I am in a situation where I feel very bad, excluded and sad.
I work in a small team on projects for clients. The team consists of three frontend developers, a designer, and our project manager. My role is more backend and ops (typical DevOps job).
It has happened many times now that our project manager and the client praise our work. Unfortunately, this praise is only given to the designer and the frontend developers (they are addressed directly). I'm starting to feel very upset because I think I'm doing a lot to make the application run smoothly and the servers stable.
Yesterday, another subproject was launched and again only the frontend developers were praised for their work. Although I have also contributed a large part and even supported during an illness from home.
I really like working in this company and don't want to quit and look for a new employer, but it feels very demotivating for me.
I also know that software projects can only be successful as a team and support colleagues and clients where I can, but slowly I start to doubt myself and my abilities.
How would you react in my situation? What are your suggestions?
Latest comments (23)
It's important to compartmentalize the feedback you receive (or don't receive) alongside where the feedback is originating from. In other words, if you are bothered by the lack of positive feedback (or any feedback) from the client, then I'd respectfully tell you that you might need to readjust your goals/objectives. Because most clients (i.e., end users) have little-to-no understanding of what happens on the backend of an application.
Think about it like this: You may tour a gorgeous home. And you have high praise for the interior designer who laid out all the aesthetic niceties. But would you go out of your way to find the plumber, or the roofer, or the electrician who really made the house "work" and praise them for their efforts?? Probably not.
Unfortunately, some PMs are no more understanding of the "plumbing" than the client. They may be embedded in your team. But too many of them are only grokking the effort based on what they can see (i.e., the frontend bells-and-whistles). I'm not saying that a PM shouldn't be including you in their praise. But for some PMs, it's extremely difficult for them to recognize or appreciate all the backend effort.
This isn't to say that you shouldn't care about (or seek out) feedback. But you might be able to improve your own mental state by ensuring that you're soliciting feedback from those who can actually assess/appreciate your efforts. I've worked on projects where I really couldn't care less what the PM/client said about my work - because I knew that they couldn't really "grasp" it. But I still wanted/sought feedback from others in the company who did, in fact, understand the nature of my work.
If you work in a very small company, on a very small team, it's theoretically possible that no one in the company actually understands your contribution. Under that scenario, you need to make the conscious decision to either A) work autonomously and "unplug yourself" from the natural human desire for praise, or B) move to another company where there are more backend/technical people who can assess your contributions and praise them when appropriate.
I think you should, like many other people are saying, talk to your manager about how you’re not getting any feedback on your work. When it comes to clients and managers, they don’t tend to understand how the backend powers their application.
But I also would try to keep your head up. Sure, you’re not being recognized for your work (and you should rightfully be recognized), but usually people may not realize your importance until they can tangibly see it. The frontend devs produce results that are observable which is why they get all the praise. The backend devs produce results, however, that are unobservable, which is why they may not get feedback or praise immediately. Essentially, your manager/client’s reaction is typical of human nature and behavior. As long as this doesn’t get to a point where the company is challenging your position or your razon d’etre, then I would try to not be so alarmed. Again, shoot an email to your manager about your need for recognition, but don’t let your desire to get attention affect your work. You’re still important, even if people aren’t telling you so.
Good luck, hope things work out.
A lot of great thoughts were already shared here. I want to add another aspect that is really important to myself:
Whenever you are in such a situation, remember that there are probably a lot of other people having the same problem as you and you can maybe the one changing that.
For example: I'm not a good socializer, but I notice others that have the same problem quite well and can just go and have a nice conversation with them. Most of the times this works quite well.
So: When you feel you get to few attention for the things you do, begin to change that by doing the first step by yourself: Praise the others if they do good work; I'm quite sure that after a while they will start to do the same to you 🙂
This is pulled from an email that I wrote about 10 months ago for this same reason:
"Hey Project Manager, I love getting theses emails and seeing the positive impact our team is having. It's awesome having that feeling of accomplishment! Would you mind including some of the work I've done in future emails? I'd like to participate and be more integrated into the group recognition."
Her response: "I cannot believe that I forgot to include you all that time. Thank you for reminding me and I profusely apologize."
I was included in every email from that point forward. :)
Nothing to add to what's already been said by the others (and I've been there), but I must say this reminds me of an episode of The IT Crowd where everyone but the IT team gets the props from the big boss. It was humourous but based in reality.
I do not know if you mean that they do it on purpose but, not being this the case, in general I feel the following:
Hey,
you should do what you need. Get some positive feedback.
Your manager is responsible for you and for your performance. If he needs to bake you a cake, he should. A manager should support his team, most times not technical, more emotional and do the administration stuff.
I know that it is not very common to ask for positive feedback, but if this is what makes your day better than why not? There is nothing, really nothing bad if you do "fishing for compliments". I guess the most important point here is to make sure your manager got that you are serious about asking for positive feedback. It shouldn't be a short "You are so nice!, We need you!". He should tell you why they need you, what makes you to the important guy in backend.
I'd say mention it during your 1-on-1 with the person you report to. I'd assume that there are no 1-on-1's where you work, because the managers in our industry rarely know about leadership best practices.
My advice is to suggest 1-on-1s
The first thing I thought of when I read this was "drummers". They're the ones in the background holding everything together and keeping the beat going; but who gets the limelight? The guitarists :(
I guess it's not much consolation to know you're not alone and of course it can be frustrating; but I'd be more concerned whether your front-end colleagues appreciate your work than your manager. In your position I would actively seek their feedback.
My point of view is you need to stop looking for other people's approval and learn how to communicate better.
Is not wrong to wanting approval, but is wrong to need it to do things or improve yourself, and is also wrong not to let people know how you feel about things.
Also, learn how to take feedback. People might have critics about your work, not you. And feedback always helps us to be better, either we like what we hear or not, and most times than not we're not going to, because we take it the wrong way.
Emotions and work are not disconnected from each other and just because we work with computers doesn't mean we should think and behave like them.
If you need guidance, ask for it. If you need training or mentoring, ask for it. If you need approval, learn to approve yourself first, and the rest will follow.
Now, from experience, I can tell you most of these problems are solved with the right kind and amount of communication, and you need to make your part in that. If people are not communicating with you, that's on them, but if you are not communicating with them, that's on you.
Take small steps to communicate better with your team and don't be afraid to open up about emotions and feelings at work, again right amount, the right way. Those things don't hold us back, but instead, connect us with people on a different level.
One quick tip I can give you, learn what really excites you about your work and share with your co-workers. Ask them about what excites them about their work and find common ground and use that to start conversations and engage better with people.
Best of lucks
I think your reaction is relatively normal, but maybe the first question you need to ask yourself is why you need that feedback, or what you would get out of it? Do you want the self-esteem boost? Or maybe it's more important that people acknowledge that the work that is done in the back end of things is important? Or does it come from a bit of insecurity about your capacities? Do you maybe feel like as the back-ender you're not as much part of the team? There's tons of reasons why one would like some more (positive) feedback.
If you are unhappy, it means that a need is not being addressed. If you manage to clearly formulate what the need is, it will be easier to make sure it is met. I think that walking over to your manager and just asking for more positive feedback might not cut it. Especially if what you get back in return is a simple "oh yeah thanks for the back-end, it works".
Talk to your manager and remember clients have no idea on coding so they feel good about what they see. There are also more rewarding jobs out there.
Maybe I am selfish but tbh all I care for in a job is to learn and to make $. Other than that, the rest are negociable (maybe $ can be negociable but learning NO).
That beig said I do sympathize with you and I do think that positive feedback goes a long way in boosting up productivity. I like how Ben put it: the squeaky wheel gets the grease haha maybe that s true in your case too.
I think you should decide, either speak up, bear with it or leave. You can either change your environment, adapt to it or be changed by it.
Cheers
Raising your concern to your manager sounds like the best thing to do, but I'd also recommend you to try raising awareness about your contribution to the project or product. Not like bragging, but something like writing in Slack general channel or sending an email to the whole team once you finish a relevant task.
I imagine something like "hey team, I just deployed the feature "x" which will help us in "y" way. Let me know if you need anything, happy coding!".
Hope this helps! Good luck from one backend dev to another 🙂
Backend developers are the quintessential unsung heroes. The reminder that helps is, they couldn't do this without me.