Software Engineering Manager and Endurance Running Race Director - Have lots of ideas of how to simplify and automate endurance race management through workflow optimization and software development.
Yep. Been there myself. Worked full-time at a company where we started doing heavy front-end development in the past few years. My roll was also to be "the expert" and teach other devs the new architecture we were following for our systems and how we can get all the pieces to work together. Basically, I was designated as the technical advisor on these newer projects.
Additionally, we had and heavily used a custom built legacy component that had many internal rules, and was built off "old tech" and not flexible with new front-end dev ways. IMO, this caused issues with what the team wanted to do with the project. The problem was, this component was essentially a "standard" way of doing things and widely used across many server apps, but didn't play nice with how we were designing newer systems. I knew this because I designed and coded the early stages of this component and used it in several apps, and was actually one of THE expert with this component. Given my expert in-depth knowledge of this component and understanding the requirements of the project at-hand, using this component didn't make much sense, so I worked with the project team (devs, lead, and manager) and presented 4 options of how we could change our attack. They were all on board with presenting these options to the Director of App Dev. I was told that literally 3 seconds into that meeting after presenting the options, they were silenced and the Director demanded that the old component HAD to be used. We were dumbfounded by this.
Not a healthy situation to be in. Those who knew better, the developers, were forced to use bad practices because Management likes to micromanage and control how we code. The Director didn't want to listen to anything or anyone and had her own agenda. She took the "Do as I say" approach and didn't let those who probably know better help with decisions. We all felt pretty stuck!
Safe to say, I'm no longer working there, under my own decision. Looking back at such an environment, I can't believe I lasted as long as I did. Lessons learned and onto better environments.
Thanks for sharing Brian! I’ve had to make many compromises on projects, and it’s always tough for me to know when enough is enough. You did your due diligence. It sounds like you were committed. You just hit brick walls. Hang in there!!
Software Engineering Manager and Endurance Running Race Director - Have lots of ideas of how to simplify and automate endurance race management through workflow optimization and software development.
Yep. Been there myself. Worked full-time at a company where we started doing heavy front-end development in the past few years. My roll was also to be "the expert" and teach other devs the new architecture we were following for our systems and how we can get all the pieces to work together. Basically, I was designated as the technical advisor on these newer projects.
Additionally, we had and heavily used a custom built legacy component that had many internal rules, and was built off "old tech" and not flexible with new front-end dev ways. IMO, this caused issues with what the team wanted to do with the project. The problem was, this component was essentially a "standard" way of doing things and widely used across many server apps, but didn't play nice with how we were designing newer systems. I knew this because I designed and coded the early stages of this component and used it in several apps, and was actually one of THE expert with this component. Given my expert in-depth knowledge of this component and understanding the requirements of the project at-hand, using this component didn't make much sense, so I worked with the project team (devs, lead, and manager) and presented 4 options of how we could change our attack. They were all on board with presenting these options to the Director of App Dev. I was told that literally 3 seconds into that meeting after presenting the options, they were silenced and the Director demanded that the old component HAD to be used. We were dumbfounded by this.
Not a healthy situation to be in. Those who knew better, the developers, were forced to use bad practices because Management likes to micromanage and control how we code. The Director didn't want to listen to anything or anyone and had her own agenda. She took the "Do as I say" approach and didn't let those who probably know better help with decisions. We all felt pretty stuck!
Safe to say, I'm no longer working there, under my own decision. Looking back at such an environment, I can't believe I lasted as long as I did. Lessons learned and onto better environments.
Thanks for sharing Brian! I’ve had to make many compromises on projects, and it’s always tough for me to know when enough is enough. You did your due diligence. It sounds like you were committed. You just hit brick walls. Hang in there!!
Thanks! Definitely greener on the other side! Btw, what a great honest video, just watched it (and subscribed).
Thanks for your support! Got some more great content coming!