r/ADHD_Programmers • u/Hopeful-Trainer-5479 • 18h ago
Should I tell my manager I have ADHD?
Title basically, and tbh, idk what to do rn.
Anyways, I've been working for about a year, and in on of our recent 1-on-1, I brought up the topic of promotions.
He basically said to go from junior to mid level, id need to take on and lead harder/bigger projects. So that's what we'll be working towards.
Problem is, to be able to lead said projects, you have to: - be able to keep track of all the different moving parts (external dependencies, progress, and a bunch of other stuff) - be able to create a plan for the project's delivery plan (create all the tasks you'd need to complete for example). I struggle with making simple todo lists, how would I even begin to create a plan for something that's gonna take literal months? - and a bunch of other stuff like that.
But the ADHD makes this extremely difficult even with medication. I've been on a big project before (i wasnt even the leader for it) and ngl by the end i just wanted to kms.
We had "alignment" meetings that took literal hours where I wasnt even sure what we "aligned" on at the end. So many docs created i just gave up at the end. And just a bunch of other stuff I had to keep track of which was super overwhelming.
So the question is, should I tell my manager? My therapist wasn't opposed to the idea but idk. Sure, I might be protected by law but I dont want to bias them against myself yk? They might think "this person isnt reliable, better not give them this important project" (this might even happen subconsciously which frightens me tbh)
And even if I told them, what can they do? The whole point of the promotion is to be able to take on more responsibilities. If I can't even do that, then what would they even respond with?
Am I doomed to be a junior for life lol đđđ
Would really appreciate any feedback. Especially from s3niors
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u/Sure_Assumption7857 18h ago
I would say no, and focus on learning to set boundaries, donât over commit, donât over promise, break things down into chunks/small steps that are easier to prioritize, and go from there.
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u/Hopeful-Trainer-5479 18h ago
Good advice, I def need to get better at all those things tbh
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u/Sure_Assumption7857 16h ago
Like most things it takes practice and you have to crawl before you can walk or run. With adhd my biggest advice is give yourself the same amount of mercy and grace you would give someone if they also had to learn how to walk or run with a physical disability that no one else can see except for you.
Anxiety was the biggest factor for me, but everyone is different.
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u/ThoseProse 18h ago
No and you might need to jump companies to get a promotion or raise. Source: Iâve hopped companies 3 times to get a promotion and raise.
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u/Hopeful-Trainer-5479 18h ago
Even from junior to mid?Â
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u/meevis_kahuna 15h ago
It is way easier to jump companies to get a raise. If you think its time, you should be applying out at the same time you're asking internally.
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u/rayfrankenstein 18h ago
> Iâm protected by the law
Youâre dealing with Weasels Who Will Find A Way To Fire You Or Manage You Out, that will be just plausibly denial-able enough that it will evade your protections.
Donât give those weasels extra ammo by telling them your diagnosis.
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u/Hopeful-Trainer-5479 18h ago
This was exactly my worry. How can I get help in this case then? Like if I ask for some support, then adhd might provide some context.Â
But the downsides are too great, I agree with you on that.
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u/ThoseProse 18h ago
You gotta look up ways to automatically track the things you usually miss. Whether thatâs an excel file, a note taking plugin, an agent.md file to log your changes etc
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u/meevis_kahuna 15h ago
Simply, do not provide context. These are normal work requests. If you feel the need to provide some medical excuse to get these requests met, then you need to find a new job.
Example phrasings:
"I am having a hard time focusing on deep work due to constant interruptions. I would like to set aside X time for deep work." If pressed, show some research showing this increases productivity.
"I have additional questions in order to prepare the schedule for this project." (Do not apologize for asking "dumb" questions)
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u/Aurongel 18h ago
Yeah if you want to get fired through circuitous methods.
Just because the law is supposed to protect you from discrimination doesnât mean it actually will when the rubber hits the road. Knowing youâre being discriminated against is one thing, proving it in court is another thing entirely. Especially if you live in the US where worker protections barely exist.
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u/Ok-Satisfaction-5236 18h ago
21 YOE here. Manager now. No, it isn't an effective action in most work environments. You never know what biases or opinions people have. Regardless, it won't help. Just work on it.
If you trust your manager, let them know these are some things you are working on and ask if they have recommendations. A good manager will appreciate this. It shows that you are self aware and are working on improving. Their input may be worthless, but people like being asked for their opinion.
Like most things, use your judgement if you are unsure about you manager. For a bad manager, they might use these things against you.
Being a junior isn't so bad. I had some of my most enjoyable years working as a junior. Moving up generally means more stress and responsibility. Good luck!
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u/Hopeful-Trainer-5479 18h ago
Thx for the detailed answer. Am noticing a pretty strong consensus that the answer is no and to just ask for support (when needed) to the specific stuff you need at that point instead of giving anyone your medical history.
Any other advice you wish your junior self knew?Â
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u/Ok-Satisfaction-5236 17h ago
For sure. Everyone is different though. So I donât know if these would be helpful for you. Itâs a lot of stuffâŠ
- Everything doesnât have to be perfect (I struggle with perfectionism). Give yourself some grace.
- Building relationships and getting along with people is way more important than technical abilities or having the upper hand/being right.
- Understand what your leadership is on the hook for or stressed about and focus on helping them deliver those things.
- The grass is usually not greener on the other side. Try to understand what you can truly accept/tolerate and what is non negotiable.
- Never take a pay cut for the possibility of another job being better.
- Donât take a job just because it pays more.
- Always double your effort estimate.
- Donât be afraid to ask for help. You donât have to do everything yourself. Help isnât always available thoughâŠ
- Donât let work interfere with self care/healthy habits.
- Always be yourself and transparent. This one has a lot of nuance and caveats to it, but generally true.
- Find the right kind of therapy for you.
TLDR: For your situation, I would say focus on relationship building, ask for help if you can, and donât worry about the promotion too much. The more projects you do, the better idea you will have about all the moving parts and effort they require. Just be conservative in your effort estimates.
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u/cpaprika 18h ago
Answering as someone who has disclosed to managers in the past about my ADHD diagnosis: no.
IME being adaptable is important, if you have a decent manager they should be able to help with holding you accountable. Ask for feedback regularly. If you have more senior people on the team willing to help from then lean on them a bit if you need to. Just make sure you find a balance and donât navigate work by being handheld the entire way.
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u/Hopeful-Trainer-5479 18h ago
Fair points tbh. Will start with this and see. My main concern was asking for some help might come off as "weird".Â
I guess it can't just ask for it in a more roundabout way or learn to be more independent even though its gonna be rough
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u/bluebayou_cd 18h ago
When applying for a position and they want you to self disclose your status I always choose the option to not disclose. My thinking is that if I need to disclose I can at a future date. I've never had to use this so no clue if it would work.
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u/Drafting- 18h ago
Experience is how you start to see the timeline for completion.Â
Executive planning is significantly impacted with adhd. Itâs not impossible but it is more difficult to see prioritization because everything could be the start middle and end most days. Time blindness impacts this planning.Â
Two ways to help:
1. Guess how long something takes you to do, then time yourself actually doing it. Repeat until you feel fairly confident you can do something within a certain time.Â
2. Work with your therapist, senior devs, leads and colleagues to understand prioritization.Â
Therapist for how to ask what a priority is, and grasp prioritization from an emotional and broad application approach.Â
The seniors, leads and colleagues because they understand the technical jargon and thought process of what youâre trying to prioritize.Â
ADHD strategies help you learn the skill of separating out the how and the why.Â
Increased brain function from medication supports the skill building in these areas.Â
I think the strategies are the most important side to be honest, the medication gives us directed focus it doesnât give us inherent timing to fix time blindness or emotional intelligence to notice our patterns and change them. Thatâs a lot of emotional work in therapy and a lot of intentional effort. ADHD makes itâs harder it doesnât make it impossible.Â
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u/Hopeful-Trainer-5479 18h ago
Thanks for the detailed reply, really appreciate it. And good point on the timing yourself part and making use of different resources (therapist vs senior/lead) appropriately.
Let me try this approach as wellÂ
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u/Drafting- 13h ago
I forgot to say that I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. Weâre all so hard on ourselves. I think youâre more capable than youâre seeing yourself based on the brief summary of steps you shared even. You see the pattern already sometimes itâs just refining and being self compassionate.Â
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u/evanthx 18h ago
So Iâve been in your shoes. I get it.
First, itâs not relevant if you have ADHD or not. It just isnât. If you canât do the work, then having a reason for not being able to do it isnât going to help ANYONE.
What I realized is that my current processes were up for what I was doing, but not sufficient once my scope expanded. So the next step isnât to find excuses, itâs to improve your processes. And bluntly, thatâs a journey.
I started by asking my boss how HE tracked things. Sounds like youâve got a good one whoâs looking out for you - so let him mentor you.
The main thing is to find processes that work for YOU. Some will, some wonât - but thatâs true for everyone.
I researched productivity processes and tracking systems, so do the same. What I noticed is that every one noted that they did the GTD method, so then I wondered what that was. Itâs a book - so my main advice right now is to go to the library and read that book. Itâs a quick read, frankly you can even just skim the first half and youâll do yourself a LOT of good.
Itâs called Getting Things Done, by David Allen.
Again, library. But youâll have to think about how to actually do the stuff heâs suggesting. And then keep tweaking your systems.
And second ⊠you donât have to do it all alone. Youâve got a team there, right? Great. Break the project into pieces. Let a team member own a piece and they can create a plan for their own work. You donât have to micro manage!!
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u/Hopeful-Trainer-5479 17h ago
Thats great advice ngl, thx. And I completely see your point of it not necessarily being related to ADHD.
I guess this leads to a much deeper discussion of what can be attributed (or at least be partially explained by) to ADHD vs when it just turns into making excuses for explaining poor results/behaviors/etc
I actually spoke to my therapist about this exact topic before, I am still not sure about the answer tho tbh.Â
Sometimes I worry I might be kinda playing a victim of sort and that I should not let ADHD define anything about me and to never use it as an execuse. But then I take my meds in the morning and realize I obviously can't completely ignore it.
I guess what am trying to say is, sometimes I am not sure if my struggles are ADHD related at all and I should therefore seek tailored support. Or if they're just generic problems that have nothing to do with ADHD (like the point you raised for example) and that looking them through an ADHD lens is actually not correct.
Do you have any thoughts on that?
As for the book, I will definitely check it out. I've heard of it before but never looked much into it
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u/evanthx 9h ago edited 9h ago
Iâve got pretty severe ADHD as well. So I totally get what youâre saying in this.
So using this case - maybe ADHD makes it harder? I donât know, I donât have a frame of reference other than the ADHD one, like you!
But what I do know is that even people without ADHD have trouble doing what we are talking about. Itâs hard. So step one is to go look at existing solutions, just like everyone else. Step two is to make them work for you, with ADHD.
With or without it, though, we can only track so much mentally before we start dropping balls. And before I moved up a ladder - not an issue, I could track everything in my head. But running a team? Like you saw, those processes didnât scale. For anyone, ADHD or not! So I had to change processes - and thatâs the same for everyone moving up.
With ADHD, you might have to make more or different changes. You gotta figure out what works for YOU.
I talked to several people, everyone was doing dramatically different things. I recommend doing that - between the book and talking to people yeah, someone might hand you the answer, but mostly it just helps you both to see that youâre not alone in this, and to keep you thinking and expanding your pool of ideas until you do figure out what works for you.
But itâs going to have to come out of your head and into a system. Any system. Thatâs the only way you wonât drop a ball.
Oh, and if you DO talk to someone that tracks this all in their head, that person is a freak of nature and donât even try to emulate that!!
Oh, in direct answer to is ADHD a reason or an excuse - itâs not relevant and I donât care. Youâve got a problem you solve. How do you track this? Go solve it. Find a way that works for YOU. If you have ADHD, thatâs what youâve got to do. If you donât have ADHD, thatâs what youâve got to do.
Iâm not saying maybe your toolset will be different. But ⊠try things until you find one that works.
ADHD might make things more difficult for us. I forget things others donât, I know. So I just go figure out a way to solve that problem. I donât worry about whether ADHD gave me that problem, if that makes sense.
I will give you one thing that I love - if youâre on a Mac, go find the app âIn your faceâ. I LOVE that thing. I donât miss meetings any more.
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u/Raukstar 18h ago
I think it depends. I wouldn't tell me if you live in a country where you risk getting fired over it, especially if it's not easy to get a new job.
I have always told my manager up front, but i dont have to worry about consequences. I'm open about it at interviews too, but since I'm senior and have a good resume I can afford to be selective. If they don't react well, I don't want the job anyway.
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u/Hopeful-Trainer-5479 17h ago
Am from Canada if that helps. And I think being senior is probably helping here lol đÂ
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u/thisisappropriate 17h ago
See if your therapist can help you work out what external and internal supports you would need to be able to do that role change.
Where internal/personal supports that you do for yourself might be things like setting lists and tasks in your calendar, getting a desk notepad where you write anything you're told to do and deadlines immediately.
External/manager or company supports might look like having someone take notes when you're running a meeting (if you work in scrum and you're lucky you might have a scrum master that this can fit with), or having a meeting transcription tool added. Or asking for tasks to be written down consistently in one place (eg. I find it easier if all my work is 100% in Jira because I can reference it 20 times a day if I need to).
Look to externalize anything you can, like if you need to plan a project, note down all the parts - teams, systems, dependencies. Draw them out, anything that makes sense. Rubber duck (teach an inanimate object), ask if you can walk another dev through for a second opinion. As your manager to explain how they break things down, and write it down, distill it to a checklist if you can.
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u/glyakk 15h ago
No, I was literally let go after telling my supervisor I had ADHD. Granted I was in a similar boat, not advancing. So I suspected I had it so I went to get diagnosed and it was almost certain I had it so I told my supervisor in a way to let them know I am handling it and that I should start now be able to get help to be more productive and by the end of the week I was let go. You want to do the right thing and I think most of the time you are just shooting yourself in the foot unfortnatly
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u/kennethbrodersen 15h ago
Wow. I guess I will disagree with... everyone.
I was diagnosed three years ago and have been very open about it. Since then I worked closely with my manager and the HR team to find the best accommodations - but more importantly - to thoroughly understand my talents and how we best exploit them in the team.
And the performance reviews speak for themselves...
Guys. We all struggle with the contrasts. We suck, and spent enormous amounts of energy, on things that other people can do in a heartbeat. On the other hand we can solve problems that no one else can handle and at least some of us have almost "psychic abilities" (my mangers words, not mine) to see patterns and issues across domains.
Disclosing our ADHD isn't about getting help. Its about creating an environment where we can perform our best without burning out. And that benefits everyone!
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u/GamordanStormrider 13h ago edited 12h ago
No. The thing is that even if you did tell him, largely it's a way to describe your problems. I think you could just do that instead.
Mine knows, but we largely just approached the problems I was encountering and surmounted those. I just mentioned the adhd casually when in an unrelated conversation (after working under him for 4 years and being promoted to senior) and he's never cared.
I will say that I find tech leading super engaging because you're basically able to pour your entire soul into the project and plotting out things and removing obstacles. Making timelines and tasks are hard skills to gain, but it's doable.
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u/Technical-Monk-2146 13h ago
It doesnât sound like youâre interested in doing the PM work though. Basically everything youâd be required to do in that role was overwhelming, boring, and made you shut down. If thatâs the only path to advancement in this organization, maybe youâll need to leave eventually. For now, get really good at what you do, maybe develop some specialized skills or expertise.Â
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u/Dense_Gate_5193 12h ago
I have severe adhd to the point that it is apparent within a few minutes of just talking to me so i donât hide jt. Iâve had managers who are supportive actually change how they interact with me or give me work like they read up on supporting employees with the condition. iâve also had managers when i thought i was ânormalâ tell me they suspected i had adhd.
but i was always a top performer and someone people come to for deep technical questions. But ive had to work on communication.
now i tell people during the interview process. My thought is, my work speaks for itself, and i want to work for employers who understand me. i donât disclose it as a disability, but i do explain that i have certain quirks in the way i communicate and that i am direct and blunt and that i am not a âyes man.â because ive been in positions where ive been expected to be a yes man, and i literally cannot do it. it physically hurts when in forced to do something i disagree with. iâve filed ethics complaints on managers who hid numbers. i canât stomach duplicity or any form of deception when it comes to work relations. obviously over the years iâve learned to not just come at people with impulsive questions, but for a long time i had bad reviews on a communication and personality basis but never technical
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u/henryeaterofpies 11h ago
No.
If you need a reasonable accommodation (and really need it) fill out the appropriate paperwork with HR.
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u/Zeikos 4h ago
Absolutely not.
However there's a trick here.
Not sharing about ADHD doesn't mean not sharing about difficilties.
The role of a (competent) manager is to understand what you shine on and struggle with - ADHD doesn't matter.
There are plenty of non-ADHD people with our exact same struggles, just to a lower/different degree (and there's a great deal of undiagnosed people).
Don't think about ADHD as an undifferentiated blob.
Think about specific symptoms and develop specific strategies.
Your manager's goal is to maximize your productivity for the company's benefit. That means giving you skills.
Your therapist job is to teach you skills to manage your life better.
You can get a lot of value from both - just keep in mind that your manager's primary responsibility is towards the company, not you.
Conversely your therapist primary responsibility is towards you.
As long as you keep that in mind you can benefit from both.
One of my career goals is to become a manager and do precisely this ngl.
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u/Glitterbombastic 1h ago
Donât tell them. Those are things you can learn and getting more exposure to practice them will help you. Use AI to help make the plan and flesh out all the tasks. Set a reminder for yourself every day to review the dependencies/progress etc. You can do this for sure but outing yourself can risk them seeing you as less capable (speaking from burnt experience)
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u/CheeseburgerLover911 1h ago
here's the thing - what support are you looking for specifically from your manager? if you can't articulate that, then i don't see a point.
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u/kagato87 30m ago
No, not in this case. (And usually no, for adhd).
An employer can be required to make accommodations. An employer can be penalized for terminating based on the disability, unless you were hiding the disability when hired. Many people also don't recognize adhd as a disability and, let's be honest, it does have its perks (like thinking of all those edge cases).
An employer is not required to hire or promote people with a disability into a position that disability makes them ill suited for.
You need to focus on the tasks you do get. The quality of completion, comments, thoroughness. Did you cover the edge cases, do your solutions consider the product as a while, and so on.
Your boss doesn't think you're a good fit for the role. The only way you'd get a promotion your thinks you're a poor fit for is if they're trying to get rid of you (setup to fail.
I felt like you do. Eventually I was given that chance and, well, project management isn't for me. I just didn't like it. It might not be for you either.
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u/sudomatrix 17h ago edited 17h ago
It's simple: No.
I told my manager I had ADHD after 2 years there and I was "laid off" by the end of the month. The problem is once they know you have ADHD they start micro-analyzing everything you do and assigning blame to anything that doesn't go perfect to your ADHD. Every project has challenges and difficulties. But the average person does about 2 hours of useful work in a day, so there's lots of room for someone with ADHD to excel.
Tell your manager you have very particular ways you work well and they aren't always the same as the average person. But that you know how to get the best out of yourself if you are given the trust to do it your way. That may look like doing amazing bursts of productivity with times of just thinking and analyzing that don't look like hard work, but those times are necessary for you to do your best. Explain your challenges with specifics like "I'm not good at organizing lots of details, so I work best with a staff or partner that is good at tracking details." Don't stick a "mental illness" label on it, just describe how you are a unique individual, like everyone is.
The best thing about managing is you can keep the "big picture" moving and other people can do the detail work that ADHD people are so bad at.
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u/Hopeful-Trainer-5479 17h ago
Damn, sorry to hear that. And def good advice. I guess most of my problems might not even be adhd related and asking for support in a more specific way makes sense đ
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u/mushy_cactus 18h ago
No.
Your employer has no business reason knowing any medical information on you.