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Lyt når som helst, hvor som helst 

Jamison Dance and Dave Smith

It takes more than great code to be a great engineer. Soft Skills Engineering is a weekly advice podcast for software developers about the non-technical stuff that goes into being a great software developer.

Soft Skills Engineering

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

 1. 

Hi Jamison and Dave, jesters of my daily commute. I’m a *mechanical* engineer at a megacorp, and since people are people, I find most of your advice transfers pretty well.
 2. 

I’m the tech lead within a small-ish org of about 25 people. We’re in-office, and split between two locations (in a similar time zone), and multiple different projects. This means that there are a lot of Zoom meetings between locations. Lately, I’ve been having an issue with engineers deciding to take these meetings from their desks in our open office plan rather than finding a phone or conference room. I find this practice to be maddening! It’s really distracting because there will often be background noise that makes it hard to clearly understand them, and it also means that my workplace is a cacophony of people yelling into their AirPods, competing to overcome the background noise of their colleagues’ yelling into their AirPods.
 3. 

How do I make this stop and get my coworkers to hop into a phone or conference room for their meetings?! Oh btw, my manager is one of the worst offenders.
 4. 

 5. 

Listener bootersket says,
 6. 

I have 3 years of experience, all at this same company and team. My team has one staff software engineer who really knows the codebase well. When I have questions about why such and such thing is the way it is, I ask him. I’ve noticed his answers are unhelpful. Often they are short, with very little detail. I can’t tell if thinks they’re sufficient, doesn’t know how to explain himself clearly, is mad at me, or if I am just don’t know enough to understand them.
 7. 

For example, once I asked about two different variables that seemed ambiguously named and to refer to the same thing. His response was short and sweet. Quote: “almost the same thing”.
 8. 

Am I the problem? Is he? When I get responses like that I don’t feel compelled to keep asking questions in different ways because it doesn’t feel like he cares about mentoring juniors with dumb questions like myself. What do I do?
 9.

Episode 529: Zoom calls on my open floor plan and laconic staff engineer

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

 1. 

A listener named “Will angel answer my question?” asks,
 2. 

Hi, I recently joined a new company about 1.5 months ago. It is the technology arm of a family-owned business group that has existed for over 30 years, providing technology services to all the other companies in the group.
 3. 

After a one-week onboarding, I was assigned to a team. After 2–3 days, I still had no tasks, so I asked a coworker to pair program with me so I could learn more about the processes and continue learning. The task was easy, and we finished it in less than a day. For the next 2 days I did nothing, asked my boss for tasks but he just told me to wait.
 4. 

Two days later, we finally had a planning meeting, and they assigned me three tasks for the upcoming two weeks. I finished the first one in 25 minutes and other ones in not much more time. It has been like this ever since. I’m really enjoying all the free time, but I’m also feeling anxious that I may eventually be part of a layoff.
 5. 

Apparently, the company is doing well, and they’re hiring a lot of people. Should I ask my manager what’s going on? Maybe everyone on my team is pretending to work and going to the gym at 3 p.m.? What might be happening? What would you do?
 6. 

 7. 

I’m a staff software engineer at a fully remote, 300-employee US SaaS startup. It was just announced that we are being acquired in an all-cash deal by a publicly traded tech company more than 10 times our size.
 8. 

I’ve been here for 8 years and absolutely love this job. Over my tenure, I’ve risen from a junior to a staff engineer, built critical customer-facing features, and developed internal tools used company-wide. I’ve also renegotiated my salary such that LinkedIn recruiters can rarely match it. While my stock options aren’t enough to let me retire early or fund Jamison’s yacht, I know I’m ludicrously lucky to be getting a six-figure payout.
 9. 

But what comes next? Leadership says we will operate as a standalone division for at least a few quarters, meaning no massive backend migrations immediately. However, I’ve never worked at a publicly traded company—only at consultancies and startups. My pessimistic expectation is that corporate bureaucracy will sanitize the culture I helped build.
 10. 

Should I lean in, try to hold on to some of the startup magic, and lead the inevitable integration work to ingratiate myself with the senior engineers at the parent company? Or should I take advantage of my golden handcuffs being unlocked and finally move on?
 11.

Episode 528: Sleepy family software business and leaving after an acquisition

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

 1. 

Hello Dave and Jamison!
 2. 

I’m a longtime listener going back to the early days of the podcast, and I’ve listened to every episode since. When I started listening, I was beginning my career as a software engineer. Your advice has truly helped shape how I think about work, engineering, leadership, and all the weird human stuff that comes with building software.
 3. 

Now I’m more than 10 years into my career, and I’ve run into a problem that I suspect many experienced engineers are dealing with right now.
 4. 

In episode 521, you talked about how brutal the current job market is, and the question asker from that episode had been unemployed for a year. I’m thankfully not there yet, but I recently lost my job in a large layoff, and the first couple of months of searching have been pretty discouraging.
 5. 

I’m applying to roughly 10–20 jobs a day. I tailor my resume to each role, ensuring it accurately reflects the skills and terminology in the job description. I usually include a cover letter too; AI gets the privilege of writing the mediocre first draft, and then I rewrite it into something I would actually say.
 6. 

Despite all of that, I’ve only made it past the resume screen three times so far, one of those was through a referral, and several other referral applications have gone nowhere.
 7. 

The strange part is that I’ve tried applying across the whole spectrum:
 8. 

 1. Roles that would be a step up, where I think I could do the job but haven’t held that exact title before

 2. Roles at roughly my current level, where I can honestly check almost every box in the job description

 3. Roles that would technically be a step down, but that I’d happily take and feel extremely confident I could do well

 9. 

So my question is: How do you get companies to actually interview you when you’re an experienced engineer in a market overwhelmed with qualified candidates?
 10. 

At this point, I’m starting to wonder whether there’s such a thing as an awkward career middle age: too experienced for some jobs, not obviously senior enough for others, and competing with hundreds of people for everything in between.
 11. 

If you were in this situation, what would you change? More networking? Fewer but more focused applications? Different positioning? Showing up at the hiring manager’s house with a fruit basket and a printed copy of my GitHub profile?
 12. 

Would love to hear how you’d approach it from the other side of the hiring table.
 13. 

 14. 

Dave and Jamison,
 15. 

Hit me with your dumbest, funniest, most brutally honest advice because I need it.
 16. 

So here’s the deal: I’m a software engineer with 30+ year in the industry, a dinosaur who’s already reinvented himself like a half-dozen times, network, dev, infra consultant, back to dev. Now I’m having a midlife-ish (okay, late-life) crisis and I’ve fallen in love with security and compliance. Like, actually excited about compliance, which I’m told is a red flag in itself.
 17. 

Problem is: I’m less than 10 years from retirement and my brain doesn’t bounce back from “starting over” the way it used to when I was a spry young whippersnapper.
 18. 

So, am I an idiot for even considering torching my comfy expertise to go be a security newbie this close to the finish line? Or is this exactly the kind of chaotic energy I need before retirement?
 19.

Episode 527: I lost my job after 10 years and am I too old to switch to a security career?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

 1. 

Hi Dave & Jamison! I’ve been listening for almost a year now and have worked through nearly your entire back catalog in reverse. The podcast has genuinely helped me become a better engineer, so thank you!
 2. 

I’m two years into my software engineer career at a large infrastructure company. I was promoted to SWE II last year, and this year my manager told me she felt my work was promotion-worthy, but because I’d just been promoted and she had others on the team to consider, she wants to target me for next year’s cycle instead. She gave me a spot bonus and said she’d try to make up for it in my raise.
 3. 

I understand and appreciate the honesty, but I’m also a little disappointed because I’ve worked hard to hit every milestone on the roadmap she gave me, and career progression does matter to me.
 4. 

My question is: How should I navigate the next year? What should I focus my 1:1s on? Should I push for a mid-year promotion if that’s an option, or instead focus on building an undeniable case for next year? How would you approach this if you were in my shoes?
 5. 

 6. 

Hey Dave and Jamison,
 7. 

Long time listener. First time question asker :).
 8. 

I recently joined a major tech company. Before this, I worked at a mid-sized company with about 200 engineers. In my old role, I built customer-facing products. The work was challenging and exciting, and I genuinely enjoyed it. I ended up moving to a new city to be closer to family and started looking for a job. The job search was brutal. Honestly, by the end of it, I would have accepted just about anything. Luckily, a major tech company extended an offer. The money was great, and I thought it would be a huge plus to have a major tech name on my resume. It is a fully remote role, but they did mention that they could go hybrid in the future.
 9. 

I knew ahead of time that the team built internal tools instead of customer-facing products. But after joining, I realized most of what we do is closer to operations than actual software engineering. I know I should have screened the team better. I was just so relieved to get a good offer from a top company that I accepted without thinking twice. I am not enjoying the work at all.
 10. 

I am not planning to quit immediately. However, I want to be ready to leave in about a year or earlier if they decide to lay us all off. I want to make sure I utilize my time here as best as possible. Do you have any suggestions on how I can best position myself for an internal transfer or an eventual external move?
 11. 

Also, I have been in this role for close to 2 months now. I did a 1-1 with the manager in my first week, but after that, have not had any 1-1s. He has not scheduled anything. I was thinking of scheduling it myself but not sure if that can be seen as too forward.
 12. 

Btw this is outside US, if that matters :)
 13. 

Thanks again for your advice and laughs.
 14.

Episode 526: Why can't I get promoted so quickly after my last promotion and I got hired as a software engineer but ended up doing ops

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

 1. 

Hey Dave and Jamison,
First, I love your show and it has now been part of my Monday evening routine for many years to listen to your podcast while cooking dinner.
 2. 

I recently joined a mid-sized software company (500 people) as a senior data engineer. The salary is a significant bump from my previous job and I really like the team on a personal level.
Three months after I joined, the company laid off half its employees and announced a strategic pivot away from their previous core business to become an “AI-first company” and develop new products in novel, more profitable sectors.
The product that my team had been working on until that point was scrapped and there are no new projects coming from the business side. In subsequent communications, it was revealed why: Management has no concrete ideas for the future strategy, neither on what products to develop nor on which sectors to target. Instead, our team (among others) is now tasked with coming up with new product ideas to “save the company”. I’m a data engineer, not a business development manager, and while I have dealt with high ambiguity from the business side in previous roles, it was never this extreme.
 3. 

I was looking forward to working on interesting technical challenges within a great, experienced team, but now I feel like I’m expected to become an “idea guy”, a role that doesn’t really match my personality.
My question is: Should I be patient and try to turn this situation into “an opportunity for growth”, or should I start applying elsewhere? I’m a bit worried that the short length of stay at this company will leave a stain on my CV.
 4. 

Many thanks to my favorite space lawyers,
an anonymous listener.
 5. 

 6. 

Hi!
 7. 

My current job is at a 10k+ large risk-adverse company that currently has nil, none, nada, nichts ai tools available for coding. I of course did the only reasonable thing. I’ve gotten a new job at a middle-sized fintech company that’s going ”AI first”.
 8. 

I’m really excited about finally using ai outside hobby projects. I worry however, that my future colleagues will go too quickly ahead while vibecoding, vibearchitecting, vibetesting… leaving a mountain of tech debt behind. A lazy colleague would actually be better than an intellectually lazy colleague in this scenario. (I sincerely hope that I won’t be that coworker)
 9. 

Are my worries overblown or sane? Any gotch’as to avoid? Maybe you can give a brief survival guide to the brave new AI world?
 10.

Episode 525: How do I save my company of 500 people and my new company is insane with AI

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

 1. 

I work for a small software company on a team of about 7 or 8 engineers. I like working here. I like the people, the autonomy, the pay, my boss, and the stack among other things. I try to remind myself of this regularly so I don’t take it for granted. I’ve been here for about 2.5 years and would love to continue working here.
 2. 

Our CTO, like many, has become a big AI cowboy coder. Every few months, he vibe codes a new project and then decides to interrupt the full workloads that we have a limited number of engineers to do to hand his project off to be cleaned up, worked into the product, and solve all of the problems that remain once actually put into practice. This usually ends up going to a different engineer per project, who is then tied up with the CTO’s whims and is no longer available to do the work planned by product. Our EM knows this and knows the frustration and lost velocity, but what can he do? (rhetorical, not the question)
 3. 

Most recently, I was tasked with implementing some reporting dashboards he did into the product, but he specifically asked me to make it in such a way that he can continue to work on and add to because he can’t be bothered to run the actual product. This is very concerning to several of us. He has no clue what he’s writing or how bad it is. We’ve talked about perhaps making him do PRs, but a) who can make him, he’s the CTO, and b) he’ll have no clue what to do with PR pushback given that he has no clue what he wrote. And again, who can make him actually fix it if he asks us to rubber stamp it? (rhetorical, not the question)
 4. 

I’ve been listening to the show for years and I’ve talked to friends at other companies, so I know this is everywhere. Is it as everywhere as it seems? Is it worth finding a new place to work where the CTO isn’t running so rampant? As I stated before, I’d rather not leave, but if I talked about that as a concern, I don’t want it to sound like an ultimatum, even if maybe it is at some level. Is this just the new reality for us, or is there something that can be done?
 5. 

 6. 

I am a senior software engineer at a big tech company. I live in central Europe but my team is in the US and I’m 9 hours ahead. I have 7:30 pm meetings and sometimes take an hour before and/or after this meeting to prep or follow up. Previously I slept in later and started later to deal with these meetings.
However, now my daughter is starting kindergarten and I wake up early (5-6AM) to be with her, drop her off, etc. Now in the evening meetings my brain is fried and I can’t even articulate myself well. The next day I think about so many things I wish I had said in those meetings.
 7. 

I can’t quit as I make 160K right now and I would only be making 60-80K tops in my country and have some financial commitments. Relocation to the US is also not an option because I have kids and don’t want them to move.
 8. 

So far I have been skipping meetings and my manager has not expressed concern but I feel so detached from my team. I don’t even know what most of my peers are working on.
 9. 

It feels like I am out of ideas to make this better. Please share your space wisdom with me :)
 10.

Episode 524: My CTO AI-codes big piles of slop and early mornings, late meetings

This is a rerun of episode 331.

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

 1. 

Listener ninjamonkey says,
 2. 

I am a new grad who is half a year into the role now at a very large company. Recently, a senior engineer on my team asked me to create a ticket for an infra team for a problem with a service. I provided logs and steps to reproduce the issue and did a health check before submitting.
 3. 

Right after, the manager of the team put me into a group chat with their team, asked why I created the ticket and told me to start doing my job and they can’t debug for me.
 4. 

From these interactions and comments on the ticket, it feels the infra team will likely not work on the tickets I report or de-prioritize them. This has left me discouraged and hesitant.
 5. 

I will have to do lots of this kind of infrastructure work in the future. Additionally, one of the goals my manager set for me is to work with more external teams for the upcoming year.
 6. 

What do I do here? Do I tell my manager about these interactions? Do I tell my team lead, staff/seniors to swap out for different kind of story?
 7. 

 8. 

I work for a small startup. I was the first employee other than the 2 founders.
 9. 

Being the first developer hired, naturally means I have the most knowledge about our application. I also have good organisational skills, which has led to me becoming and being referred to as the “Lead Developer”.
 10. 

I have recruited 2 of the 3 new developers, and have trained both of them and got them up to speed.
 11. 

At first I was pleased with the progression and was keen to grow into the position, and told the founders so.
 12. 

Since then, I have changed my mind, I don’t want to be the lead - due to the following:
 13. 

 • The communication is absolutely pitiful. Any questions we ask of the founders we get about a 30% reply rate no matter the form of communication.

 • We get poorly defined tasks and requirements

 • The CTO will just blast through some of our features over the weekend and say here I fixed it for you

 14. 

I don’t want to quit my job (just yet… its a comin though).
 15. 

I have actually discussed the above points with them, but I know these 2 founders will never change their ways.
 16. 

How do I tell them I just want to go back to being an Individual Contributor like my Employment contract states?
 17.

Episode 523: (Rerun of 331) Prickly ticket and title downgrade

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

 1. 

I stayed too long at my first company and now my career is ruined?
 2. 

Hi both, long time listener. (Since I graduated university 4 years ago actually and felt I could never find a job but listening to you guys made me feel not like such an outcast in our field.)
 3. 

I graduated in 2022. Didn’t really apply around much and almost immediately accepted the full time offer from the company I did my internship with during my degree. And fast forward to middle of 2026… I am still here.
 4. 

I’ve long stopped growing as an engineer and have actually been stuck on a simple CLI tool for almost 4 years now with little to no cloud/backend/etcetera experience to show in my 5 year career. I don’t feel I am desirable in the job market at all due to this and waited way too long to look for a job because I was comfortable and happy. I feel paralyzed (no need to put on your space therapist hats BUT some career advice would be wonderful!)
 5. 

(Also did I mention I am in Canada and want to move to Europe and live the rest of my life there but visa sponsorship with my level of experience is impossible? Maybe that’ll be for my next question…)
 6. 

Thanks for all you do, cheers!
 7. 

 8. 

I have a non-CS engineering degree, and am looking to transition into Software Engineering. I have the option of pursuing a degree with Tuition Reimbursement from my job, but am in a bit of a strange situation deciding which degree. Basically, I’ve figured that with my current Engineering background I could pursue either a second Bachelor’s degree through Universities offering a “Post-Baccalaureate” program in Computer Science, or a Master’s degree, with maybe only a slightly longer program to get the Master’s as opposed to the Bachelor’s. Otherwise the total length/cost of the programs would be roughly the same.
 9. 

I have heard though that it might not be a great idea to go into a Master’s program unless you know what specifically you want to study.
 10. 

I am curious what you think would be more “hire-able” between the two options for someone pursuing the career change into Software Engineering?
 11.

Episode 522: I stayed too long at my first job and should I get a masters degree

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

 1. 

Dwill Ainghell asks,
 2. 

During the golden era of software development, it was commonly stated that you should always negotiate job offers. The argument was that the company has invested significant time and resources into you as a candidate and there is always some wiggle room for negotiations. A popular article / podcast by Patrick McKenzie likened it to doing something slightly uncomfortable like “reciting poetry while simultaneously standing on one foot” with almost no downside. (https://www.complexsystemspodcast.com/episodes/how-to-negotiate-your-salary-package/)
 3. 

Does this still hold true in today’s environment? I’m a SWE with 10 years of experience and I’ve been unemployed for close to a year. I’m expecting an offer from a large company and I fear that I will look like a fool trying to negotiate in my current position and the current job market dynamics. Even worse, I fear that they might retract the offer and give it to someone else. That being said, I don’t want to leave money on the table.
 4. 

What’s the correct course of action in today’s environment?
 5. 

 6. 

Listener Stu says,
 7. 

In episode 500, you said something to the effect of “working hard and doing a great job with the work you’ve been assigned is not the promotion track”. I’d love to hear you discuss what it does take to get promoted and how to do that.
 8. 

In my job, we have a jira queue and engineers are tasked with taking from the top of the queue and executing work. There’s also an expectation to lead pre-defined projects (define the scope, write the tickets, and shepherd it along).
 9. 

All of these projects have deadlines, so how do you recommend people get the defined work done, lead projects, and still find time to do whatever it is to get promoted?
 10. 

Why is doing an excellent job not enough?
 11.

Episode 521: negotiating . . . now? and doing good work is not enough for promotion?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

 1. 

Hey Dave & Jamison,
 2. 

Long time listener. Love the podcast.
 3. 

I recently rejoined a remote team that I worked with in the past. I was super stoked to rejoin this team because they were collectively one of the most competent and technically excellent teams I’ve ever worked with. And they’re all genuinely nice people as well.
 4. 

I left the team before AI coding had really caught on, but coming back to the team has been a huge shock to me. Almost everyone now exclusively writes code with AI. PR descriptions are all AI generated, and code review has become copy-pasting AI-generated comments into GitHub.
 5. 

Being a remote team it was already hard to connect, but now it feels like almost all interactions are their AI assistant talking to my AI assistant.
 6. 

I’m not anti-AI, and I get that writing code with AI can be much quicker. But I’m struggling with the loss of what made the team feel good to work on, specifically the craftsmanship, level of engagement, and the learning from eachother. The product itself is still high quality (even if the codebase is less-so), but the process itself is a lot less enjoyable now.
 7. 

I don’t want to be the person who shows up after being away and immediately makes it everyone else’s problem that I miss the old way of doing things. But I’m having doubts if I want to be a part of this team.
 8. 

Is this just what software engineering looks like in remote organisations now? And should I expect most teams are now operating like this?
 9. 

 10. 

Hi Jamison and Dave,
 11. 

Love your podcast.
 12. 

I was recently hired as a mid-level full-stack developer with the promise of leading a new squad. On day one, I discovered management scrapped the squad idea and promoted an existing developer to sole lead instead.
 13. 

The team consists of this new lead, two 20-year VB6 veterans, and me. The codebase is lawless: direct DB access, fat controllers, 1-2K+ LOC classes everywhere (copy/pasted boilerplate) and severe Broken Access Control (OWASP #1) where authenticated users can extract anyone’s PII (full name, home address, phone number) via a simple email query string.
 14. 

My coworkers rely heavily on generative AI but do not review the output. They constantly commit “AI slop” that barely functions and introduces endless bugs. I used to clean it up, but I recently realized they care so little about the codebase that no one even notices if I stop. Add in a “Senior Product Manager” whose entire UX background is a three-month internship, who invents customer requirements to defend her inconsistent designs.
 15. 

I am already applying elsewhere.
 16. 

My questions:
 17. 

How do you handle a bait-and-switch of this magnitude?
 18. 

When the team cares so little that no one notices if you stop cleaning up their AI-generated bugs, how do you stay sane and professionally sharp while riding out the clock?
 19. 

Show Notes

 https://tombedor.dev/human-attention-and-human-effort/

Episode 520: I came back to my former team and was shocked by AI and my team does not care at ALL about the code

Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

 1. What do internships cost companies?

 2. How do you feel about asking hard technical computer science questions in interviews?

The second question was prompted by this tweet:

In 20 years of engineering I've never said, "thank goodness we hired someone who can reverse a b tree on a whiteboard while strangers watch"
— Samantha 🐝 Quiñones (@ieatkillerbees) December 14, 2016

Episode 43: Internship Costs and CS Interview Questions

Lyt når som helst, hvor som helst

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