As a grunt IC 1 on 1s are a nightmare for me. I never know what to talk about. All current project stuff is hashed out in or after scrum. Career development is more of a once per year thing (at least not weekly). If I had a problem with any of my team members I would have brought it up by now (assuming I thought others felt that way, I don't want to be the only one to bring it up or I'll be seen as the problem). For your feedback, I'm just going to tell you whatever I think you want to hear. Am I happy? Not really, but more because I'm stuck with a 9-5 for the next decade and obviously I'd never tell a manager that... what's left? Personal life nonsense? I'm your co-worker, not your friend. The less I know about other people's personal lives the better.
> I’m trying to make my 1-on-1s better and would appreciate your honest feedback on this one — what did you like about it, and what could be improved?
Make them optional or email me your canned questions so I don't have to squirm trying to think of an answer on the spot that will keep the status quo and get me out of the meeting without any "action items" for the next one.
> Personal life nonsense? I'm your co-worker, not your friend.
Changing this attitude contributed as much to my doubling and then almost tripling my salary over the course of a few years as much as anything technical did.
Your managers and coworkers are human beings and engaging with them like human beings will open doors for you.
I pretty much only talk about personal stuff in one on ones, and will use maybe one out of five as a venting session or to talk about ideas I have.
You want to be someone that people, particularly managers enjoy seeing come in to work every day, and that’s not always or even mostly about being productive. Sometimes they just want someone they can talk about sports or video games with, or someone they can talk about their home life with over drinks — and sometimes I do, too. Spending 40 hours a week with people you don’t like is lonely.
It’s not just about kissing ass— I’ve started more than one project because of conversations I had over drinks where people were just venting about their jobs and I realized I could do something to make their jobs easier.
Oh yea, I'm well aware, and I play the game as best I can. I go to the occasional happy hour, I shoot the shit with my managers and co-workers, I talk about their kids or hobbies or whatever they want to talk about. I just don't want to do any of these things. It's draining to pretend you care all the time. But if I don't it affects raises / bonuses (only job related things I care about) and also project placement (which indirectly affect my raises / bonuses).
I also realize my lack of genuine interest probably bleeds into my work personality, but there's not much I can do about that. It's not like something is going to magically make me actually care about work, so faking it is the best option I have.
Yes, faking it is not the ideal, because as you said, it's very draining. The idea is that you aren't faking it, you're genuinely finding something fulfilling about work, or at least the people there.
To be honest it sounds like you're experiencing a poor culture fit. I felt similarly to you until I went to a smaller team for the first time in my career. My team-to-be was in one of the interview phases with me, so we could all gauge fit ahead of time. It's been an entirely different feel, and I'm now genuinely enjoying work -- not because of what I'm working on, but because it's a good team to be a part of.
No, I'm not hanging out with my coworkers after work -- everyone has long commutes so we all scatter at 5 -- but I genuinely enjoy working with them. It doesn't feel like a game anymore, like I'm purposefully playing politics. Whether it's good for my career or not, I really don't care -- what I care about is the fact it's done wonders for my general quality of life.
Not everyone can find a place with a perfect fit, but you sound kind of miserable to be honest, and I just have a guess that you'd maybe have better happiness elsewhere. You say that raises/bonuses are the only job-related things you care about -- my hunch is this might change for you if you found a place where you genuinely liked the people.
You are right that nothing will magically change by itself. Perhaps there are things you can do to make yourself genuinely care. Faking it sounds like it’s draining your energy and making you less successful. So what can you try out, other than continuing to fake it?
Also, I can say that the more I’ve opened up at work, the more my career has improved, from finding better-fitting positions to finding interesting and meaningful work within those positions, to enjoying my time at work more, to getting paid more. It’s really worth it. You may want (or may not) want to start by seeing a therapist.
I saw a talk with April Wensel many years ago that made me reevaluate the "soft" skills and how getting better at those produce better code _and_ more personal happiness. I think opening up is a good thing but it's also hard scary work sometimes. It's much easier to be cynical and detached. That lets you blame others for yourself feeling miserable (eg. many disillusioned commenters in this thread)
tbh (without knowing anything else about you, maybe caught you at a bad moment) this attitude is going to stunt your career development and growth more than you can possibly imagine.
Are you wrong with any of this? Not at all.
But letting it drip over in to impacting the quality of your relationships is detrimental to yourself and everyone around you. It's also disrespecting the contributions you make to the team, project and company. You're more than just a warm body pressing buttons.
Not a bad moment (I don't think at least), and it is good advice to remind myself not to let it affect others around me, but I really do not care about my work, my co-workers, my company, or my career growth. That said, I do all my work on time, with above average quality (I'm pretty sure), communicate well, make sure I am never a blocker, and work to help others who are struggling (we're all stuck here together after all). I just hate the fact that I have to pretend like I'm here for more than the paycheck and the health insurance.
> but I really do not care about my work, my co-workers, my company, or my career growth
It's really unfortunate to spend 1/3rd of your life participating in something you don't care about at all. I'm not saying most us are better; my best answer to the question "what would make this job better for you" is almost exclusively "pay me more".
My point is, right now is a good time to find something you enjoy in tech. It's a growing field that is only getting more and more embedded into life and I'm sure you can find your area that you actually care somewhat about.
This attitude reinforces the the problem. There are lots of jobs that are beneath people or just jobs. People still work them and do them well. Do they need to be excited and open about all their thoughts and feelings too? There's no reason a person can't hate to be put on the spot, hate to be interrogated by their boss every week, and still be improving their craft and planning to advance at the next jump.
You were super polite but you're pitching a one-dimensional view of engineers.
I appreciate the "You need code, I need to eat" mentality but I don't think managers/managed need to treat each other with a total cold clinical demeanor. You might just be there to work, but treating each other like people makes you hate going into work just a little bit less.
People might not want to be too close to people in case they need to get rid of them. I think being a good coach means loving your team but still being strong enough to make the hard decisions. At least it lets you make those hard decisions from a place of humanity.
I want to code and I want money, more money the better. Oh, and I don't want bulshit meetings (1on1s included).
That's basically it for my career, I don't want to be a manager, I don't want to be a tech lead (been there, hated every 3 years of it). What is there more to talk about?
My manager thinks that to be a better individual contributor (go up a ladder) I should do something outside my team, I'm not sure I want that (or know what to do outside) - so most probably when I hit pay rise wall I'll switch jobs again.
> I want to code...and I don't want bulshit meetings (1on1s included)
There's a role for ICs who just want to code alone, but they're always limited by not being able to be part of something bigger. And yes, while you can job hop a bit for higher pay, it will start to become apparent in interviews that you're really just a solo coder and probably not worth the money they're asking.
You won't escape one-on-ones, but if you have a good rapport with your manager, if a performance review is generally positive, you can say you're happy where you're at right now professionally, you want to continue delivering the same quality work, but you want to focus on other parts of your life. Managers are happy to have people doing good work who don't want to leave.
You also want more money? Nope, it doesn't work that way unless you're a brilliant asshole, and no one likes those. Either be content as a mid-level coder (and paid like one) or start building relationships with people and teams and take on larger, more ambiguous projects. There isn't a right answer here, you just have to decide what you value.
At our company, your performance is evaluated in 5 metrics, with a grade for each. Those grades affect your salary during review. So even if all you care about is just doing your work and being paid well for it, then it would make sense to ask your manager "hey, what do you want me to do to achieve max score in all 5 categories". Then you do the things they tell you to do - it's no different than any other work task you might be given.
All of these apply to everyone, it's just that different levels have different expectations(so for example a Junior is still expected to perform well in "leadership mindset", but for them it's enough to demonstrate willingness to discuss and negotiate ideas, convince others to their plans etc, they don't need to be a manager to have a leadership mindset).
They do have pretty formal definitions for each level and for each job title - so by telling people what is expected of them at each level it's easier to then do the final peer review at the end of the year(and no one is surprised at their score).
Depending on how well you know your manager it might be OK to tell him as much, and let him help you accomplish it. But I can tell you that there is a sharp limit to the money you can make as a coding-focused IC - to get more you need to level up to senior/principal and finish projects that take multiple people to execute - the more the better. That's just the way it is.
Is your relationship with your manager tense? Do you not see them regularly through the week? I'm a manager and I spend a lot of one on one time just doing a mini version of couch therapy. Just ask how they're doing. Ask some mundane questions about their dog or their vacations. Rapport is as important as anything else. Once you have trust and a high comfort level, you get a lot more openness and honesty. And it goes both ways. I sit in the meetings with the directors and the CTO and then I disseminate relevant info about the organization and upcoming projects as it pertains to individuals. And also try to get a sense of any of the managerial initiatives are actually helping anyone.
Tense for me, not for them. I see them everyday and I just act how he expects me to act. Throw out the occasional generic negative criticism (communication needs work, too many meetings, estimates need work, etc.) to make it seem like I care and that I'm not a kiss ass, and ultimately just try and not rock the boat or change anything. It's a balancing act to try and be just on the border of friendly and friends. I never want to tip into the friend zone, but also want it to seem like I'm making an effort to be friends.
The sad part is that it works. I get it, I just don't like it. Funny enough, the worst part about my job is "hey got a minute?". My heart always skips a beat and my first thought is always "Oh god, they found out. I'm fired." Oh well. Just got to make it 10 more years...
Ha, that's classic. It's my one ironclad managerial tactic is to never invite a report with a message "got a minute" or "let's talk" because it always makes their imagination run wild. I always try to be specific because 99% of the time the convo is innocuous. I know it's not easy, but you should try just acting with a bit more confidence. Your boss probably already has a really good idea of your performance and potential and if they haven't said anything negative, it means they probably like you. So try relaxing and feeling good for a bit. The thing that cured my impostor's syndrome wasn't so much that I'm actually great, but more that everyone else is as much of a fraud as I am. I'm now judging other people's careers when I still feel like I don't know what I'm doing. It's human nature, so it's more about being comfortable with uncertainty than being certain.
> Career development is more of a once per year thing (at least not weekly).
That is unfortunate, even if it is the corporate default. There should be tons to discuss about career development. Where you are, what the criteria are for the next promotion, where you need skill growth to get there, how to acquire those skills and what you can do to demonstrate that growth, And each of those items has multistep breakdowns.
I don't know what people come up with to talk about for career development weekly. Monthly's a stretch, for me. I'm too busy doing the work at work—as with most people as far as I can tell, my "career development" is whatever looks-good-on-a-résumé problem or responsibility I can convince someone to give me, and that doesn't really happen once a week, more like once a quarter—and on my own time, fuck, do I ever not want to think about this stuff or wrestle with broken tools and bad documentation or any of the other awful, frustrating, unproductive crap that comprise the sorts of things (buzzwords) that make me command a higher wage in a year or two. I get plenty of that in 40 hours, meanwhile each day slips by so fast that I'm not going to dedicate meaningful time to doing "career development" outside maybe enough to pretend at having dedicated "career development" effort just for looks, which is, I suppose, maybe what the meetings are for. If I'm serious about doing "career development" it's fucking leetcode (which is not what they want to hear, yet is what they ask for in interviews, which is, to put it mildly, weird) or working at convincing someone to give me reports, so I can say I've managed X-sized team through projects of sort Y and Z, implementing processes A and B to positive outcome C.
That's the game. I'll get fulfillment from my kids and from books written by smart, insightful, observant people, or from walking around in nature.
> All current project stuff is hashed out in or after scrum.
I don't know if he actually cares or if it's just a way to get me to talk, but my manager and I always start with whatever I'm currently doing, just in more detail than standup allows.
> I’m trying to make my 1-on-1s better and would appreciate your honest feedback on this one — what did you like about it, and what could be improved?
Make them optional or email me your canned questions so I don't have to squirm trying to think of an answer on the spot that will keep the status quo and get me out of the meeting without any "action items" for the next one.