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God, this is relevant to me today. Today, I quit my team because of the manager. Nice guy, but zero knowledge of our code base, no interest to learn it, and no
by mabbo 13y ago
God, this is relevant to me today.
Today, I quit my team because of the manager. Nice guy, but zero knowledge of our code base, no interest to learn it, and no connection to what the problems we, as developers, were encountering. He didn't know, and didn't want to know.
With each proposal to address major technical debt issues, he had no context, no understanding, and would only reply with demands that we prove to him that our projects were impossible without addressing technical debt. (Side note: nothing is impossible, as long as you're willing to add more technical debt).
Between this, and other major problems, I'd had enough. I needed out.
I told him that I was taking vacation for the rest of the week (5 day weekend, wooo) and when I come back Monday, his manager and HR are going to help me find a new team (as they had previous agreed to). I'm fortunate to work for a company where that is possible.
Having a manager who codes 30% of their time might be asking too much, but having a manager working with developers who does not even read the code is not enough.
- dinkumthinkum 13y agoI hate this term "technical debt." I understand where it is coming from but it sounds like made up fairy dust and can be a little hard to take seriously.
- mabbo 13y agoIt's a good enough analogy to what the problem is. You are buying a solution today at the cost of continued payments when you try to make solutions tomorrow. Is it always bad? Hell no. When you need something right now, then you take a loan from the ol' technical debt bank. You get your product today instead of in a week. That can make or break a product. But failure to acknowledge what it is, debt which you pay interest on in terms of time and effort, is a recipe for doom.
- dasil003 13y agoSadly I think the term has been diluted a bit through overuse. I even hold myself to blame in sometimes referring to things as technical debt that are more accurately described as bit rot or just useful version upgrades (the ruby is particularly insidious about this).
- kabouseng 13y agoI am just playing devils advocate here, but you said the manager had zero interest in your challenges. Did you have an interest in his challenges, why he is pushing for certain dead lines etc?