2 ms·

Just based on what you've written here, it sounds like this person is not slowing down the team, but rather isn't "pulling his weight" on the development front.

Just based on what you've written here, it sounds like this person is not slowing down the team, but rather isn't "pulling his weight" on the development front. Consider that: 1) He has successfully brought on quality dev talent (you) and could likely do this more as the company grows. He's willing to hire people better than himself, which is more rare than you might think. 2) Angel & seed investors, who typically invest heavily based on the team, have already signaled their opinion by investing. 3) He is likely taking on a meaningful amount of non-development busywork that comes with any small business and that is incredibly thankless. If anything, I suspect your raising these concerns to the CEO is telling them more about your own level of workplace maturity than it is about the other person's development skills. Startups are hard enough without coworkers sniping and complaining about who's doing the most. If you're worried about who gets credit, it's going to be very difficult to go from promising concept to a sustainable high growth company.

beatgammit 8y ago
I agree wholeheartedly. I have family obligations as well, and they take priority for me over my job, however, I still make sure to get the job done. That being said, I could see how my excuses when I fail could be seen from the outside. I was the manager of our team and had to deal with all kinds of crap from management, QA, sales, etc, most of which I couldn't do much about (sales sets dev priorities, and they tend to ignore bugs until it starts blocking a sale, and we get in trouble for doing work outside of our process). I got talked to about my productivity/commitment (I would leave "early" some days, but still put in 50+ hours/week, mostly coming in before everyone else). I left and became a consultant for our company and my responsibilities were handed to other people. Productivity tanked, and several people quit within a month (not directly because of my leaving, but there were all related). I got several comments from my co-workers that they realize how much I had to do and were surprised at how much I got done despite dealing with it all. I now get more done than anyone on the team since I don't have to deal with office crap anymore, which is great for me as a consultant. My point with all of this is to echo what you said. OP doesn't know the whole story, and getting this person fired could be way worse than keeping them despite apparent unproductiveness. My only advice would be: don't take on more than you think is fair, and continue to outperform expectations. It may help to talk to the coworker and ask if assignments need to be reassigned. Something like: "I've noticed that you've had trouble delivering these types of tasks on time, would it be better if I took those and you took these types of tasks instead?" For example, documentation, getting feedback from sales, etc are all time consuming activities that distract from development. We had a weaker dev, so we moved him to internal tools, coordinating with other teams, and assisting with the more technical support calls, and it has worked out really well for everyone (he enjoys it, and we all hated doing those tasks). Handling it this was shows the founder that you're willing to work in the interests of the company instead of just your own (the founder obviously has reasons for keeping the "underperformer" on payroll).

beatgammit 8y ago

I agree wholeheartedly. I have family obligations as well, and they take priority for me over my job, however, I still make sure to get the job done. That being said, I could see how my excuses when I fail could be seen from the outside. I was the manager of our team and had to deal with all kinds of crap from management, QA, sales, etc, most of which I couldn't do much about (sales sets dev priorities, and they tend to ignore bugs until it starts blocking a sale, and we get in trouble for doing work outside of our process). I got talked to about my productivity/commitment (I would leave "early" some days, but still put in 50+ hours/week, mostly coming in before everyone else). I left and became a consultant for our company and my responsibilities were handed to other people. Productivity tanked, and several people quit within a month (not directly because of my leaving, but there were all related). I got several comments from my co-workers that they realize how much I had to do and were surprised at how much I got done despite dealing with it all. I now get more done than anyone on the team since I don't have to deal with office crap anymore, which is great for me as a consultant. My point with all of this is to echo what you said. OP doesn't know the whole story, and getting this person fired could be way worse than keeping them despite apparent unproductiveness. My only advice would be: don't take on more than you think is fair, and continue to outperform expectations. It may help to talk to the coworker and ask if assignments need to be reassigned. Something like: "I've noticed that you've had trouble delivering these types of tasks on time, would it be better if I took those and you took these types of tasks instead?" For example, documentation, getting feedback from sales, etc are all time consuming activities that distract from development. We had a weaker dev, so we moved him to internal tools, coordinating with other teams, and assisting with the more technical support calls, and it has worked out really well for everyone (he enjoys it, and we all hated doing those tasks). Handling it this was shows the founder that you're willing to work in the interests of the company instead of just your own (the founder obviously has reasons for keeping the "underperformer" on payroll).