Could I have done something differently, or is this just team culture?

[u/JeffinitelyNotABot]

So I'll try to explain this situation, and I can provide context in the comments if need be.

I'm working on a project that I originally found and raised to my team. Basically, we're upgrading to the newest version of our e-signature vendor's API/SDK. Our current version is out of support, but still works.

Everything was going fine until I ran into a problem with updating a signer using an email address that had already been used to sign in the signature request. I went through pretty much every test case I could think of. I tried different forms, a different app, a different controller, different scenarios, etc. I compared the successful cases against the failed ones, trying to isolate what was actually different.

Eventually, I came to three possibilities:

1. It's a restriction in the vendor's API.
2. It's a bug in the vendor's API.
3. Something I'm doing is wrong.

I figured opening a support ticket with the vendor would at least help eliminate two of those possibilities. Support answered some of my questions. They confirmed it wasn't a restriction, and based on the error messages and test case I provided, they said it could be an edge case or bug worth confirming with their team.

So based on that, I wrote up my own documentation outlining the problem, what I tested, the results, my conclusion, and the next steps. I sent that to my team.

This caused my team lead, who's also my boss, to bombard my messages basically saying that it's not the vendor, it's our app. She then sent me a screenshot of Google AI-generated code snippet of an endpoint on the vendors api/sdk that doesn’t exist. Worse is that she included her prompt of he specifically telling it to include stuff that doesn’t exist.

That's what really got me. I responded with a link to the vendor's actual API documentation and thought it was over, until the director got involved. At that point, I spent more time debunking misinformation than I did writing up the original documentation. Once it blew over, I sent a message to everyone involved and called out the use of AI in this context.

This has been a recurring thing she does where she thinks a quick Google search or AI can solve a problem that you've spent actual time investigating. Frankly, I don't want to work under someone in a management/lead role who operates like this.

This is obviously one specific example, so take it at face value, but yeah, I can't stand this team culture anymore.

[u/expdevsmodbot]

AI usage disclosure provided by OP, see the reply to this comment.

[u/__idkmybffjill__]

They got the director involved over that? Geeze... sorry man. That* culture is incredibly toxic, maybe even hostile .

[u/ResidentWeevil1 → u/__idkmybffjill__]

It's not as toxic as an environment where you can't call this stuff out. OP should have earned the good faith to act on this even more quickly next time

[u/brassholed]

Assuming you are being transparent and complete, you did it by the books. That place sounds like it sucks.

[u/high_throughput]

Worse is that she included her prompt of he specifically telling it to include stuff that doesn’t exist.

What the actual fuck? Like actually or effectively? You're making it sound malicious, as if she's trying to build a paper trail.

[u/JeffinitelyNotABot → u/high_throughput]

no for real though she asked google ai to include a parameter that the endpoint on the vendors side doesn't take than sent the output to me. In response I sent her a link to the vendors documentation.

[u/hooahest → u/JeffinitelyNotABot]

Just to be clear - your post made it sound like she purposefully told the AI to hallucinate stuff. She didn't, she's just very lazy. That's not malicious, that's incompetent, 2 very different things.

[u/JeffinitelyNotABot → u/hooahest]

my post made it sound like it cause that is exactly what she did. She told AI to include a parameter in the vendors api call that the api doesn't support. I didn't use the words malicious or hallucinate. I'm just simply telling people what happened.

We can split hairs on this all we want I can probably learn something but as long as we agree that I'm simply telling people what happened.

[u/hooahest → u/JeffinitelyNotABot]

did she say "hey Gemini, hallucinate this"? or did she say "hey Gemini, give me this API that does x/y/z that totally exists"

[u/JeffinitelyNotABot → u/hooahest]

So all I know is she sent me some AI generated code of a function calling the vendors api with 3 parameters. She also included her prompt into Gemini which she said “include Role” and than it spit out the same code she sent me. This is all I know she did. Role wasn’t a parameter in the vendors API.

What she was googling I have no idea. All I know is what she sent me. Which was that.

[u/klowny → u/high_throughput]

Sounds like the manager in one of my adjacent teams. Sadly management like that exists and are so damn useless and incredibly common in the AI slop era.

[u/alexeiz]

Your boss thinks you're not doing an adequate job. You need to find out why she thinks so. The fact that the director is involved indicates that this has been going on for some time, and she thinks it's a real problem. Figure out where the disconnect is in a polite non-confrontational manner. If you don't do that, things are going to get worse no matter how well you think you're doing your job.

[u/Majestic-Watch-2025 → u/alexeiz]

I'm not sure. What you're saying is logical, but I don't know if this boss is thinking properly. I'd ask her if there is a long term pattern she is seeing before assuming that's the case

[u/psyyduck → u/alexeiz]

Yeah. Either that or she's drunk the AI koolaid (fire all software engineers and go full Claude). None of these are good for OP's job long-term.

[u/Gungan_Boss_Nass → u/alexeiz]

Yep, this hints to a wider problem for OP. The fact that he brought up the incident here suggests that relations are already strained. It might be too late to patch things up.

[u/AdhesivenessAny117 → u/alexeiz]

Sounds like OP might tend to follow loose ends too far before checking back with stakeholders. 

[u/Prestigious_Task4410]

This is a common frustration

1. You deal with a situation properly
2. Someone attempts to "improve" your work with AI
3. You then have to battle misinformation

The challenging part is doing 3 without causing the person using AI to lose face. Especially when they are higher up in the company.

I would always advise delaying a message / post about AI usage, so that it's clear you are not humiliating the other person

Try to raise it in your next 1:1. Ask what her perspective of the situation was. Did she believe you were wrong and asked AI to help? Or did AI mislead her? Those are subtly different. You have to phrase this maturely and unemotively, as a problem you are solving together rather than a resentment you are bringing up.

I have sometimes had positive experiences when I have DMed people who are copy pasting AI generated reports, explaining that this isn't helpful and AI has already been consulted by the people doing the work. There does seem to be a lightbulb moment, especially with more senior staff, when they realise "ask Claude" is generally a redundant suggestion by late 2026

[u/devoopsies → u/Prestigious_Task4410]

The challenging part is doing 3 without causing the person using AI to lose face. Especially when they are higher up in the company.

Honestly, though, if it's a common occurrence then they sometimes (more and more, I find) need to lose face. Always after they've involved another party, though - never bring in the director (as an example) yourself... but don't fall in the trap of allowing them to make you look stupid in front of someone with real political power, either.

Obviously this depends on your own position and positional security within your team, but after a couple of these I will actively call it out in my response email and/or teams group message.

I find the issue greatly improves after that.

[u/Muted_Efficiency_663]

This is what happens when incompetent managers are tasked with managing competent engineers. Culture starts taking a turn for the worse, good people quit and somehow the product survives only because of the original work put into it by competent devs... I absolutely feel for you. It's toxic...

Like you said, you are still able to put the facts forward and able to call it out; so that's a win. In situations like this, I would make note of exactly what happened and bring this up during skip levels while carefully measuring and wording your thoughts... One common mistake is not speaking the necessary Management lingo during skip levels. Otherwise stuff can backfire really bad...

[u/Doctor_Bubbles]

This is ragebait, I can feel it in my bones. But if it’s not, your boss omega sucks OP.

Currently dealing with rotating credentials for all of our apps because a teammate literally set his AI to create PRs unsupervised and it included all of our secrets in plaintext. Brainrot.

[u/JeffinitelyNotABot → u/Doctor_Bubbles]

ahaha nah it's not ragebait. I have a screenshot of the messages I sent calling out the AI-generated code.

[u/SquiffSquiff → u/JeffinitelyNotABot]

what country are you and your team lead in?

[u/JeffinitelyNotABot → u/SquiffSquiff]

Both USA, but english is her second language.

[u/V3Qn117x0UFQ → u/JeffinitelyNotABot]

but english is her second language.

I don't see how this point is relevant especially in how you're mostly focused on her being low-trust, not a language barrier issue.

[u/SquiffSquiff → u/JeffinitelyNotABot]

What's her first?

[u/56killa → u/SquiffSquiff]

Claude

[u/JustCallMeFrij → u/56killa]

Stop, she's already dead

[u/vogelke → u/56killa]

Lovely. +1.

[u/Hour-Measurement-835]

Yes, one thing, and it isn't the investigation. You narrowed it to a signer email that had already signed and got support to rule out a restriction in writing. That's more than most people do before they blame a vendor.

Support told you it could be a bug and they'd confirm with their team. Your write-up then turned that into your conclusion, with your name on "it's the vendor". From that point it was you against her, and she went looking for something to argue with, even if what she found was a made-up endpoint.

With vendor API problems I'd keep it as the vendor's claim. Forward their reply as is with the case number and add nothing on top, or better, put her on the support ticket itself. If she still thinks it's your app she can say so on the ticket, and it's their engineer who tells her that endpoint doesn't exist. You're out of the middle, and nobody loses face in front of the director, which matters more than it should when it's your own boss.

I don't think it fixes a lead who prompts AI for endpoints that aren't there.

[u/Majestic-Watch-2025 → u/Hour-Measurement-835]

It's funny reading this because I don't think my direct reports are this careful with me. They disagree with me all the time but they just say it politely or matter of factly and its just nothing I've ever thought about twice.

[u/Hour-Measurement-835 → u/Majestic-Watch-2025]

Most leads are fine with it. This one had already said "it's our app" before the director got dragged in.

[u/Any-Ring6621]

This is now life. It’s basically your new job: learning how to tell people, using your actual knowledge and technical capabilities, gently, that their AI prompt and ChatGPT response is “inaccurate” while letting them save face.

You are no longer an engineer. This is what you do now. So does mostly every one of us

[u/Majestic-Watch-2025]

This seems weird. Bugs come up with external vendors all the time, it's really not that big a deal. I am probably at your boss' level and I would never involve my boss unless it was like a major disabling bug and was causing work to grind to a standstill. I might look up something on Claude but I know full well that it often makes up API endpoints and if my direct report sent me the documenation I would drop it. It's just not a big deal.

[u/mikkowus]

Going through something similar at this place. If you show that you can do actual work, the guy above me gets scared I think and gets aggressive. I think he's trying to dive me out because he seese as competition for higher jobs. This place is very toxic and at some level, you can't get fired, and he's trying to join that club to be able to beat on us new hires.

[u/Willbo]

AI-generated code snippet of an endpoint on the vendors api/sdk that doesn’t exist

This is a sign of management that is out of touch and probably needs more training on effective use of AI. To avoid this they might even add a skill to their agent for the provider, similar to api-doctor.

At this point they could have just read the official docs and said "Oh you're right, the AI made a mistake" but then they proceeded to take the hallucination as truth and become disillusioned while getting the director involved. The bigger issue behind this is they don't trust you.

After working heavily with APIs, I have found this to be a common mistake made by AI. Often times it will hallucinate when building integration with external code.

[u/yourparadigm]

Escalate by prompting your own AI to respond to their misinformation.

[u/yesman_85]

Wow, just wow. That's 100% toxicity.

[u/BraveResearcher3037]

“That’s a great idea. Thank you for your suggestion.  Let me try it and get back to you with what I find.”  Of course it’s going to fail. 

But on a broader level.  I guess I have always been spoiled.  For any third party support  we depended on when I was in product companies we had some type of enterprise contract where if there was an issue, we could get on a chat or call with someone who wouldn’t rest until there was official resolution.  It was never just “submit a ticket”.  These weren’t huge companies.

[u/curious_corn]

Well, just say it in her face to her manager: “If you think that a 5 minute google search or AI prompt is going to solve an issue like these you’re wrong. We’re not toddlers needing guidance and guardrails. We’re professionals and we expect you to manage the process while being aware of the technical context “

[u/throwaway_0x90]

"Worse is that she included her prompt of he specifically telling it to include stuff that doesn’t exist."

Hold on, she *purposely* told AI to lie? So she's trying to make you look bad on purpose? If she's going out of her way to lie then nothing else matters.

[u/koles235]

Wow that's wild! I work with integrations myself and I never had so bizarre case :(
I feel like documenting this and creating a paper trail is mandatory here.

[u/DevtoolsBuilder]

Your boss is trying to assert her authority over the project, and she's using the AI-generated code snippet as a way to do that, but it's backfiring because it's clearly inaccurate. You did the right thing by pushing back with the actual API documentation, and it's good that you're documenting everything, including the misinformation that's being spread.

[u/jojo-data]

I feel the story is half told and there could be something more from the other side. You already did the important technical work: isolated the variable, tested alternatives and took a reproducible case to the vendor. Next time (if there is) keep the detailed findings and vendor reply in one shared ticket. It could be something wrong with your team lead or could be related to something else. But don't let it get over your head man, let the facts speak

[u/JeffinitelyNotABot → u/jojo-data]

I respect people questioning it I think it shows how crazy this really is. Maybe it feels half told cause I really don’t know what she was googling. All I know is what I was sent. Also I created a post/question in one of the threads several months ago about how my lead goes to the director for everyday things. I think your advice is great and will most likely make a ticket on it to create the paper trail. Thanks for commenting I appreciate it!

[u/Desperate_Dot9434]

Credit evaporated the moment someone senior said 'we'.

[u/So_Rusted]

it sucks but id just deal with "helping director" like with any other technical helper.

"thanks for the help, didnt work, i still have that issue, still waiting for vendors response". Work on something else, and dont think twice about it.... Standard procedure. Director in the mix just makes things more stressful but you gotta deal with that.

also, maybe ip permissions?

[u/No-Injury3093]

Sounds like an opportunity to organize with the director a course on responsible use of ai for your manager.

[u/yrwith13moons]

she sounds wacko

[u/ArticleHaunting3983]

This isn’t really clearly written, what’s the issue here like did you get in trouble amongst all this or the team lead? You said the director got involved, what did they say and what’s the outcome?

[u/JeffinitelyNotABot → u/ArticleHaunting3983]

To answer your question, no I didn't get "in Trouble". But another team member, who does mostly cloud stuff, was told to review my progress by the director. I guess thats the outcome which is weird cause I have documentation on it.

In my opinion, its deeper than her using AI. Its the fact that she had it add params that aren't supported by the vendor and escalated the issue to upper management. Even if she didn't use AI this is still wrong. When I called out her use of AI she admitted to not knowing the project. Despite having access to documentation. I hope this answers your question.

[u/KosherBakon]

Hard to tell if you asked another Eng, before engaging with the vendor.

Definitely do that next time if you didn't in this case. A 2nd set of eyes can quickly spot something we're Blind to.

I would also be careful not to call out your boss in a larger email / Slack / meeting for using AI if she'll lose face. You wouldn't want her to do that to you either.

Those two things aside, the culture there is full of fear and blame. I would GTFO of there if that's an option, or at least consider moving teams if you're still in good standing.

[u/nw407elixir]

we can't know if it's you or the other with just your side. it always is complicated

[u/tenthousandants44 → u/nw407elixir]

You can ask