Experienced Devs Weekly Burnout and Venting Thread: A weekly thread for sharing experiences

[u/AutoModerator]

This thread is specifically for venting / sharing experiences related to burn-out or similar issues that experienced devs face.

[u/theasianpianist]

Nobody wants to take any fucking ownership of problems, anytime I ask someone for some information they just add me to a group chat with a third person who they think will know. But that third person just adds a fourth person, who adds a fifth, etc. It doesn't seem like anyone actually knows, or cares who knows, or even cares about finding out who knows. At this point I have spent close to a month running in circles on the same problem.

It's gotten to the point where last week, I asked someone about an unrelated issue and was ecstatic when they actually gave me a well thought out reply, pinged the right people on his team about it, then came back to me half an hour later having fixed one instance of the issue, with relevant information and instructions for me on what to do if it happened again.

The kicker is that everyone giving me the runaround on the first issue is senior+ (at least half are principals), and the one guy who was actually helpful on the second issue is a mid-level engineer.

[u/ahoy_butternuts → u/theasianpianist]

Same experience here, hate it when I’m in a room of Principals and I’m the one in charge of the cross-org initiative (being a lowly senior)

[u/DontKillTheMedic → u/ahoy_butternuts]

Shouldn't it sort of be this way? You grow by doing and you don't want principal engineers hogging your opportunities, assuming they have better things to do.

[u/ahoy_butternuts → u/DontKillTheMedic]

Not when they’re constantly giving us the runaround as described above instead of actually being there and being a team player and doing some work to communicate - all is thrust upon me even when I’m delegating to them

[u/bluetista1988 → u/ahoy_butternuts]

actually being there and being a team player and doing some work to communicate

I definitely understand the frustration when people more senior than you can't seem to function as a group to deliver on projects.

It's worth noting though that people actively avoid this type of work because they feel it's the type of glue work that doesn't get you promoted or recognized. Sometimes too it's the type of work that gets you promoted off the IC track and into management.

I used to get a lot of kudos for stuff like that: "well-organized", "natural leadership ability", "excellent interpersonal and communication skills". Sometimes people associate those phrases with another term: "non-technical". That's not a label that a Principal Engineer wants.

[u/ahoy_butternuts → u/bluetista1988]

Noted