I'm a Code Monkey Now | Hacker News Reader

I'm a Code Monkey Now

3 pointsthrowaway_ling7 comments

Long story short, a few months ago I had to change jobs due to my previous company being in financial trouble.

The new company seemed very attractive at first,

* seemed to have great culture on the surface,

* best practices followed (some projects at my previous job weren't always 100% great regarding this aspect)

* tech stack that allows me to stay relevant (in my previous job, some of the tools/frameworks used were a bit less mainstream, and I learned the hard way that those are not very marketable when you are looking for a job).

* great salary (higher than I ever had before)

Then a few things happened:

* Our salary was temporarily reduced in response to Covid-19. This was not great, but I was OK with that, I saw that several companies around here (I'm not in the US) had massive redundancies so I was glad they went for a salary reduction instead.

* I realised we were expected to work at a higher pace compared to my previous job. This is OK, I recognise that in my last place we weren't the fastest team around, it's OK for me to work a bit harder as I still enjoy SW development.

* This is the part were I broke and led me to write this post: I realised that I'm basically expected to be a code monkey. Every attempt to start discussions about the architecture, or even about minor things like how we should structure a module, is met with resistance and I'm implicitly reminded I'm here to write code and meet daily goals and I shouldn't waste time. This is not something that I'm going to live well with, I was never in such a position, I was given great autonomy in the past.

* I thought I should move on. But I just started, how would it look on my resume that I've been here for just a few months? In addition, I'm reluctant to leave right now because as mentioned, due to COVID-19, the job market is not great.

What should I do? I'm not in a good mood (quarantine doesn't help) and I would really appreciate some advice right now.

Every attempt to start discussions about the architecture, or even about minor things like how we should structure a module

[random internet advice]

The organization/team made a decision in the past and moved forward. You weren't there. You don't know how buy-in was achieved. You don't have the big organizational picture. Yet to a first approximation, you're telling everyone they are doing it wrong. Changing the structure of modules might make you more productive but it requires everyone to change the way they are doing things and to do so without misunderstanding at best and passive aggressive resistance in the average case and destructive behavior in the worst.

Don't misunderstand me, I've put myself in similar situations in the past...enough that I could run out of fingers to count them and be forced to take off my socks. What I've realized is that on average, I was more wrong in the ways I was wrong than I was right in the ways I was right. Or to put it another way, it's theoretically correct that soft tires will provide better traction than all season tires in a rain storm, but pulling off the road to swap out tires in the middle of a downpour isn't ordinarily a good idea and so loading an extra set of tires into the back seat is typically a waste of time when the goal is driving from Seattle to Boston and then to Miami in February.

Your in a new culture. Be anthropological and observe and learn with minimal intervention. Just because it is different from the cultures you know does not mean it's broken or wrong. Again there is a big picture and the big picture is about people making money and alternative engineering approaches are usually rounding error. To be explicit, the way things were done at your previous employer were the practices of a failing business. That might be a reason to treat those practices as suspect.

Good luck.

Thank you, you are right, I'm new here and I will need to observe first. I just realised that in all my previous jobs, I was being hired as part of a newly formed team, so I never had to go through this adjustment phase as I'm doing now.

Edit: also thank you for helping me realize this:

> To be explicit, the way things were done at your previous employer were the practices of a failing business. That might be a reason to treat those practices as suspect.

Fantastic advice. Great explanation.

I have seen the situation you describe many times in the past, the bit about being expected to be a code monkey, not the COVID19 caused challenges.

In many reasonable sized projects, there are several tiers. Domain experts provide the requirements and high level design. Technical architects design the overall architecture, then the team leaders and the programmers who actually produce the code. It is actually unproductive for programmers attempt to dictate the architecture.

I have seen projects collapse into chaos because everybody was an expert at architecture and nobody truly cared about the domain. You really need to have solid structure to successfully complete large projects. It doesn't mean you can't make suggestions. But the decisions lie with those who are responsible for them. If they make the wrong call it is on them not you.

I sense that you are unhappy with your circumstances. Can you rise to the level of team leader or higher based on your experience? If not, then might be a good time to be a valuable contributor at the level you have been hired.

Thank you. As said in the other comment, in all my previous jobs I was being hired as part of a newly formed team, so I never had to adjust to an established team and/or project.

> I sense that you are unhappy with your circumstances. Can you rise to the level of team leader or higher based on your experience?

I can't because the company is too small - no room for growth at the moment - I will follow your advice then:

> be a valuable contributor at the level you have been hired.

My two thoughts.

First. Lump it for now. Getting paid right now is good. People that manage to get paid through bad times do A LOT BETTER than people that don't. Sometime they come out ahead.

Second. Things could change for the better as you work there longer and get to know the ropes and the politics. If it doesn't get better start doing the side eye for a new gig.

Yes, this is good advice and exactly what I needed to hear. Thank you!

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