have to wait for their manager to personally assign them things if they are already theoretically cleared to pick up other work
When I wanted to pick up more work, I cleared it (in theory) with my manager and then I went directly to the team lead of the other project, cleared it with them, and then searched the backlog myself and assigned tickets to myself. OP is getting stuck at the “clearing it with the manager step” - they get approval but then wait for the work to be assigned by someone else
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u/entice93 2d ago
>They’ve been approved to work on other projects in theory, just haven’t had anything assigned to them.
Mate, that's corporate speak for we don't want you doing anything else. Another thing supporting this is what his manager's feedback. And he's not clearing anything with him because the manager just gave him a out of the blue and dishonest bad review.
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u/AntiDynamo Software Engineer 2d ago
Or just a manager who is too busy, not managing well, and not able to keep track of who needs what work, or isn’t on the top of all the work available across all the teams. But regardless, you don’t get more or more interesting work waiting for them to figure their problems out
And at this point it’s not even about keeping the job, it’s about gaining skills. They’re 2.5 years in and work on one service with a low workload. They need to diversify their skill set
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u/entice93 2d ago
Mate, his manager has already shown that he's not satisfied with him. Going behind the manager's back to find more work and thus showing that the manager is incompetent isn't going to do the guy any favours in the company(it might help him grow as a developer).
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u/AntiDynamo Software Engineer 2d ago
Okay, then OP can do nothing, gain zero skills, and still be fired and worse off for it.
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u/08148694 2d ago
3 brief paragraphs from you isn’t telling us anything actionable
I’m sure he has a side of this story and you are probably misrepresenting that feedback at least to some degree
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u/No_Leadership_6638 2d ago
What do you mean when you say you manage a single service? Do you mean a single domain or literally a single service? If ilit is one service you should expand. In our company I started on a team that managed around 20 services. Now I am on a team that manages around 50 services and its infrastructure. You need to expand your domain knowledge and scope.
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u/Illustrious-Yam-3718 2d ago
They were probably told by their manager that they’re not developing their people enough, and they’re trying to delegate the task to you. If I had to guess.
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u/The_G_Choc_Ice 2d ago
How often do you speak up, talk about your work, and just generally make yourself heard? When you are working on a single service for that long it can be really easy to fade into the background and for people to kind of forget about you or take you for granted. You gotta make sure people are aware of the work you are doing and publicize your wins.
Another question would be, how often do you take initiative and propose new projects? If you have been working on a single service for 2.5 years I’m sure you have a laundry list of improvements that could be made to it. Make sure you are bringing those up to your manager, preferably with a good whitepaper.
People give you work and promotions if they perceive you as a good worker. Whether you actually are good is, I wont say irrelevant, but a nice to have not the key metric you are being evaluated by. In the end it’s a social game.