4 ms·

When I was a junior dev I used to lie and say the work was going fine, the stories were well estimated and that it would be done on time. Now as a senior I jus

When I was a junior dev I used to lie and say the work was going fine, the stories were well estimated and that it would be done on time. Now as a senior I just say it how it is, maybe occasionally embelish a piece of work if its not well described or estimated.

sametmax 7y ago
Because you have credibility, while a junior want to reassure.
- 2T1Qka0rEiPr 7y ago
  This is a very good point, though I'd advise any junior developer to start to say "I don't know" as quickly as you're able to. From my experience under promising and over delivering has been a far, far better modus operandi than the opposite.
alexpetralia 7y ago
This reminds me of one of the major causes of famine in Maoist China. A pressure to conform with top-down expectations ("is it getting done?") at the expense of reality ("yes it is"). Often we lie just to make others happy, but then sometimes reality catches up
- netsharc 7y ago
  There's an anecdote that it's possible Saddam believed he actually had WMDs, because the penalty for his subordinates saying they haven't gotten the R&D/production done was death.
Cthulhu_ 7y ago
But since you've established and proven your place in the workspace, you can get away with it; if you're a freshly hired junior that has to admit they're running behind (in their own estimation), they could risk their job or a bad review in a less mature work environment (that is, one where people are replaceable resources).
notacoward 7y ago
As a very senior developer by some measures, I always put a strong emphasis on what's not going well. What's broken can be fixed, as long as it's known. I also believe that it's better to undercommit than overcommit. The delta between committing to and then achieving X+Y vs. committing to and then achieving X alone is fairly small compared to the other alternatives. Commit to X and achieve X+Y? Big positive reaction. Commit to X+Y and achieve only X? Even bigger negative reaction. Why put yourself in a neutral/negative space when you can put yourself in a neutral/positive one? It kind of feels like sandbagging, but I've seen it work well for all concerned too many times to do otherwise.

sametmax 7y ago

Because you have credibility, while a junior want to reassure.

2T1Qka0rEiPr 7y ago
This is a very good point, though I'd advise any junior developer to start to say "I don't know" as quickly as you're able to. From my experience under promising and over delivering has been a far, far better modus operandi than the opposite.

alexpetralia 7y ago

This reminds me of one of the major causes of famine in Maoist China. A pressure to conform with top-down expectations ("is it getting done?") at the expense of reality ("yes it is"). Often we lie just to make others happy, but then sometimes reality catches up

netsharc 7y ago
There's an anecdote that it's possible Saddam believed he actually had WMDs, because the penalty for his subordinates saying they haven't gotten the R&D/production done was death.

Cthulhu_ 7y ago

But since you've established and proven your place in the workspace, you can get away with it; if you're a freshly hired junior that has to admit they're running behind (in their own estimation), they could risk their job or a bad review in a less mature work environment (that is, one where people are replaceable resources).

notacoward 7y ago

As a very senior developer by some measures, I always put a strong emphasis on what's not going well. What's broken can be fixed, as long as it's known. I also believe that it's better to undercommit than overcommit. The delta between committing to and then achieving X+Y vs. committing to and then achieving X alone is fairly small compared to the other alternatives. Commit to X and achieve X+Y? Big positive reaction. Commit to X+Y and achieve only X? Even bigger negative reaction. Why put yourself in a neutral/negative space when you can put yourself in a neutral/positive one? It kind of feels like sandbagging, but I've seen it work well for all concerned too many times to do otherwise.