4 ms·

Have you considered that maybe your work style is not suited to startups? It sounds like you are very methodical, which is great, but startups are default dead

by dyeje 6y ago

Have you considered that maybe your work style is not suited to startups? It sounds like you are very methodical, which is great, but startups are default dead when they don't have a money generating product and scrappiness is needed to get something out the door. If I were your boss and I found out you were spending time on meticulous issue tracking that no one was reading, I would frankly be very upset.

jacek 6y ago
Thank you for your reply. You might be right about that. I worked in academia before and I absolutely loved it. Maybe that's the style of work for me. In my defense, I think that was a special case. This was a product to be certified as a medical device. Regulations require keeping records of all changes to the code that can be linked to well-defined "software requirements" and "stakeholder requirements". This can be done in a complex spreadsheet or by linking issues/merge requests in a certain way. I chose the issues. Also, as the product might affect health outcomes, I felt responsibility to make the product as solid and maintainable as possible.
- dakna 6y ago
  > Regulations require keeping records Who decided to be compliant at this stage of the company, you or whoever is in charge of business operations? > I felt responsibility to make the product as solid and maintainable as possible Was this responsibility conveyed to you or did you make this decision on your own? I'm clearly making an assumption here, but this reads like a case where both sides had a misunderstanding about how engineering time is spend. They trusted you with some autonomy to get things off the ground and found out you are making business decisions on your own that don't fit into resource constrained startup operations. There is always a trade-off and corners can be cut, and my advice is to be upfront about the general approach about those and find out how much they are willing to invest in robustness and product quality at a certain stage.
  - scythe 6y ago
    >Who decided to be compliant at this stage of the company, you or whoever is in charge of business operations? Medical regulations often pierce the corporate veil and create personal liability for the developer/whoever. He may not have had a choice. If you're asking your employees to commit crimes, expect high turnover.
- ARandomerDude 6y ago
  > You might be right > In my defense Reading through your story and comments, this seems to be your main problem. Better communication might be helpful but you have to be more open to feedback and criticism. At the risk of sounding rude (not my goal) this post reads like a plea for validation. I don't know you and I hope I'm wrong, just going on what I see here.
- numpad0 6y ago
  A startup company to independently develop a medical product with a novel operating principle to be certified is a certifiable distinguished subgroup of complete morons. You don’t have to feel sorry for being misunderstood by those people.
PopeDotNinja 6y ago
I'd give them a raise for being low maintenance & self managing.
- mrmonkeyman 6y ago
  Using what funds, exactly?
stronglikedan 6y ago
Conversely, if I were an employee spending time on meticulous issue tracking that no one was reading, and I found out my boss was very upset about that, I would be questioning why my boss only realized what I was doing when it got to the point of upsetting them so much, and I may be a little upset about them wasting my time for so long. Seems to me like OP had an absentee boss who ultimately threw them under the proverbial bus.
- cambalache 6y ago
  Your boss is not your mommy
  - stronglikedan 6y ago
    Exactly. Unlike your mom, it's your bosses responsibility to know how you're spending your resources at all times, and ensure that you're spending them effectively through constant communication and feedback.
    - cambalache 6y ago
      It's fascinating, the diversity of the cultures of the world. In my country a mom cares about her toddler, providing her with food, clothes and being on top of her on almost in a by minute basis. When you are an adult you are expected to perform you work with initiative, personal responsibility and without the need to be micromanaged.You talk with your boss from time to time to communicate and get guidance. It seems in your country is the other way around. Marvels of this big wide world.
- jonfw 6y ago
  He's skipping company meetings and minimizing one on one communication, it doesn't sound like his boss is the absentee one
- justin_oaks 6y ago
  While I was in a single-person department, I used a Jira project where I put my tasks and commented clearly about progress. Then I realized that I was the only one using it. Neither my boss nor anybody else cared whether the information was in Jira, a spreadsheet, a Word doc, or if I just verbally explained what I had done. So I stopped tracking things meticulously in Jira and only kept basic notes of what I had done. Worked out fine.

by dyeje 6y ago

jacek 6y ago

Thank you for your reply. You might be right about that. I worked in academia before and I absolutely loved it. Maybe that's the style of work for me. In my defense, I think that was a special case. This was a product to be certified as a medical device. Regulations require keeping records of all changes to the code that can be linked to well-defined "software requirements" and "stakeholder requirements". This can be done in a complex spreadsheet or by linking issues/merge requests in a certain way. I chose the issues. Also, as the product might affect health outcomes, I felt responsibility to make the product as solid and maintainable as possible.

dakna 6y ago
> Regulations require keeping records Who decided to be compliant at this stage of the company, you or whoever is in charge of business operations? > I felt responsibility to make the product as solid and maintainable as possible Was this responsibility conveyed to you or did you make this decision on your own? I'm clearly making an assumption here, but this reads like a case where both sides had a misunderstanding about how engineering time is spend. They trusted you with some autonomy to get things off the ground and found out you are making business decisions on your own that don't fit into resource constrained startup operations. There is always a trade-off and corners can be cut, and my advice is to be upfront about the general approach about those and find out how much they are willing to invest in robustness and product quality at a certain stage.
- scythe 6y ago
  >Who decided to be compliant at this stage of the company, you or whoever is in charge of business operations? Medical regulations often pierce the corporate veil and create personal liability for the developer/whoever. He may not have had a choice. If you're asking your employees to commit crimes, expect high turnover.
ARandomerDude 6y ago
> You might be right > In my defense Reading through your story and comments, this seems to be your main problem. Better communication might be helpful but you have to be more open to feedback and criticism. At the risk of sounding rude (not my goal) this post reads like a plea for validation. I don't know you and I hope I'm wrong, just going on what I see here.
numpad0 6y ago
A startup company to independently develop a medical product with a novel operating principle to be certified is a certifiable distinguished subgroup of complete morons. You don’t have to feel sorry for being misunderstood by those people.

PopeDotNinja 6y ago

I'd give them a raise for being low maintenance & self managing.

mrmonkeyman 6y ago
Using what funds, exactly?

stronglikedan 6y ago

Conversely, if I were an employee spending time on meticulous issue tracking that no one was reading, and I found out my boss was very upset about that, I would be questioning why my boss only realized what I was doing when it got to the point of upsetting them so much, and I may be a little upset about them wasting my time for so long. Seems to me like OP had an absentee boss who ultimately threw them under the proverbial bus.

cambalache 6y ago
Your boss is not your mommy
- stronglikedan 6y ago
  Exactly. Unlike your mom, it's your bosses responsibility to know how you're spending your resources at all times, and ensure that you're spending them effectively through constant communication and feedback.
  - cambalache 6y ago
    It's fascinating, the diversity of the cultures of the world. In my country a mom cares about her toddler, providing her with food, clothes and being on top of her on almost in a by minute basis. When you are an adult you are expected to perform you work with initiative, personal responsibility and without the need to be micromanaged.You talk with your boss from time to time to communicate and get guidance. It seems in your country is the other way around. Marvels of this big wide world.
jonfw 6y ago
He's skipping company meetings and minimizing one on one communication, it doesn't sound like his boss is the absentee one
justin_oaks 6y ago
While I was in a single-person department, I used a Jira project where I put my tasks and commented clearly about progress. Then I realized that I was the only one using it. Neither my boss nor anybody else cared whether the information was in Jira, a spreadsheet, a Word doc, or if I just verbally explained what I had done. So I stopped tracking things meticulously in Jira and only kept basic notes of what I had done. Worked out fine.