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I work as a software engineer in finance and have to take two weeks of mandatory vacation, but this doesn't deter our team from not writing proper documentation

I work as a software engineer in finance and have to take two weeks of mandatory vacation, but this doesn't deter our team from not writing proper documentation, or writing down domain specific knowledge. When someone is on leave who has specific knowledge, this is just planned into the sprint. As in "xxx knows most about this feature, so let's wait for him to return". Even when we do write documentation it just gets lost, or developers don't bother looking anything up.

luckydata 7y ago
It just means people leaving are not that critical. If they were, you would have that documentation or you would be SOL pretty often.
- woutr_be 7y ago
  I don't think it "just" means that people are not that critical, it's a much deeper issue. All the way from individual engineers to managers to product owners to the company in general. At least in my team, is see: - Managers allowing people to only take on specific work, therefore people are becoming highly specialised - Individual developers don't push others to write documentation, instead they wait until somehow they have to do a task, spend 2 weeks to figure it out, and then write some documentation around it - Individual developers who force themselves to only work on specific pieces. (I think mostly to fuel their ego so they're needed) - The company not encouraging knowledge sharing, or simply not providing good tools for it - Product owners who don't really care about the product
- kortilla 7y ago
  No, you can still be critical and not have it hurt the company with just a two week absence. Say a product like Uber ceases new development because of a critical developer leaving who knows how to fix the home grown CI. The company isn’t going to go under in two weeks but it doesn’t mean the dev isn’t critical.
aganame 7y ago
What is mandatory vacatio n?
- woutr_be 7y ago
  Two weeks paid time-off, mandatory once a year.

luckydata 7y ago

It just means people leaving are not that critical. If they were, you would have that documentation or you would be SOL pretty often.

woutr_be 7y ago
I don't think it "just" means that people are not that critical, it's a much deeper issue. All the way from individual engineers to managers to product owners to the company in general. At least in my team, is see: - Managers allowing people to only take on specific work, therefore people are becoming highly specialised - Individual developers don't push others to write documentation, instead they wait until somehow they have to do a task, spend 2 weeks to figure it out, and then write some documentation around it - Individual developers who force themselves to only work on specific pieces. (I think mostly to fuel their ego so they're needed) - The company not encouraging knowledge sharing, or simply not providing good tools for it - Product owners who don't really care about the product
kortilla 7y ago
No, you can still be critical and not have it hurt the company with just a two week absence. Say a product like Uber ceases new development because of a critical developer leaving who knows how to fix the home grown CI. The company isn’t going to go under in two weeks but it doesn’t mean the dev isn’t critical.

aganame 7y ago

What is mandatory vacatio n?

woutr_be 7y ago
Two weeks paid time-off, mandatory once a year.