How To Spot A Bad Software Development Team & Poor Management [Self Taught Programmers & Web Devs]

[@domgia9248]

If a manager doesn't understand what you do, it's very difficult to get recognition for excellence.

[@DorianDevelops]

Thanks for watching, let me know if I missed anything that should have been mentioned!

[@johnnybecrafting9286]

my man said "promises promises promises", I thought we were going to get an async js tutorial :p

[@DorianDevelops]

😂😂😂

[@zelastminute]

You've just described my entire work life for the last 7 years 😢

[@Funkbassfushion]

Basically describing where I work at the moment. I feel like I'm in constant rage mode.

[@TheFootballPlaya]

"people don't quit jobs, they quit bosses" wow. superb line. so true.

[@ecaterinaignatov2026]

sometimes they quit teams or salaries

[@sayalisaitawdekar6429]

This is so accurately described, this is exactly what is happening at my current job.

[@montecrucis7247]

Same situation with me here :( Good to know that i'm not the only one experiencing this.

[@nromancarcamo]

I am in pain right now, I am not happy, I am around full Juniors devs (not talking bad about them, is just that they are not motivating me, teaching is a nice activity for some time, but not always and worst when your manager reward them and when you want something they look at you seriously), I built good relationships though, but aside from that, my health must be first than their crazy deadlines. I took the job because I was desperate. I am thinking seriously to resign today.

[@DorianDevelops]

Don't put yourself in a bad situation by walking out on the job without having something else lined up. That will only put you in a spot where you're going to be desperate to find a new job. If you're really sick of it, start looking for a new job and work on all the things you'll need for interviews. Take your time and mentally checkout from your current job. It's always better to look for a job when you have a paycheck coming in. Good luck!

[@nromancarcamo]

@@DorianDevelops thank you, I got 2 weeks for vacations, I will go to a doctor and do whatever is needed.

[@alphawolfe3588]

This is my situation right now at a Fortune top hundred Giant I saw them let go some very good people who even had a name and reputation out there contributing in the open source world in core projects like Akka , Play , Scala. And hire non talented people and screw best coding practices . I just hate it now here no recognition no sense of projects and so many death marches

[@geriatricprogrammer4364]

In one of jobs I was told don't test, testing takes time and time is money.

[@Bizmonger]

Code reviews can take different forms. Trunk based development is an alternative to feature branches with pull requests.

[@MaGSteelX]

I agree with what you've stated and Im working on starting my own media company. Would you be interested in joining an underdog gaming company? I need coders!

[@robertgeifman]

For me a big NO-NO is signs of narcissistic traits in even just one colleague (like a successful KZbinr for instance), . Presence of "Star" employees is another biggie, implying that one would have to win each one over before even considered of accepting in the team.

[@guilhermeandraschko]

First vídeo of yours. Great content, idk how this has not many views. I am missing content regarding devs and process. Suggestions: devs in higher position commiting disrespecting the process with no code Review or doc; devs deciding things that envolves the whole project without getting prior feedback; devs not documenting the technical decisions were made; best way of devs document. What do you think, there are exceptions for these behaviours or not? Thank you

[@thaym.5822]

My first 2 jobs as a junior developer had all of this red flags... never again. Time wasted (but I learned anyway).

[@BuffNerdInCa]

Code review ... Lol.. Long talk. Research shows it doesn't accomplish what most people think. You are spot on on most.of this video though. Some of mine.. 1. High turnover. The #1 kiss of death to a software team 2. Round robin programming… everyone takes a crack at the code, no one understands any one piece 3. No one has the answer, and you don’t know who to go to. See #2 above 4. No roadmaps or strategy… Hey it is agile! See #3. A team has positions, strategy, and a coach (lead). 5. No long term vision 6. Unrealistic schedules 7. Non-technical management. Unless they have trust with team, and focus on bus requirements vs dev.

[@BuffNerdInCa]

28 years prof software dev. "Deathmarch" oh man.. that reminds me of a few game companies.

[@bobweiram6321]

@@BuffNerdInCa Without code reviews, i.e. someone who ensures the code meets standards, you're ensuring items 2, 3, 4 and ultimately 1.

[@BuffNerdInCa]

@@bobweiram6321 I'm not seeing your logic here. 1. Code reviews rarely prevents turn over. I've usually seen the opposite as people argue over minutia. It must be handled carefully, as it can easily lead to conflict on teams. Furthermore it increases work load, as opposed to a synergistic effect of design review before coding. 2. Code Reviews have nothing to do with how tasks are assigned as far as ownership or any sort of organization other than to move things more towards everyone takes a crack at the code = round robin programming. 3. ditto. 4. Not sure how you are seeing this. As I mentioned some sort of architectural direction, design review, that is a whole other animal. That is directing before, and saving work, vs redoing what has already been done. That isn't code review. Code review is rarely the solution. I've seen it help with junior (as in first year or two on the job at most), and cause lots of problems elsewhere. Nothing gums up the works worse than, even worse, the.. it won't merge into main branch until one or two others devs sign off on it, by which time, if you don't have code well segregated, the merge conflicts kick you back to edit and code review again.

[@bobweiram6321]

@@BuffNerdInCa Perhaps we have different definitions of code reviews. If your definition of code review is where the entire "team" review everyone's code as in some kind of ritual, then I agree. I define it, although it may not be a conventional one, as the team leader periodically ensuring the code follows guidelines. If issues are found, the developer advised and assisted on how to improve the code. This shouldn't be done by anyone, except for the team leader who has authority, otherwise it can create tensions.

[@BuffNerdInCa]

@@bobweiram6321 Code reviews are a standard thing in the industry, and ritual is a good term. It is sometimes called formal code review, or just code review. " team leader periodically ensuring the code follows guidelines." That, I agree, is just good management. Mostly, I usually only concern myself with interfaces to modules. I can replace a poorly written module, as long as it has a good clean interface. Bad interfaces, the whole codebase becomes intertwined spaghetti. A good tech leader / manager should have a vision, architectural, change plans, and final product, along with a roadmap of how, when, and by who. Far more important than getting into the details of how people write the specific functionality.

[@owen9456]

Oh dear. Please equalize your audio. Using my headset one side is very clearly more loud then the other. It's very headachey..

[@geriatricprogrammer4364]

Nope no such thing as code review in my current project. Documentation, what's that?

[@RattleSack]

Thank you for this video - I'm in a really weird situation with my first dev role - it started off as i expected, but i noticed early my boss wasnt technical and i had no guidance whatsoever, I powered through it and developed my skills, had one good project to date that wasnt me being pidgeonholed into doing wordpress. Now i'm in this role, waiting on my first raise (im being underpaid, even by the lower end scale, which is disgusting), looking to branch out, doing some research in my own time, bulking my resume - I'm applying for a few jobs a week and tracking it but I'm genuinely terrified i'm not going to be able to get into anything, it took me so long to get into this role (2 years after graduation) and now i'm stagnating by being in a team that doesnt let me grow. What do? D:

[@bombrman1994]

bro please follow a course on your favourite stack to build your very own idea of a project. It does not have to be the next uber, simply has to be something and X project that has X useability. should not have meaning. It should simply demonstrate your knowledge and skills and slap that on your resume as personal project and talk about it proudly during interviews. A smart recruiter will eventually find you. Never get demoralised by the assholes in this industry.

[@RattleSack]

@@bombrman1994 Hey! thanks for the comment, since making this comment i actually moved into a much better role by doing something simular to what you said above

[@bombrman1994]

@@RattleSack I just quit my job now 1 hour ago too. I was hired 3 days ago. I was the only "junior dev" with another "junior dev" that is doing senior job and expecting me to do senior job. They interviewed me about angular, graphql, postgres and during the 3 days they have been giving me tasks with django, react, azure, angular, all whole alot other shit services that are made and entangled into each other. The "company" has some prototypes that are built by unknown people from freelance or upwork probably and want me to do bandaid it and fix bug in it. I asked him the manager questions and he cant answer to anything he told me go find the problems yourself and fix lmao. I started recording the scrums and eventually recorded the last meeting with him hour ago quiting instantly and he was begging pretty much to stay.

[@bombrman1994]

@@RattleSack tell me what did you do brother. I would love to hear those success stories to help me with my journey. I am trying to get into my first entry level job too.

[@zuzana930]

I can only agree with everything you said. The only problem is when all the job offers you find are in even more toxic environment, than you are at the moment ... (my current situation, but working on plan B) :D thanks for the video

[@ingloriouspancake7529]

is this left earphones only?

[@tottiegod8021]

Ask them about their CI/CD maturity. Most good teams have a strong sense of CI/CD.

[@vcool]

What a great video. If you hate your manager and want to quit, instead of quitting, I advise getting fired if in the US. This way you can collect unemployment insurance. To get fired without cause, just say "LOL" whenever your manager says anything on chat. If s/he asks you where you are, what the status is, or how long something will take, the answer is always just LOOL. You will soon be let go "without cause", and you can then collect unemployment while you look for a new job. If for some strange reason you're not let go, start saying LOLO in group chat channels. At least it will be a funny ending.

[@matc8085]

this is an excellent guideline on what to ask during interviewing process

[@deefeeeeefeeeeeeeeee]

One side of the audio is muffled

[@fahadulislamsiam9]

Hi DORIAN. Well spoken. Will you make a video about your source - I mean from where you start, which source you use. I wanna be a developer. I saw many video in KZbin. But I couldn’t find any better video about the direction. I mean - as I wanna be a self taught programmer - from which sourch I should start. I hope I say my word properly 😊. Best of luck😊. And good wish for you❤

[@DorianDevelops]

I highly recommend freecodecamp.org they focus on web. It's a great place to start and it's 100% free plus has a great community.

[@fahadulislamsiam9]

@@DorianDevelops Thanks a lot for your advice

[@DorianDevelops]

You're welcome and thanks for watching!

[@SivakD]

I came across this video and the incredible thing is all the red flags you described are where I am at (among others). Even the minor side point at 4:27 - "Is there version control?". I'm trying to get out of where I am, but one other important point is if you get stuck in a situation like this is it can actually be detrimental in trying to get something better as new companies might not view you as a developer with "good" experience.

[@bombrman1994]

What if you asked all the important questions and they lied. Lets say you asked do you do code review and they say yes and give a scripted answer along other questions and you see reality barely meeting what has been said during interview.

[@alphawolfe3588]

Well in that case I may beg to differ a little because if I as interviewer spent time on creating all practical scenarios and problem sets and have the candidate solve those with explanation I could actually get a idea about the actual true potential because that can’t be faked as getting through the hands on test will require every day practice and years of experience and funneling through almost 3 rounds like these can make sure you are getting the best .

[@vanessa6236]

Yes but can't a lot of people lie on glassware and indeed? Like employers who want them to leave them and go to another employer? You know. Idk.

[@j.j.9538]

Every bad job i had, management was always non-technical.

[@arto00-g2n]

Not valuing opinion is what I’m dealing with. Red flag is right.

[@6957-c5k]

IBM, Weather Company. Oh my goodness

[@oscarromeu2129]

13:07 same face dude :D

[@MeGrimlock511]

Management needs teams to deliver. Coding is art but there should be a balance between quality and delivery of new features. Otherwise you run out of customers

[@vanessa6236]

Whoa different mic here.

[@escapepeterpan]

Less bgm is preferable, it's distracting for long talks content like this. But prolly good for talk-less video to fill the silence. Anyway great content, awesome back story, great story telling Dorian. You've struggle so much that it rewards you with job and this story. Thanks for sharing it hihi

[@DorianDevelops]

I recently upgraded to a Blue Yeti condenser mic so my newer videos will not have the background music. I added the music because the mic I was using before had a lot of static and background noise. Thank you for the feedback and thanks for watching I really appreciate it!

[@novailoveyou]

Well said

[@OfficialSkankyRich]

Preach!

[@BarrySlisk]

I hate code reviews!!!! Want to find bugs? Test the software.....

[@BuffNerdInCa]

Several studies have show, a long presentation by Microsoft as well, on how code review is not very useful for catching bugs. Great for forcing people to conform to standards though. And causing animosity on a team.

[@BarrySlisk]

@@BuffNerdInCa If code reviews were to be useful you would have to spend more time than the guy coding it in the first place. Nobody wants to do that, so people just glance it over and says "It's fine!".

[@bobweiram6321]

Code reviews are not supposed to be used to find bugs. It serves to ensure cleanliness of code, efficiency and how it well it conforms to the overall architecture. Without code reviews, the quality of the code suffers, especially if the team has lots of inexperienced developers.

[@kavirajmanampadi939]

COMMENT

[@Meleeman011]

i don't mind being a code monkey, maybe i just haven't done it enough.