this post was submitted on 08 May 2026
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[–] savvywolf@pawb.social 155 points 2 weeks ago (8 children)

If you're missing deadlines and getting customer complaints because of a new hire, that's a failure in management, imo.

(Of course, that's not saying management will take responsibility)

[–] kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world 81 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (12 children)

It's nearly always a failure in management. In every company I've worked in, at some level failures come from bad leadership decisions.

Lack of communication, unrealistic deadlines, bad processes, no guardrails, no redundancy, poor/absent/too-harsh feedback, micromanaging, lack of observability, inaccessible resources, poor morale, etc. All management's responsibility.

[–] applebusch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 points 2 weeks ago

heh... every management failure you mentioned was a problem at my last job. impressive.

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[–] oce@jlai.lu 13 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

It's also due to the impossibility of estimating non-trivial tasks in engineering. You are asked to estimate the time it will take to solve problems that you have not yet discovered.

[–] Croquette@sh.itjust.works 10 points 2 weeks ago

I fucking hate that.

Here is an open ended task, how much time do you think it will take?

[–] Akasazh@lemmy.world 10 points 2 weeks ago

That might be the point, though.

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[–] eestileib@lemmy.blahaj.zone 114 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

As you climb the layer cake, be a shit umbrella not a shit funnel.

[–] Omgpwnies@lemmy.world 43 points 2 weeks ago

Fuckin words of fuckin wisdom, Lahey

[–] aaaaaaaaargh@feddit.org 77 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

That is, until Sr. Dev is forced to babysit AI producing PR slop all day while Jr. Dev is looking for a new job.

[–] nymnympseudonym@piefed.social 65 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Wrong

We fire the Sr Dev and get the cheaper Jr Dev to oversee the AI

[–] aaaaaaaaargh@feddit.org 10 points 2 weeks ago

Right. Sad but true.

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[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 16 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Maybe. Maybe Sr Dev uses their connections to help Jr Dev look for a better job (assuming they like Jr Dev, maybe they look together) and one day Jr Dev helps them back. You never know.

[–] aaaaaaaaargh@feddit.org 10 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

But according to LinkedIn we're all too crazy about AI to care about Jr Dev if we can have fun with AI. We're all having a ton of fun using AI, right?

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 8 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

yes. tons. of. fon. 👏.👏.

[–] aaaaaaaaargh@feddit.org 9 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

What would be your favorite most fun part about AI? Mine is constant sorrow, face palming and existential crisis ever since management heard of it.

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 7 points 2 weeks ago

mine is the bucket of thumbs i gotta carry around if i wanna not look suspicious on camera

[–] ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world 49 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

I was fine with mentoring junior developers until my manager decided pair programming was the way to go. I'm happy to help and teach, but like fuck am I going to sit at the same goddamn computer with some maroon all day. Can't even power-nap properly.

[–] fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works 25 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Pair programing with a mentor shouldn't be a day to day thing. Like why waste the time and put so much pressure on the trainee like that anyways?

[–] epyon22@sh.itjust.works 20 points 2 weeks ago

Honestly pair programming I feel works better with more similar abilities than far off. Also give em a task to let them struggle a bit in the beginning of the sprint.

[–] Rooster326@programming.dev 8 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

The entire reason we developed git was so nobody would ever have to pair program again.

Does he also request you write the code on paper first?

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[–] mynamesnotrick@lemmy.zip 7 points 2 weeks ago

Full agree. Pair programming makes me unproductive and it's always just feels like one person doing it and the other person in the back saying "uh huh, yeah". Our place used it as a learning opportunity but the problem is the person I pair with haven't ever worked on my project and have no clue what's going on when I'm month deep into a feature branch.

[–] pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 5 points 2 weeks ago

Can't even power-nap properly.

Yes. Pair programming should be encouraged when appropriate, not mandated.

Naps are a part of the critical path! Lol.

[–] ToxicWaste@lemmy.cafe 5 points 2 weeks ago

pair programming can be really cool. if you have a complex problem, are roughly on the same level as the pair, are both motivated to do it.

that is a huge if. also the reason why it should never be mandated. suggested at most.

[–] nymnympseudonym@piefed.social 38 points 2 weeks ago

Wait till you see how beat up the Dev Manager is who is protecting the Sr Dev

[–] FreshLight@sh.itjust.works 38 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Middle management is also there to communicate both ways in order to manage expectations. Especially when the senior dev is busy as well. And ideally the first few weeks to months after onboarding are there for junior devs to train and to get comfortable with the new environment (programmatically and socially). I get a lot of anti-work vibes from Lemmy communities, and while I get that capitalism is bad and big corps are optimizing profits over the employees' well being, I also think that work doesn't necessarily have to suck. I mean, it's pretty neat when someone's good at a thing and gets paid for doing something they somewhat like and are good at 70% of the time.

If times are rough and you have to take what you can get, that's obviously shit, though..

[–] mirshafie@europe.pub 15 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Apart from perhaps parenting, work is supposed to be the best, most fulfilling thing in life. The root crime of capitalism is alienation, the source from which every other of its more serious crimes flow.

[–] flambonkscious@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

LinkedIn socialists unite!

edit I'm just being cheeky and sarcastic. Work should be fulfilling. I suspect it's easier when one deals with the tangible stuff like construction

[–] mirshafie@europe.pub 8 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

I think it's the fact that you're not in control that is the main issue. You're working to fulfill someone else's vision for their benefit, not yours.

But yeah, the sitting still all day is another layer of unfulfilling.

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[–] eletes@sh.itjust.works 26 points 2 weeks ago

My internship manager was great at giving me challenges that were tough but achievable. I took their offer even though it was low for a fresh engineer because that team was so great to work with

[–] bridgeburner@lemmy.world 20 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Nice meme from the past. Too bad nowadays corpos don't hire juniors anymore, their work is done all by AI. Or at least that's what corpos wish for.

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[–] MalReynolds@slrpnk.net 17 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Didn't all the junior dev roles get taken by 'agentic AI' leaving an entire generation of devs to the mercy of AI mentoring. That's going to end well.

Historically this protection was the role of a competent project manager (Yeah, they existed, rare, but gold), a senior dev wrote code, a pleasing experience that made the slog uphill (both ways) worthwhile, much like art.

If OP got it from a snr dev, kudos to them both.

[–] pedz@lemmy.ca 12 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I'm doing tech support and customer support. The dev team missed their deadline on the launch of the new ERP and launched it anyway a few days later. There are still Lorem Ipsum in some places. We can't even edit client's names or phone numbers yet. We also can't open new accounts for a handful of clients.

I usually can cover for "my" team. We all make mistakes and sometimes things are not going according to plan. But so far it's the worst deployment I have ever seen. I gave up on trying to help clients and I'm now just telling them I can't do anything, while the dev team is telling me they are working on those issues and they should be fixed "in the following days, bro". It's been two weeks of "this is gonna get fixed soon" while I am bullshitting the clients telling them "oh I've been told it would work now, please try again".

I'm tired and they should be better. I just script for fun. I was doing PHP 20 years ago and still host a few services for a handful of people, and sometimes I think I might do a better job than some junior programmers.

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[–] idriss@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 weeks ago

Well, that wasn't my experience when I was a junior, every failure was blamed on me, PR is deliberatelty stretched to look like I am slower and worse than I am, it was a lot of suffering but we all have to start from somewhere.

[–] davidagain@lemmy.world 7 points 2 weeks ago

I've had a few bosses who were great at shielding the team from shit and sticking up for the department in front of everyone. I'd do absolutely anything for them and we all pitched in because it was us.

I applied for my current role partly because I knew who my boss would be and I knew he'd be great. He has my back and I have his. Same is true for the whole team.

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