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I cannot agree. The post makes it clear that the author was hired as a senior engineer ("…He expected more from a senior engineer…"). Senior engineers are expec

I cannot agree. The post makes it clear that the author was hired as a senior engineer ("…He expected more from a senior engineer…"). Senior engineers are expected to present the needs of the team beyond immediate work items, and so it was the author's duty to raise these issues.

300bps 4y ago
Senior engineers are expected to present the needs of the team beyond immediate work items Literally nobody is arguing against this. What people are arguing against is how he went about doing this. By his own words, he comes across as immature, overly emotional and unprofessional. Also, “Legendary Software Developer” is his title on LinkedIn. I know some people that wouldn’t hire him for that alone.
- ghaff 4y ago
  >“Legendary Software Developer” That pretty much falls squarely into titles and bios that are going to make me turn the virtual page very quickly.
- kcplate 4y ago
  Suggesting to their leader that they read a chapter about managing not just to one manager, but to two managers, wow! That tells me so much about this person’s personality: Immature, self-important, a problematic personality and likely difficult to be around. I suspect at that moment this contractor sealed his eventual fate. I know if I was his manager I would have probably chosen to not renew his contract at that moment and would be counting the days before I could get rid of him. Then I read this: > Also, “Legendary Software Developer” is his title on LinkedIn. And know I would have never hired him in the first place so problem would have been solved before it occurred.
  - baobabKoodaa 4y ago
    > Suggesting to their leader that they read a chapter ... I know if I was his manager I would have probably chosen to not renew his contract at that moment and would be counting the days before I could get rid of him. I'm genuinely surprised that people like you and OP's manager exist. You'd want to get rid of someone because they gave a book recommendation that you disliked? Jesus. I get how the book recommendation was a bad move, but holy crap, it's nowhere near bad enough to "choose to not to renew his contract".
    - 300bps 4y ago
      I'm genuinely surprised that people like you and OP's manager exist Maybe you’re having difficulty imagining someone else’s perspective? Are you a software engineer? Imagine you demonstrated your new code to the team, it didn’t go well and afterward your manager took you aside and recommended you read Chapter 6 of “Coding for Dummies”? I’ve been in software engineering for decades and I can tell you a rounding error of 100% of every software engineer I’ve ever worked with would spend the rest of their day looking for alternative employment after that. I think maybe the other thing you’re doing is skipping over all the other immature and unprofessional things the OP said he did. Did you read where he created a user story explicitly for the purposes of mocking his manager to the team? There’s a lot to unpack in this train wreck.
      - baobabKoodaa 4y ago
        > Are you a software engineer? Imagine you demonstrated your new code to the team, it didn’t go well and afterward your manager took you aside and recommended you read Chapter 6 of “Coding for Dummies”? I've been in that situation more than once, and none of those situations made me want to fire anyone. For example, last fall I was in a project where I implemented some frontend features without considering accessibility. A designer in the project told me what I did wrong, and recommended to me that I should take an "introduction to accessibility on the web" course. I thought it was a good idea. I took the course, I learned a lot of things, wrote down notes, and still refer to those notes every now and then. At no point did I feel like I need to fire someone for recommending I take a course on something that - frankly - I was supposed to know how to do in the first place. > I’ve been in software engineering for decades and I can tell you a rounding error of 100% of every software engineer I’ve ever worked with would spend the rest of their day looking for alternative employment after that. Ok, well after this discussion you will hopefully adjust that percentage down a few points from 100%. > I think maybe the other thing you’re doing is skipping over all the other immature and unprofessional things the OP said he did. Did you read where he created a user story explicitly for the purposes of mocking his manager to the team? There’s a lot to unpack in this train wreck. No I didn't skip over those. I read OP. But I wasn't commeting on OP here. I was responding to a comment made by kcplate. According to his comment, just the book recommendation alone was sufficient grounds to not renew the contract. That's the comment I was arguing against. Not the totality of OP.
- cspike 4y ago
  Yeah, I completely agree that I brought the outcome on myself. I'm glad you looked me up on LinkedIn! I have received zero value from that site so my profile there is not serious :)
  - mib32 4y ago
    How did you find a job at Spotify btw? :)
ghaff 4y ago
It's one thing to raise issues. However once you've done so, even multiple times, and been told "no" or "forget about it," it's time to either get on with the job or move on. Intel at least used to have a term "disagree and commit" (or, by implication, leave) and that's probably a pretty good maxim generally.

300bps 4y ago

Senior engineers are expected to present the needs of the team beyond immediate work items Literally nobody is arguing against this. What people are arguing against is how he went about doing this. By his own words, he comes across as immature, overly emotional and unprofessional. Also, “Legendary Software Developer” is his title on LinkedIn. I know some people that wouldn’t hire him for that alone.

ghaff 4y ago
>“Legendary Software Developer” That pretty much falls squarely into titles and bios that are going to make me turn the virtual page very quickly.
kcplate 4y ago
Suggesting to their leader that they read a chapter about managing not just to one manager, but to two managers, wow! That tells me so much about this person’s personality: Immature, self-important, a problematic personality and likely difficult to be around. I suspect at that moment this contractor sealed his eventual fate. I know if I was his manager I would have probably chosen to not renew his contract at that moment and would be counting the days before I could get rid of him. Then I read this: > Also, “Legendary Software Developer” is his title on LinkedIn. And know I would have never hired him in the first place so problem would have been solved before it occurred.
- baobabKoodaa 4y ago
  > Suggesting to their leader that they read a chapter ... I know if I was his manager I would have probably chosen to not renew his contract at that moment and would be counting the days before I could get rid of him. I'm genuinely surprised that people like you and OP's manager exist. You'd want to get rid of someone because they gave a book recommendation that you disliked? Jesus. I get how the book recommendation was a bad move, but holy crap, it's nowhere near bad enough to "choose to not to renew his contract".
  - 300bps 4y ago
    I'm genuinely surprised that people like you and OP's manager exist Maybe you’re having difficulty imagining someone else’s perspective? Are you a software engineer? Imagine you demonstrated your new code to the team, it didn’t go well and afterward your manager took you aside and recommended you read Chapter 6 of “Coding for Dummies”? I’ve been in software engineering for decades and I can tell you a rounding error of 100% of every software engineer I’ve ever worked with would spend the rest of their day looking for alternative employment after that. I think maybe the other thing you’re doing is skipping over all the other immature and unprofessional things the OP said he did. Did you read where he created a user story explicitly for the purposes of mocking his manager to the team? There’s a lot to unpack in this train wreck.
    - baobabKoodaa 4y ago
      > Are you a software engineer? Imagine you demonstrated your new code to the team, it didn’t go well and afterward your manager took you aside and recommended you read Chapter 6 of “Coding for Dummies”? I've been in that situation more than once, and none of those situations made me want to fire anyone. For example, last fall I was in a project where I implemented some frontend features without considering accessibility. A designer in the project told me what I did wrong, and recommended to me that I should take an "introduction to accessibility on the web" course. I thought it was a good idea. I took the course, I learned a lot of things, wrote down notes, and still refer to those notes every now and then. At no point did I feel like I need to fire someone for recommending I take a course on something that - frankly - I was supposed to know how to do in the first place. > I’ve been in software engineering for decades and I can tell you a rounding error of 100% of every software engineer I’ve ever worked with would spend the rest of their day looking for alternative employment after that. Ok, well after this discussion you will hopefully adjust that percentage down a few points from 100%. > I think maybe the other thing you’re doing is skipping over all the other immature and unprofessional things the OP said he did. Did you read where he created a user story explicitly for the purposes of mocking his manager to the team? There’s a lot to unpack in this train wreck. No I didn't skip over those. I read OP. But I wasn't commeting on OP here. I was responding to a comment made by kcplate. According to his comment, just the book recommendation alone was sufficient grounds to not renew the contract. That's the comment I was arguing against. Not the totality of OP.
cspike 4y ago
Yeah, I completely agree that I brought the outcome on myself. I'm glad you looked me up on LinkedIn! I have received zero value from that site so my profile there is not serious :)
- mib32 4y ago
  How did you find a job at Spotify btw? :)

ghaff 4y ago

It's one thing to raise issues. However once you've done so, even multiple times, and been told "no" or "forget about it," it's time to either get on with the job or move on. Intel at least used to have a term "disagree and commit" (or, by implication, leave) and that's probably a pretty good maxim generally.