Soft Skills Engineering - Episode 138: Should I ask for a raise before my annual review and how to keep up with young, single, overtime-working co-workers

Episode Date: December 31, 2018

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Hi Dave and Jamison, love the show and your advice, there’s no podcast quite like yours out there in the audiosphere. I’m a long time listener, first time question asker. “I’ve been doing a really good job lately. I’ve had feedback from my manager and my managers-manager that I’ve exceeded expectations and gone above and beyond over the last year. While the compliments are great to hear, I’d like to approach my manager about a raise to go along with it. Do I wait until performance review time in three months and hope that I get a what I’m hoping for, or bring it up now? How do I approach this conversation without sounding greedy, braggy and potentially asking for too much, leaving a bad impression when I’m on such a roll? I don’t feel like I can keep up at work, 😬, my team is super clever, young and all singles. They spend weekends, evenings and spare time learning. We are introducing a new tool or framework every couple weeks and it is exhausting. I am constantly learning a lot from them and the projects always go really well. 🤷‍♂️ - I’m not sure how to have a good conversation about it as they all love the learning culture. Any tips?

It takes more than open addressing to be a great software engineer. This is episode 138 of the Soft Skills Engineering podcast. I'm your host, Jameson Dance. I'm your host, Dave Smith. Soft Skills Engineering is a weekly advice show where we answer all of your questions about the non-technical parts of the technical field of software development. And also, I started reading articles about C++ today. I'm in over my head.

That's what I've decided. Is there such a thing as closed addressing? i make a wikipedia article for it and then i'll believe you hang on let me change the word open to closed and there isn't not according to wikipedia or reality because those are the same well i think it's time for you to leave your mark on the world i'll just link it to open addressing and say it's the opposite of this i probably shouldn't even ask your hash table is really bad and slow

do you like collisions if so closed addressing is for you i shouldn't say that i didn't even know open addressing was a thing until 20 minutes ago i'd heard the words but i don't write c++ there's just man software is so deep there's just so many i see these little outcroppings poking up above the ocean of software and then it's this gigantic iceberg of depth underneath yeah and i i i know one iceberg pretty well and then there's a bunch of icebergs i've never even seen the outcropping of let alone yeah they're over the horizon yeah yeah that's not what this show's about though not even close yeah let's get into our show do you want to talk about our wonderful patrons i do thank you patrons for contributing on patreon at the level that gets

you a shout out every single week we have matthew wodowicz the agile ventures charity zach grannon david jackson nick kantar sean clayton and chris hogan thank you so much if you'd like to support the show go to our website softskills.audio and click support us on patreon yeah thank you so much all right i'm gonna read the first question hi dave and jameson love the show and your advice there's no podcast quite like yours out there in the audio sphere thank you that's really nice i've been doing a really good job lately i've had feedback from my manager and my manager's manager that i've exceeded expectations and gone above and beyond over the last year while the compliments are great to hear i'd like to approach my manager about a raise to go along

with it do i wait until performance review time in three months and hope that i get what i'm hoping for or bring it up now how do i approach this conversation without sounding greedy bragging and potentially asking for too much leaving a bad impression when i'm on such a role oh man this is great i just love that the question asker is it's just great to see someone say like i'm kicking butt yeah i'm doing a really good job and just recognize it openly and honestly that's cool especially when they have actual evidence to support that claim oh yeah like someone else told me i'm doing a good job my manager hopefully you feel it deep inside too i'm awesome i'm just awesome no evidence to support that but deep inside i feel it said no engineer ever

so i recently applied this same strategy to christmas gifts and i just hoped to get what i was hoping for and it didn't work oh that is such a good analogy so i think your strategy is clear santa i hope it's not news that he's not real and someone has to know that you want the things that you want and it makes it easier for you to get them so i i think you got to speak up about it i don't think it would come across as braggy especially if you've been publicly recognized as kicking butt um that's that's a way that they can recognize even more and that's you have evidence that shows that you deserve it so yeah yeah totally i i think i kind of feel like this question asker answered their own question when they said do i wait until performance review in

three months and hope that i get what i'm hoping for no it's too late by then yeah oh yeah you can't have an argument or a discussion then like that's that's usually people telling you what has already been decided so and quite frankly your manager is probably already working on this right now. So, I mean, maybe three months out, does that sound about reasonable? Sure. I mean, it's quite possible. Not every company is going to do it that far in advance, but you know, I would work on comp adjustments sometimes 12 months in advance because you've got a finance team that needs to know how much you're going to spend next year. And so, you know, you start planning that stuff really early. So, um, absolutely get in there and talk to your

manager right now. Three months is not too early to start explaining what your expectations are. yeah and i think it's important to make clear that you are hoping or expecting that this increased performance leads to financial reward people are motivated by different things and there are some people that aren't super motivated by money like they probably wouldn't say no but yeah that's they they don't feel like that's a core part of their recognition so and and also it's it's less work and more convenient for the company to not give people raises right like there's some process your manager has to go through and then the company they want to keep people but they also want to spend as less as little amount of money as possible so i think

if you do nothing chances are pretty good that nothing will happen even if you've been kicking butt or there's a possibility that nothing will happen yeah and i don't think there's a negative consequence to speaking up and saying hey i'd like a raise what can we do to make that happen Yeah. And this is not too different from negotiating your initial salary when you start at a new company. It is a little different, because now this company has a lot of information about you, and they know exactly what you're worth, they know what you're capable of, and they've seen it demonstrated over the course of a long period of time compared to an interview. and they know what it would mean to lose you so in in some ways given your certain situation here you actually have more leverage and more negotiating power than you did when you started yeah and it's unlikely that you're going to ask for less than they were planning on giving you if you go in and do that with your manager because typically raises are a little bit

more limited they have a little bit less flexibility than initial salaries especially at a bigger company yeah how do i approach this conversation without sounding greedy braggy and potentially asking for too much leaving a bad impression i don't think you have to worry about asking or about leaving a bad impression if you're doing really well oh yeah and if someone calls you greedy for wanting a raise after doing a really good job that feels manipulative manipulative to me honestly like yeah you are exchanging your labor for money and it's not greedy to to want to be rewarded for the amount of value that you provide that's not greed at all it's not like you're taking money out of the pocket of this of this like poor pitiful creature like it's a company

and they're trying to make money and they pay people money so that they can make money it's it doesn't feel greedy but what if the company's feelings are hurt yeah the company has no feelings there's no such thing as feelings it's companies are sociopaths that's true that's funny i never thought about that but you're right how do i do it without sounding greedy i think you just i mean some of it is the advice we always talk about about getting some data about market market values and salary and and being able to say this is what i want and here's why i think it's reasonable i think it makes it even less likely that you'll come across as greedy it's more like yeah here's what people doing contributing at a similar level are making at other companies

or other departments or however you figure that out and braggy i this is the time to brag this is when it's it's not bragging it's providing evidence and if that evidence is all about how awesome you are then congratulations this is not a time for false humility or real humility this is a time for pride yeah i i had i have worried about coming across braggy in these circumstances before and several years ago i went into my manager and i i basically scheduled time on his calendar. And I said, look, I want to spend some time with you and talk about the performance review. I want to make sure that my expectations match your expectations. And I want to tell you what, you know, what I'm expecting. And I prefaced the whole conversation by saying,

look, I don't spend my time comparing myself to others. I don't think about how great I am all the time. But just for this one small period of time, I'm just going to lay out the case to help you understand where I'm coming from here. And I kind of prefaced it with that. And that helped me feel like I wasn't bragging. And then I laid into the case, you know, all the things I had accomplished that year and the things that I felt made me worth paying more. Yeah, that's a great idea. And I'll be clear, I'm being very hypocritical. I am horrible about this. I have a really hard time talking up positive things that I do. And I think there's some negative consequences to that. And one of those is that talking yourself up also looks a lot like presenting evidence about

why you're valuable so i think it's yeah you got to focus on that it's not bragging at all you see you need to hire me as an agent to go into your manager and tell them why you deserve a raise i i was actually thinking about that when you were talking i think it'd be interesting to say kind of a another angle on the conversation you mentioned where you could say i don't keep track of how awesome i am and i have a hard time summarizing that and bringing it up to other people? Can you help me talk about some of the accomplishments and what you perceive are things that I've contributed that are valuable? Or you could say, I don't, I'm not very good at talking about how good I am and I don't keep track of it, but Dave does. And I'd like to turn the time over

to him. I don't, I don't even have to go to a different person. I can just become podcast Jameson and just do the things I tell other people to do instead of what I actually do. Just pull up a microphone. So you feel in character. Yeah. Yep. I mean, my meetings would be over a microphone anyways because i'm all remote so that's all perfect i am literally sitting where i have all my meetings well great i think you're okay i think you're ready to go i am ready leaving a bad impression when i'm on such a roll i don't think it'll leave a bad impression no no remember right now your employer is getting a bargain because you're performing higher than the level at which they hired you but they're still paying you at that same level

so it's time for you to cash in yeah good luck you're in a good situation absolutely good luck and definitely do it and i would go in with concrete numbers about what you want uh because that will definitely influence the comp adjustment discussions that your manager will be having over the next few months and if and like we said earlier if you wait for this conversation until the time when you sit down with your manager for the performance review it's way too late and now you might have to wait another 12 months if you do that. Yeah. All right. Have we answered the question? Yep. Good luck. Do you want to read our next one? You bet. This comes from an anonymous listener who says, I don't feel like I can keep up at work. Teeth gritting emoji. Is that the right

one? Grimacing. Grimacing, but showing teeth emoji. Okay. My team is super clever, young, and all singles they spend weekends evenings and spare time learning we are introducing a new tool or framework every couple of weeks and it is exhausting i am constantly learning a lot from them and the projects always go really well is that a wizard emoji no no that's a shrug oh sorry i like i guess my font's not zoomed in okay this is i feel like this is reflecting a generational gap oh i know oh i can see it better now that i've zoomed in now that i got my bifocals on yeah exactly okay okay the projects always go really well shrug emoji i'm not sure how to have a good conversation about it as they all love the learning culture any tips sabotage the projects

okay yeah there are a couple angles of attack sabotage the projects so they have this inherent pain with new things yeah okay you could play the matchmaker they're all single get them all in relationships help them start families yeah kids cut in pretty heavily to your weekend and evening staring at computer time yes they're great also they make it harder to learn programming things yes yeah i don't see anything else uh well what about oh man i don't even want to joke about this but the opposite of what you suggested is abandon your own family okay yeah become single got it

okay well i don't have any children anymore but i'm really good with rust i did have a family but then yeah i just i just felt like i had trouble keeping up with the javascript landscape i learned seven frameworks this year yeah oh i really didn't want to say that but grimace emoji grimace emoji so i have been the person introducing new tools or frameworks i assume every couple of weeks is hyperbole that seems like a lot but i have been the person who loves being on the cutting edge and i'm surprised to hear that the projects always go really well yeah that's not my experience from trying every new library or paradigm that comes out yeah uh generally we would try it and really

like it and feel very cool and very smug and self-assured about how much smarter we were than the people using the old two years old thing and then two years from then we'd be like huh it turns out there are a bunch of problems with this new thing that no one knew about when we adopted it and there'd be these layers of sediment of yeah old abandoned paradigms and then we try the next new thing and add another layer and a lot yeah and and i feel bad for all the people that have to maintain that code base now so i'm surprised there's not some pain associated with this i mean even if it's just the pain of being a polyglot organization where you have to figure out how to debug or do logging in every new language or framework or it's just general like cross-cutting

concerns that you have to solve in a new way if you switch tech every every couple weeks logging well who would bother with that i'm too busy learning a new framework yeah we just don't have any bugs and then we never need to log anything that's a really good point if you don't write bugs like if you choose not to write bugs then there's a whole bunch of stuff you don't need i was reading this really fascinating uh post-mortem on the development of microsoft word in the 80s it's this pdf that came out of the lawsuit against microsoft so it they got deposed and had to produce it and it's this project manager basically saying like we worked at a our working philosophy was called the infinite defect philosophy

where we just crank stuff out as fast as possible because we don't count bugs towards our productivity metrics okay and then that's why it took five years to build this project we always thought we were six months away from building it but their solution was to switch to the zero defects philosophy where they just didn't write any bugs or didn't ship any bugs wait or didn't ship anything it's unclear to me i have to read it again okay but i just like that idea of like check out my brand new programming paradigm no bugs driven development yeah exactly it's called do it perfect the first time always be right know everything it's very simple measure twice cut once yeah like this is a well-known paradigm if we tie it to agile then

we can really make some money i'm a no bugs driven development coach with really reasonable rates yeah and if you have any bugs it's clear you failed to implement my methodology you're just not doing it right but you're doing it wrong the methodology is you have no bugs that's right so clearly and i see some bugs in this code so see that that's a bug you're doing it wrong but i think my meta point is there is pain associated with moving this quickly and adopting new things as quickly and if they're not feeling the pain yet like it is there it's it's it's there and it's growing and it will become apparent soon when maybe when they are no longer young maybe still single but but just old and single grizzled old and buried in complexity yeah i i

I feel like that's a pretty big part of engineering maturity is understanding the trade-offs of adopting new things and how to smartly evaluate and choose new technology responsibly. And it seems like that's kind of lacking. So the pain point you're experiencing is like, I just can't keep up with all these new things. But I would argue there's a larger business pain point of soon everything will come crashing down because no one can keep up with all these new things. Yeah. Now it could be that the type of customer or environment that they're working with here is that it's like they get to spin up new projects from scratch all the time and then oh yeah like an agency or something that's exactly what i was thinking like that

would be a pretty conducive environment to trying out new things yeah and that's good for a brand too it's cool to be the agency that's an expert on all these hot new things yeah like you name it we've built something in it yeah yeah and we can we can be one of the two people that know how to use this thing right and so i kind of want to like let's let's just assume that this statement is right that the projects go really well how would you advise this person to survive or even thrive in this kind of environment where everyone's running a million miles an hour i think there's a couple things one is you could make it clear or help establish some idea of of training or onboarding or what it looks like to adopt a new technology and it's one thing to be the person

that goes off and researches it and you just kind of learn it by default by using the thing but that doesn't help new people spin up onto it so if you can share that that cost of coming up to speed on the thing like maybe you have to have i don't know a doc that explains how to learn the thing it doesn't have to explain everything about it because there are presumably other docs out there but there's there's some additional cost that the person who's just like nights and weekends googling stuff to figure out how it works is not paying for other people and they have to pay the cost of keeping up with all these technology decisions that the nights and weekends person makes so if you share that load a little bit that might help out a little bit it might help you come

up to speed faster might help rein in the new stuff and if there's this culture of learning explaining stuff to other people is a great way to learn yeah the other thing is there's i feel like output in programming is is non-linear to the amount of time and effort you put into it Meaning it's sublinear, where you put in twice the effort and get marginally more output? Yeah, I think there's this idea of they're working so many hours, how do I keep up with these people who are working tons of hours? And I feel like being more efficient with your time and sitting and thinking more might be a way to keep up or contribute value in a different way that doesn't require you to

work extra hours. I see. Like if you are the person that thinks deeply about architecture and does it all in your 40 hours a week at work, I think you can still contribute just as much, if not more, than people who are reading Hacker News and then reading GitHub repos all day for 80 hours a week. Yeah, it sounds like there's probably some gaps in this organization of people who move slow but make really good long-term plans, maybe people who do good documentation, you know, people who communicate with management really effectively. Maybe that's your place here rather than being

the kid who runs a hundred miles an hour on the weekends. Yeah. And yeah, I think, I think you're right. And there's a lot of ways to be smart and good at your job and not all of them look like these people that you've described. You can still be an awesome person who contributes really well at work and be more measured. And, and I think you'd kind of be a balance in this situation against this. Cause I've, I've both been this kid and I've worked at a company where everyone was this kid and like we needed some balance yeah we would have been better off if we needed you say like yeah hey maybe we should write down what we're doing and why like we don't have time in the time we we would take to write it down it would have changed yeah there's no time to write

it down we can't sit and think for an hour we've got 20 hours of programming to do yeah oh what if okay i got another idea what if you start posting fake think pieces about non-existent frameworks that turn into wild goose chases for the rest of your team and while they're out yeah they're out chasing these things you can be building stuff so that's that's it's kind of a companion to sabotage sabotage the projects but instead of that you need to seed the internet with ideas that look good but are actually bad yeah that's the internet though already true your work is done i think all you have to do is pick a thing and then yeah read the marketing copy and use it and then find out oh kubernetes is a lot of work

perfect okay so that yeah that's coming you get that for free all right well did we more or less answer this question i think so i think you can be valuable and and you can show people your value i feel like i get underlying the question i get a feeling of like am i doing a good job or am i am i yeah am i contributing if i'm not like these people and becoming like them is not an option. And I think the answer is yes, you can contribute enormously in lots of different ways besides just running as fast as you can towards new technologies. Also, this is the kind of problem that patients might just solve on its own because it's unsustainable. These people will not be able to do this for the next five years.

And, you know, unless they have like a steady stream of new hires who are replacing them and carrying the torch doing the same thing, it's unlikely that they'll be doing this. So, you know, it's the kind of problem that solves itself over time i feel like this is the career arc for many talented junior engineers or developers yeah where they are super excited about the field they're very new to it and they just devour everything and so new technologies in some way are almost easier to pick up because they don't have the cognitive overhead in some cases of like fitting it into all this existing knowledge that they say that they have and and it's less it's It's like how it's easier for little kids

to learn languages, foreign languages. Like you're coming to it from scratch and it's just there. It's how it is. It's not having to learn a brand new thing. Whereas adults are a lot slower because they're a lot more used to how their current language works.

Yeah. I feel like I've experienced this. Looking back, I feel like it was actually a lot easier in some ways for me to learn new frameworks or tools because it was just like learning how to program, not like... The Angular way. Yeah, exactly.

yeah yeah yeah that that makes a lot of sense when although on the other hand i think as i've gotten older picking up new frameworks patterns libraries etc does get easier in some ways because i can recognize underlying patterns it's not like this whole new field i can say oh that's dependency injection i know that i know what that is yeah on principle it's easier in a different way though but i i sometimes get sucked into like comparing it too much to stuff i already know whereas if i didn't know anything to compare it to it just it just be how it is yeah it kind of becomes like an n squared problem like every new thing you learn you have to spend n units of time comparing it to the n things you already know yeah but i think my point is that feels like a

familiar career arc where oh yeah you pick up all the new stuff when everything is new and then you kind of settle in a little bit and start providing value in other ways and it is exhausting i mean that's a key word here in the question it's tiring enough that you just don't do it that much after time you know you say well another one it's like i just want to be productive and ship stuff yeah i I remember feeling very tangibly the shift from when I thought I could learn everything new that was coming out even in a specific subfield to like just saying I will never know about this thing unless I like pick up a project that uses it and that's fine I'll just let it pass me by and learn this other thing all right question answered question answered good luck where can people

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