I am a lead in a department where the manager is considered incompetent but nice. I am recognized as high performing and a good team builder (clear communication, involving people as needed, etc.). The manager, however, fails to include me or the team, and this is reflected in declining team satisfa...
On one hand, I’m upset the director can’t appropriately lead and allows the entire department to be corrupted by a single non-performer. On the other hand, maybe I’m too involved and should just worry about myself. I’d get less professional development potentially (verses leaving) but I could kick back more.
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> I’d get less professional development potentially (verses leaving) but I could kick back more.
I've left a few "imperfect" jobs that I've regretted, because the next job was worse than the one I left.
IMO: Understand that no company is perfect: Unless you have extensive management experience or a multi-decade career, it's hard to build empathy for what your manager's job requires and their day-to-day challenges. In some cases, criticizing your manager is akin to being a backseat driver; or a "monday morning quarterback" who's never played a day of professional football.
Now that's said, if you really believe that it's best to move on to greener pastures, understand that the software engineering field is in a periodic downturn. Now isn't a good time to find a job. Thus, "if you have a good thing going," stick around for another year or two, and get your resume out there when the industry heats up again. Hopefully, you know how to screen potential employers so you find a job you like better.
Finally: Early in our careers, a lot of us need to "take what we can get." As we advance, we can start to smell unhealthy working environments. I think this is partially why some older engineers take longer to find jobs... We walk away from bad situations that only younger naive engineers will accept.
By sevensor 2024-06-1716:43 > As we advance, we can start to smell unhealthy working environments.
As I was going through some old papers, I found my offer letter from a previous job. I'd underlined a whole bunch of things and written questions in the margin to ask the HR guy. Things like, "who will I report to," and "what's the name of the team I'll be on?" Needless to say, in retrospect these were all red flags, and now I know how to spot a company that's not being run by grown-ups.
By madeofpalk 2024-06-1716:14 Better the devil you know!
> The manager, however, fails to include me or the team, and this is reflected in declining team satisfaction ratings.
To me it feels like there needs to be more information before we can come to a judgement (excluding bias aside). I don't feel like "failing to include" people is necessarily an indication that a manager is bad... rather it feels like his communication style clashes with your preference. There are plenty of places where information is shared on the "need-to-know" basis. Is the manager not including your team on things that your team should be knowing?
Was the manager also given a fair chance to receive the feedback and take action on it?
By frank_nitti 2024-06-1715:331 reply The most egregious examples of this I’ve experienced are in large corporate environments, where managers are often less technical than their leads. Often only managers/directors are invited to calls with thought leaders, portfolio architects, who are also very technical.
This led to situations where a lead is asked in a quick IM or call “are we doing X in our system?” without any context or materials provided to the lead, which often contain crucially important info that the manager feels is just noise (especially if they consider themselves very technical from engineering roles in a previous era).
Just my two cents there; in my case I just learned to roll with it, after some time of striving to work “around” management to find info they never passed down, which resulted in poorer performance evaluations than simply following oft-misguided orders
By ryandrake 2024-06-1715:42 > This led to situations where a lead is asked in a quick IM or call “are we doing X in our system?”
If you're "representing the team" in a technical call, you should either 1. be prepared to yourself go as deep technically as the other participants, or 2. bring someone deeply technical along to provide that expertise. These "quick side chats" are like trying to pass answer notes back and forth during an exam. Too late bro, you should have studied.
By eschneider 2024-06-1713:41 This is one of those situations where it's not a problem until it is a problem. Aside from the general _management_ problems you'll have, a poor manager isn't going to be able to advocate well for promotions, etc. for his team. So there's a good chance your advancement at the company is stalled as long as you work for this person.
Is this something you can do anything about? Well, "fixing your manager" is a high risk, low reward activity and personally I'd advise against it. My advice would be to try and get an internal transfer while things are still "good" and if that's not an option, look elsewhere.
