In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Hi!

   I’m currently working for a big tech company and I’ve just accepted an internal transfer to another team. At the same time, an external company reached out, offering me a job for a role I’m interested in and twice my current compensation.

   I’m not sure what to do. The offer from the new company is very interesting and I wouldn’t think twice at accepting it if I still was in my old team. But now that I’ve accepted the internal transfer, I don’t know what’s best for my career: stay with my current company and lose out on a great offer, or go with the new company but likely burn bridges with my current manager, possibly closing off future opportunities to return to my current company (something that I’m open to in the future)?

2. How do I politely but firmly stop a project manager colleague, who has vast open plains in their calendar compared to my Tetris-stacked week as a senior software engineer, from parking themselves at my desk for 45-minute vent sessions about everything that’s frustrating them about our project? It’s never just the weather; it’s a full-blown TED Talk on their annoyances, which makes me feel defensive and frustrated in return. I’ve tried the headphones-on-and-look-intently-at-the-screen-approach, and sitting on the other side of the office, booking a smaller meeting room to hide, and carrying on working as they tell me about their troubles with both leadership and members of my team. Nothing seems to work. They find me every time. Is there a way to escape without faking my own death or staging an office fire drill? Thanks!

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Hi Dave & Jamison,

   Long time listener, first time google-form filler outer!

   I work in a hybrid role as a lead developer and manager of a small team (less than 5). I’m new to management and most of ny experience so far has been with smart, motivated engineers. . .

   UNTIL! My new recruit is driving me crazy, they are clearly very capable, but just do not do the work. They are frequently late for work, frequently sign off early, and constantly evasive when I ask for updates. I have spoken to them about these issues a bunch, and everytime they are apologetic and say they “have some personal issues but are working on it” - and nothing changes. Urgh!

   I am pretty sure I will have to fire them, but I feel terrible about it! I know I can’t keep them on and pay them to do nothing, but what’s the best way to let somebody go? How do I break the news to the rest of the team? How do I avoid feeling bad for the rest of my life?

   Yours guiltily,

   Anon

2. A listener named “erm what the sigma” asks,

   Do you have any advice on how to reduce the ramp-up time when context switching? I’ve always felt like context switching comes at a high cost for me—it just takes so long for me to mentally shift between tasks. This wasn’t much of a problem before, but I’ve recently become a tech lead and now my calendar is cluttered with meetings (why did I ask for this again??). I’m struggling to complete my coding stories because just as I hit my stride, I get pinged by someone on my team to help them or have to jump into yet another meeting. pls send help

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Hi Jamison and Dave!

   I am not a developer, but my question is hopefully transferable. I sit in between lawyers and developers. I advise on technology that can be applied to legal processes and I support our teams in using a range of platforms and AI tools to be more efficient across their work.

   I have ADHD (late diagnosis at 22) and often have trouble with executive function, remembering details, progressing large projects with no deadlines, and remembering verbal instructions.

   Have either of you ever had a neurodivergent person on your team? If so, how did you support them? What environment helped them to work best? Also, what frustrations did you have and how could they have mitigated them?

   Any help would be appreciated to help me avoid driving my manager insane (I live in constant fear that one day she will snap and I’ll be fired even multiple years in). 😂

2. Hi Dave and Jamison, you’ve made my runs very enjoyable over the last years, thank you so much for that - even though I doubt that laughing out all the time is great for my performance.

   I’ve been in web development for 7 years now and a Lead Fullstack Engineer at a consulting firm. Being a “lead” currently only means that my team mates seek my opinion and guidance on topics, without me having any increased responsibility. In September, I’ll move countries (Europe to Australia) and will be on parental leave until mid ‘26 when I’ll have to look for a new job down under. I feel quite stressed by recent developments (AI), already have the feeling of not being able to keep up with all the new things (ask my 300 open tabs of articles I want to read), and fear that I could loose touch in my time off. How can I deal with this FOMO? And which topics would you look into in the upcoming months if you were in my place?

• https://blog.jsbarretto.com/post/software-is-joy
• https://medium.com/@djsmith42/the-3-highest-roi-technical-skills-for-software-developers-21b412d79aff