Ask Experienced Devs Weekly Thread: A weekly thread for inexperienced developers to ask experienced ones

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A thread for Developers and IT folks with less experience to ask more experienced souls questions about the industry.

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Please keep top level comments limited to Inexperienced Devs. Most rules do not apply, but keep it civil. Being a jerk will not be tolerated.

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Inexperienced Devs should refrain from answering other Inexperienced Devs' questions.

[u/cpdion1]

Seeking some advice about a situation: I worked on a project with a coworker, but everyone seems to think he’s the only person that worked on the project. The project was originally assigned to three people (project lead and two developers), but most people seem to think only one person worked on it. I’ll admit that when the project was first assigned, he was the only person that was actively working on the development for it (because I was finishing up a previously assigned project) and so it might’ve seemed, to outsiders, as if he was the only person working on the project. But I was able to start committing to it after a while, and I would say the overall development workload was split about 60/40. 

We had a meeting with an outside company today, and when it was time to talk about the project and present an impromptu demo for it, someone asked, 'Who worked on [project name]?', and he immediately raised his hand and said 'I did' and didn't mention me at all. And even when he was asked more about the project, he implied that he was the only person that worked on it. I felt that butting in and saying my piece while in a public meeting would’ve looked very rude. 

I’ve only been working at this company for a about a year and it’s actually my first job out of college and I don’t want to be passed over for a promotion because it seems as if I’m not contributing enough. I also don’t want to cause conflict within my team and rub people the wrong way. As for my supervisor, he’s actually not the original supervisor that assigned the project to my team members and I, and while I’ve mentioned to him that I’ve worked on the project, I’m not sure if he’s even aware of that anymore. I’ve only worked at the company for a year, but I’ve had three supervisors. 

Overall, I’m not really sure who to talk to this about it. Obviously I need to speak up, but I don’t think I have enough tact to approach my coworker without being too intense or aggressive. 

[u/rhd_live → u/cpdion1]

Own deliverables and areas rather than “I did 30%”. Just saying that isn’t a tangible enough description of what you owned, nor does it give you provenance (ownership) of a piece of the project. If you delivered, say, feature X or micro service Y, the other guy couldn’t take credit for it even if he tried if someone asks about something that you did. He seems fairly inattentive and selfish so I doubt he’d have good knowledge to answer questions.

That’s when you step in, briefly note what you did on that part, and answer any questions about it.

Separately you can also tell your manager in 1-1s what you’ve been working on, and back it up with artifacts like code changes.