Even if you're not a manager, do not underestimate your position. I'm on a small team (<10 devs, <50 employees total) and I'm one of the longest tenured employe

Even if you're not a manager, do not underestimate your position. I'm on a small team (<10 devs, <50 employees total) and I'm one of the longest tenured employees and wear just about every hat possible at the company. I am not a manager and I report to the same person every other developer does. I also do not have the authority to fire someone and have never once suggested we do it. But I have a heavy influence on the direction of our team and company, am involved in the hiring process, handle most of our development rule and workflow decisions, etc. Just because I can't fire anyone, doesn't mean other people know that. A few years ago, back before I had even half my current responsibilities, I was sitting with one of the other devs trying to figure out a bug that made it into production and they asked "How bad is it?" and I offhandedly/sarcastically said "You're going to need a new job" without even looking at them. At that point, those kinds of things were pretty commonly said by devs to one another. But a few hours later, I got a frantic message on Slack asking if they had been fired. They had apparently spent the last 3 hours in a state of high tension thinking they'd be fired by EOD. At that point, I realized my role was ambiguous enough that I couldn't joke about it anymore. And if you're in a position like me where you have a lot of responsibilities and influence, you need to be aware of how you interact with other teams too. I've had instances where I've gone over to talk to someone in marketing about something and they jokingly ask "What I'd do this time?" and I'll respond with "You're in trouble" and immediately go into what I wanted to talk about, which in most cases is a greeting you'd ignore as obviously ridiculous, especially when followed up with me asking questions about how to best optimize something to help you do your job. But I've had it happen more times than I care to admit where they'll interrupt me a few seconds later and ask if they're going to be fired. Moral of the story: If you are at any elevated position, never joke about someone losing their job. It might seem okay when you're moreorless equals in the hierarchy, but it causes undue amounts of stress for others when you aren't (even when you have no authority over their job). It's just not worth the stress for them and doesn't help your relationship with them either.