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I am ready to leave. 18 years experience. My Current job the tech lead is a diva, doesn't listen to anyone else and just add more and more to our enormous codb

by collyw 7y ago

I am ready to leave. 18 years experience. My Current job the tech lead is a diva, doesn't listen to anyone else and just add more and more to our enormous codbase. There are now 3 devs. The other two just basically clean up behind him as he builds technical debt. Trying to discuss is likely to end up in an argument. I have had a could of technical test recently and failed them both. Today I was given a number of reasons, for example was missing test x,y,z, when the spec said if you were pushed for time, write down the test you would do (which I did - along side that I actually provided the most complex test to implement, to check the timing of the cache refresh). I was advised I should have provided mocks (which would have taken ages to set up for example). They preferred a REST API to the HTML that I gave as output despite the specs asking for a "page". A couple of whitespace errors that made pylint complain. I hard coded some URLS rather than make them configurable (it's a test, not a production application) and didn't provide a setup.py (which was never asked for). Am I expected to be a mind reader? "It should only take you two or three hours" Before that was a computer science fundamentals quiz for an hour and a half where I had forgotten thing from a couple of decades ago. How to avoid deadlocks in Java (I haven't done threading in years, I said I would need to reads up on it again) and what happens when hash tables have a collision. Again, couldn't remember off the top of me head as it was 20 years ago. Does no on value the art of trying to keep code simple and maintainable? How do I demonstrate to prospective employers that I am good at this and stop wasting my time with nonsense described above?

istorical 7y ago
It sounds like you have an awful boss or lead. So much of our mental state in programming has nothing to do with the code or our work and so much to do with the people we work with. I think regardless of whether you stay or leave the industry, you've gotta leave any jobs where the people are that toxic.
- collyw 7y ago
  He is a bit of a nightmare work wise. Aside from work he is actually a fun person, but he has built most of the monstrosity and takes any suggestion for improvement way too personally. Its a shame as I like the people, but not the work.
perl4ever 7y ago
"How to avoid deadlocks in Java" I'm curious, this is not something I've needed to know, but what would be Java specific to an answer? If I was asked about deadlocks, I would say "always acquire resources in the same order".
- collyw 7y ago
  It was a Java job. They said that it didn't matter that I do Python most of the time, and as I say threading isn't something that has come up since university for me. I imagine it would take half a day or reading to remember it again.
- tomp 7y ago
  > If I was asked about deadlocks, I would say "always acquire resources in the same order". I don't think that's the correct solution, unfortunately - see e.g. the dining philosophers problem. Edit: or rather, you have to be very careful what the "order" of resources is.

by collyw 7y ago

istorical 7y ago

It sounds like you have an awful boss or lead. So much of our mental state in programming has nothing to do with the code or our work and so much to do with the people we work with. I think regardless of whether you stay or leave the industry, you've gotta leave any jobs where the people are that toxic.

collyw 7y ago
He is a bit of a nightmare work wise. Aside from work he is actually a fun person, but he has built most of the monstrosity and takes any suggestion for improvement way too personally. Its a shame as I like the people, but not the work.

perl4ever 7y ago

"How to avoid deadlocks in Java" I'm curious, this is not something I've needed to know, but what would be Java specific to an answer? If I was asked about deadlocks, I would say "always acquire resources in the same order".

collyw 7y ago
It was a Java job. They said that it didn't matter that I do Python most of the time, and as I say threading isn't something that has come up since university for me. I imagine it would take half a day or reading to remember it again.
tomp 7y ago
> If I was asked about deadlocks, I would say "always acquire resources in the same order". I don't think that's the correct solution, unfortunately - see e.g. the dining philosophers problem. Edit: or rather, you have to be very careful what the "order" of resources is.