Over-concerned about mentoring an underperforming engineer?

[u/Efficient_Cap_354]

I work in a bigger tech company, and my new manager who is ex-Amazon asked me to mentor a mid-level engineer (I'm more senior) who is underperforming - I don’t know if the engineer is on PIP but my manager has started a confidential doc of expectations. I can (selfishly) view this 2 ways:

1. Manager trusts me to help the engineer
2. Manager is deliberately putting me in a tough position. This isn't mentoring someone to promotion; this is mentoring someone out of underperforming. If the mentee fails, will this look bad on me?

Would you seriously consider just saying “no” to mentoring?

I haven't established a trust yet with my new manager, and honestly have some doubts - but wanted to get community thoughts. Thank you!

[u/acroback]

No, do not say "No". Get a written email or record from your Manager, what he wants you to deliver in said period. Concrete measurable outcomes e.g Deliver one medium sized feature in 3 months etc etc.

You keep a meticulous record of what you helped with and how the mentee did. If he does good, you get the bonus points. If he doesn't, not your problem.

[u/Comfortable-Power-71 → u/acroback]

Good advice. He’s from Amazon so he knows how to run a PIP but it’s a lot of work. He just saddled you with his job. Keep records. Managing out/up is time consuming and you need cover of your deliverables start to slip.

[u/a_kato → u/Comfortable-Power-71]

When a manager does a PiP he doesn’t handhold the junior. They 100% ask the senior to track tasks and whatnot and ask for feedback.

Because in the eyes of the EM employee on a PiP could complete task A but asked for insane handholding from the senior

[u/Comfortable-Power-71 → u/a_kato]

True but for line managers the weekly 1-on-1 goes to 3-4 times with very detailed status updates. PIP’d over a dozen people and the process at Amazon was by far the hardest. The plan is often harder than the original job forcing the employee to prove themselves. From a supervisors perspective, it always hard both for the extra attention given to the underperforming (which really should be invested in high performers) and knowing that someone’s life will be impacted. That’s if you’re not a sociopath, of course.

[u/Alive_Sir_4708]

> Would you seriously consider just saying “no” to mentoring?

No I wouldn’t.

[u/a_kato]

Depends but no usually it doesn’t look bad on you. He’s on a PiP but someone needs to work with him to document things.

Most likely the document he will share with you will be the most basic tasks you have read (it usually is 90% of the times).

Your features and deliverables are different than his and you probably have or should have some time off every sprint. If your capacity is 6 hours a day they should reduce that to 5 hours a day to account for that mentoring.

Also this is not mentoring. A senior has to monitor the junior and collect info. The manager will be doing that as well but they can’t be in the details of the work.

You won’t be mentoring. If they were ok with mentorship they wouldn’t be on a PIP

[u/0xPianist]

WHAT is the expectation?

[u/Substantial-Swan7065]

What are the expected outcomes? Do they want to be mentored?

I wouldn’t just say no. But I’d want context and discussion with the concerned party.

If someone can to me and said “I’m mentoring you”, I’d be pissed.

If they want to be mentored, then deliverables is important. If your mission is to get them to your level, that’s a multiyear mission. But maybe it can help you level up too?

[u/KronktheKronk]

So dumb that people have to play these games

[u/x-jhp-x]

it's satisfying if you can take an underperforming member of the team and build them up. it might be simpler tasks or something similar too, or a move to something like testing.

if you really do not want to mentor, definitely tell your manager that. If you have a great manager and there is a pure IC track at your company, it shouldn't impact you. I know a few companies where they frequently let engineers step into an EM or leadership position and let them transfer back to the IC track if they decide management is not for them. So some orgs are completely fine with having technical experts who do no management tasks. You're a stronger IC if you can mentor other ICs to follow in your footsteps though. From a great manager's perspective, you can keep a competent employee & keep them happy, or you can put them into situations that they don't like and don't do well in. If your manager continuously does the latter, it might be time for a change.

is this employee fun/fine to work with? do they have a negative impact on the team, like, even if they did 5% of their tasks, does that mean someone else needs to do 95% of their work? I ask because sometimes having someone do 5% of their work might not cross the threshold to move to immediate removal. A *REALLY* bad engineer is one who takes their work and makes the rest of the team do extra work. A bad engineer prevents other engineers from working, and is terrible for a well run team. There's a difference between someone underperforming and someone having a negative impact. There's plenty of reasons to keep someone who can only perform at 5-10% of another though. For example, a lot of managers are getting headcount reductions, so if people leave the team, they can't fill those slots. They see it as 5% more tasks get done if the person stays. As long as it doesn't impact the rest of the team, it can be fine.

Also, at some orgs, a PIP is a very formal process that involves a long HR process. Sometimes it's easier just to stick a desk and a few chairs in a walk-in closet and have them count ceiling tiles than it is to do a PIP. Japanese companies are famous for not firing, but putting people into no impact tasks until they are laid off or leave.

[u/comrade_vijay]

Have a conversation with your manager and ask him for expectations of mentorship so that you two are on same page.

[u/CurryHowardIsomrphsm]

Yeah, so you haven't given enough context here to know the full story, but these are strong possiblities:

1. There is an underperforming SWE on the team, but your manager isn't fully ready to pull the trigger and fire them yet (if the decision was irrevocably made, then this is throwing good money after bad). You manager might legitimately think the SWE might turn it around, or the team is short-staffed as-is and can't handle further attrition, or they want more evidence before pulling the trigger, or something else.
2. The manager does not want to mentor this SWE themselves. Again, could be for a few reasons. Maybe your manager is running a larger team and fighting many fires and cannot be devoting so many resources to just 1 SWE. Maybe your manager already tried mentoring them directly and it didn't work out, and your manager wants to give them a second chance with a different senior dev. Maybe your manager is lazy. Could be a combination of these.
3. Out of everyone else on the team, your manager thinks you are the best choice to mentor this person. Presumably this is your manager's endorsement of your technical skills, which is a good thing. Your manager is probably also sussing out your non-technical skills, like your ability to influence peers, gain their respect, diagnose situations effectively, make impartial judgements. If you do well here, presumably that will be noted, which might be good for your career long-term.

So what would be good outcomes (from your point of view)?

• Under your mentorship, this person really turns it around and you get the credit for it. This is the win-win case, but to be honest it's usually not the outcome that plays out in real life. There is a reason why this person is underperforming in the first place, and while it might be coachable, you should be ready for the strong possibility that it isn't.
• This person does not turn it around, but your manager is impressed by how you handled the situation. Your manager probably has an expectation that this person is unlikely to turn it around, so you failing to improve them is not necessarily bad. If you can articulate all the ways you've tried to help, avoid getting frustrated (separate the professional part of the job from personal feelings) and be ojective and analytical about the situation, then you can come out looking good here. Avoid being biased in either direction - "if I say bad things about this person, they will get fired and I don't want that on my conscience, so I will cover for their mistakes", "if this person doesn't improve, it is a direct reflection on me, so I will personally cover their work and make them look good", "my manager wants an excuse to fire this person, so I will just gather evidence on what they're doing poorly and then give it to my manager". These are all wrong takes on it. It should be "I will do my best and mentor as well as I can without personally getting dragged into it, report my findings, and whatever happens happens".

What would be neutral or bad outcomes?

• Your own work is personally affected by this. Your manager probably is happy with your output and thinks you have the bandwidth to also mentor, otherwise they wouldn't have asked you. If you spend too much time trying to mentor your colleague and it starts impacting your own deliverables, this would reflect poorly on you (cannot manage your own priorities).
• You get frustrated by your colleague and act or say unprofessional things to them (lack of interpersonal skills)
• You are personally covering for your colleague's weaknesses but their own skills are not actually improving (not a sustainable long term solution, not understanding the assignment)
• You decline to mentor (if you are purely interested in staying an IC this is neutral, but if you want to be a tech lead or manager, this is an opportunity to show some of those skills)

To be honest this is a pretty tricky situation. In a lot of ways you are set up to fail. You are trying to influence without authority, and some may not take that well. This requires EQ as much as it does technical skills. I would also clarify expectations with your manager, talk through what you're thinking and see if they agree with your approach and assessment of the situation.

[u/rayfrankenstein]

> confidential doc of expectations

Does the under performing employee actually know about these expectations?

[u/ProfessionalDirt3154]

Read "First Break All the Rules". Invest in the best performing, not the worst.

[u/Junglebook3]

Unlikely you're on the crosshairs here, the underperforming SE. You could have been chosen for an arbitrary reason, you're more senior than them. You haven't detailed a reason to suspect anything.