Why Do Programmers Accept Being Stuck in Their Career?

[@HealthyDev]

Have you ever faced internal resistance to getting help when you’re struggling in a tech job?

[@samgould8567]

Yes, mostly empty promises from management.

[@nicholaspreston9586]

Yes, but not in my Jr. level job. I had a wonderful boss (I was the lazy sh1thead who wouldn't show up on time) who'd go out of his way to explain things to me, even if I was dumb and couldn't understand the architecture or the problem. The man had "saintlike" patience. In one of my last roles, I felt I could ask for help, but was overwhelmed with how much info was coming at me. I was fired for not understanding their code, which was such an unregulated, undocumented, disorganized mess of spaghetti, patches and quick fixes, I had to make multiple passes at the code and tried to navigate through the "architecture", not knowing which way was 'up', it was so unnecessarily deep. Keep in mind, this was a web project, which are usually 2-3 layers deep in .NET. I could not count how many layers I went to from Controller to Repository, as there were so many patches and aggregators. And that wasn't the part I failed. My first task was to add a series of configuration vars to like 5 or so different SQL files. I tried asking for help with the relations (shouldn't configs be flat or JSON?) but couldn't wrap my head around it partly because of how fast my boss and my coworker talked, and partly because I really, really wanted to clean up and refactor that spaghetti.

[@rodschmidt8952]

It is a reflection of external resistance

[@SCBiscuit13]

I've been a dev for 9 years now. Got laid off by a company because of a toxic manager. Once I stood up for myself I was no longer "productive" enough. Going through interviews grueling. Last week I was grilled for 2 hours with live coding and tech questions. Despite the fact I've got 95% of it right I probably will get rejected. The industry is tough right now even for senior devs. I'm aware that I need to put in more work leef code, algos, design patterns recited in my sleep etc. If you guys are struggling, stay in there it will get better.

[@__arid0__]

I'm having 9 years of ex too. Going through same as you. I've a some saving that will probably last 5 years, as my expenses are low. I just gave up finding job and start my own software company. Probably this is better and easier.

[@SCBiscuit13]

@@__arid0__ Good luck to you. I think this period will be a shedding moment. There is going to be a huge gap in a few years between seniors and people trying to start software development.

[@HealthyDev]

@@__arid0__ I wish you ALL the best. Great job stepping up and not just wallowing. For many people, starting your own thing isn't just a nice to have - it's a requirement.

[@__arid0__]

@@HealthyDev Exactly I’m tired of the drama.

[@tigana]

@@SCBiscuit13True. Plus when those seniors start retiring, they will need more people.

[@creamdreamer]

As someone who has absolutely no problem seeking help and in fact look forward to scheduling coaching or mentoring sessions with those more experienced than me; I'd like to note some things that helped me help others help myself. 1. Don't be afraid that the person you're reaching out to will respect you any less. I would be willing to bet the opposite will happen. Reaching out shows the person you know where you struggle and that you are actively seeking to improve. Reaching out to them with your questions will also likely make them feel all warm and fuzzy (unless they are on the toxic side, but you should be able to judge these things...) 2. Come with a plan. I generally try to note down what I have done so far, where I am stuck, questions I have to get myself unstuck and/or potential solutions that I think could work but I am not 100% sure and would like to run by the coach/mentor. This shows some initiative and makes it clear you're not just going to someone so they can do your job for you. It also helps them understand where you're at exactly, what your train of thought is, etc.

[@ChristopherCricketWallace]

What if it's not about YOU at all?!? In so many places you can't say "I don't know" or "I need help" without tarnishing your reputation and risking a raise at tour next performance review. Most problems are social--especially at work

[@HealthyDev]

Good question. That's some of what I talk about in the episode. It's common that we can't get the support we need on the job, so we need to find it outside the job. Unfortunately many people don't even consider that a possibility. I was just like that for the majority of my career. I figured if people at my company couldn't help me, I was just screwed. It never occurred to me that I could find a mentor or coach outside work.

[@russellf]

Firstly, you are right and they are wrong. Keep being honest in your questions and be strong out of your humility. Keep professional and if you don’t get respect work somewhere else that appreciates your honesty.

[@HealthyDev]

@@russellf this is a common response I hear from people. Unfortunately, it's not a solution. There are more workplaces that disrespect people than those that do. So we've got to start looking for solutions that help us despite the broken system.

[@russellf]

@@HealthyDev I respectfully disagree. You have to seek out these workplaces. They are out there. I see too many younger devs having to play silly games to please unprofessional colleagues. It’s simply not necessary to put up with it.

[@chaoscarl8414]

@@HealthyDev "It's common that we can't get the support we need on the job, so we need to find it outside the job." I hear what you're saying, but I can't quite see how that would help. Many of these problems, at least in my experience, originates within the company. Seeking outside help won't - indeed, can't - change the fact that your boss is an idiot and your colleagues are all looking to backstab you at every opportunity to further their own career... Okay... I might be exaggerating a bit, but I think the point still stands. When the problem is with the workplace itself, that's where the problem need to be solved.

[@MartinTimothyTimko]

If a programmer knows anything, it is that "we are a team". If the programmer does not know something, then "you are alone" :)))

[@szeredaiakos]

And then there is the small detail that teams work together, not just work on the same thing. Nearly all engineering teams just work on the same stuff, not together.

[@JasonRobards2]

The Tree Card Monte of responsibility. It's your personal responsibility unless you ask to be paid for it. Then it's not asked of you. And it's none of your business, unless it is broken. Then it is.

[@farukdee7502]

I know one thing for sure that has generated a lot of internal resistance within me was seeking help from people who didn't even know how to help themselves. They'd tell me, casually, that I just needed to work harder, I take that advice and then i'd burn out some more. The cycle repeats.

[@HealthyDev]

There are far too many people promoted into management who aren't given adequate training. Then they go on to give bad advice to their subordinates. It really is a bummer.

[@lucasterable]

1. School imprinting 2. Ego 3. Judgemental environment

[@TechLeadNotes]

Such a clear and nice and complete list

[@forceghostpepper]

The lack of humility is a huge barrier to progressing past a blocker, it's okay to not know everything and seek assistance from the rest of your team, sadly I see a lot of developers with inflated egos that refuse to do so.

[@andgoedu]

Not always , bro its some times the mentor , when he/she says google it .

[@aslkdjfzxcv9779]

if you're here, in all likelihood you have the ability to unstick yourself. do the work. be patient. laugh at stuff.

[@slimjimjimslim5923]

there will be repercussions if the work env is toxic. In my old group, we had a ticker number tracker, everyone, every group can see who had the highest ticket and who had the lowest at the end of each quarter. It's not public shaming but it's pretty freaking close. It sucks when we have to write up report to manager and have 1 on 1 about why we had the highest ticket number. 0.0 it just made people afraid to pick up hard projects or large projects.....

[@TypingHazard]

I'm not sure i do tbh. I've been a dev for 6.5 years and I'm moving up pretty slowly. I'm watching people come through this company, start lower than me, depart far higher than me, and I'm still scratching my head over trying to understand problems I've had in front of me for weeks. I dont know that I have the mental capacity to achieve more than this.

[@JasonRobards2]

@@TypingHazard The whole "moving up" is a scam. To HR you are just a coder. All the flashy job titles are to make you work just a bit harder and to keep making you think you are improving your future prospects each year. Change jobs and discover you could be making as much as the highest paid senior in your last company! It's all the same wage bracket anyway...

[@chancepaladin]

if I could do it all over again, image management would be #1. everyone knows me as "the guy who fights against everything" so they ignore me even when my concerns are absolutely legitimate, and not me simply trying to question things to figure out the theory behind direction changes.

[@HealthyDev]

That's exactly the reputation I got a couple times. "The dev who cried wolf" so to speak.

[@Erik_The_Viking]

I've been there. Never fun. I agree that image management is important - I ended up getting ignored because I was considered "hard to work with".

[@seinfan9]

I worked with an embedded developer that had that same reputation simply because he was looking for the best solution. Alternatively, his former manager is a curmudgeon that never wants to implement anything new for our products. His opinions are considered "important" despite never offering any compromises or suggestions to help move the product development along.

[@JasonRobards2]

About point 2. As an automation engineer, I feel that 90% of your value to the company is knowledge about the programming. Sometimes/Often this knowledge it held by a single point of failure. Companies are very hesitant to let a new person do all the jobs the more experienced person does. When you finally climb up the experience ladder, so to speak, you have invested a lot of effort. These experienced people are often hesitant to share this knowledge because of economic reasons, ego (risk of losing their sense of uniqueness) and increased risk of having to share their work area with another person (who might not be as skilled as they are or just have different but equally valid approach). These people are often very hesitant to change their job, because all their value is tied up in this employer. As a director once put it to me when describing such a person: "Over here he is god, but anywhere else he has to start all over. He knows that too". (as an aside, guess this person's wage outlook... ;). Tech people at the same time overestimate the power of their uniqueness, and at the same time underestimate it.

[@devid6799]

Hello from germany! You're actually helping me a lot. Thanks!

[@HealthyDev]

You're very welcome! I hope to make it to Europe someday.

[@NicoleTedesco]

Related to avoiding the analysis of opportunity cost, also consider whether you need to leave the profession and do something completely different. “Sunk cost” fallacy can keep people in the game when they really would be happier doing something else.

[@HealthyDev]

Absolutely! Tech is not the only game in town by a longshot.

[@darthkreggles3798]

Programmer culture says you're inadequate if you ask questions. Figure it out yourself. Google it. Read the documentation. All things I have heard people say. There is a lot of ego out there. It probably won't change, but the whole industry would be improved if we encouraged more mentorship. Sometimes you need to read documentation and learn a wide range of concepts for yourself. But when it is 1 little detail that you worked on last week and you already know the answer, you're wasting company time and resources with an attitude like that. But I think a big part of the problem is the corporate culture that encourages competition over collaboration.

[@HealthyDev]

Another big part of it is laziness. Senior developers who don't want to take the time to teach other people. Which REALLY bothers me. I was modeled very early on, when you're leading someone, it's your responsibility to be there for them and help them. These leaders that just throw people to the wind with no support need to be demoted or trained properly.

[@nii-san5485]

@@HealthyDev personally I find it hard to properly train people that I am not directly in charge of, because there is just not enough time. I learned most of what I know on my own over years and years, how am I supposed to teach someone that will be pulled onto the next thing a day later? No wonder everything is becoming a lost art, no forward thinking in management, just operating under this quarter only.

[@JasonRobards2]

@@HealthyDev ​ I have heard both sides of this story from people without any negative ulterior motive. Like the person above me, nii-san, he does not seem like a bad person, but if he ever was to lead me, I'd suspect him of not "wanting" to train me. Similarly, when I hear one of my best friends, who is an senior architect in a major company, talk about training new people, he has a very negative outlook on training new people. He makes the same blame: not enough time, I do everything better (not wanting to risk the blame on the professional image?), young people do not want to put in the effort... Outside of work he has no problem in explaining and teaching. Why the discrepancy? There is serious need for academic research on the matter. That is, if society ever wants to solve this. Because like nii-san says: certain technologies risk becoming a lost art.

[@HealthyDev]

@@JasonRobards2 when I’m asked to lead or mentor someone, it’s my responsibility to advocate for and get agreement on what I then won’t be doing. If I can’t get agreement that I will be less available for things I was doing before, I won’t agree to do it. I think sometimes it’s this inexperience with pushing against management to help them understand the cost of their changes that’s a big part of the problem. We get so used to agreeing with strategy that doesn’t make sense to us since we’re not responsible for that. But as soon as workload demands are asked of us we don’t agree with, that IS our responsibility.

[@kenttorres9465]

EXCELLENT information. Thanks for the vid 👊

[@pavloburyanov5842]

I like to listening to your videos during doing my work. Some kind of meditation for me. TY❤

[@metsatroll]

Here's some positivity. I recently found your channel and have been viewing your videos and i think they are very good.

[@HealthyDev]

Thanks for the feedback. It helps me know I'm moving in the right direction.

[@mwffcrown]

Valid: TOC(Total Opportunity Cost) I like it...

[@Jubei-vy1tg]

I used to ask for help over and over again from friends, supervisors, online.... nothing. Now, Im really good at getting things done, but when I get the chance to explain to people the information I didn't get to obtain, they normally ignore it because it's too boring for them to understand...

[@Th3T1redPanda]

I ask for help, it's awesome way to figure out with whom I work. A-holes: dumb questions often block you, ask the dumbest questions. the reaction will show you with whom you're dealing with. Fake mentors -> instead help you get mentoring. FYI avoid people calling themselves a mentor. Total incompetence -> Wanted to be a team player, I described issue I found, the lead helped me by saying "It works on my local". solved issue in 30 minutes. turned out it was an issue blocking them for 6 months.

[@thydevdom]

Was extremely fortunate with my first job they allowed me to really focus on learning and were expecting me to be clueless about some of the libraries we were using. I know for many that’s not the case. I understand you need to earn your wage but some of the stories I’ve heard with others in my class was sad.

[@SolidWorksMastery-hr4sg]

could you talk please about junior dev working as solo dev (no senior ) in startups and wearing multiple hats ....what is the benefit or drawback form this scenario

[@HealthyDev]

I'm sorry but I help more experienced developers. In that situation you have a ton of great opportunities for learning, but it's also going to be especially difficult due to the nature of how much of it is new and the opportunities for failure. With the right support and culture it could be fine of course.

[@TravisHi_YT]

You need to work with someone that is more senior imo. Depending how smart you are, you could easily get stressed out given the complexity and impacts of your actions for the startup.

[@bmiller949]

I asked for help and got little one line statements from Stack Overflow. My manager was being a dick, because I was asking for a more complete answer. Sometimes you need to be shown the big picture and not the outline of a shadow on the pavement.

[@AliciaGuitar]

Stack Overflow is the number 1 reason i dont ask for help.

[@ascetahedonista7161]

Just do as Gandhi said: "Be the difference you want to see in the world"

[@rodschmidt8952]

At Mentor Graphics, I was told: "Roger is going to be your mentor." Roger completely failed to do that part of his job.

[@lasselasse5215]

HAL comes to mind

[@pengurrito7136]

Because StackOverflow and tech subreddit responses are predominantly "rtfm" and "sounds like a skill issue"

[@HealthyDev]

This might sound crazy, but I rarely use StackOverflow. I ALWAYS focus on going to my teammates and building good relationships. We focus on ourselves and the documentation to solve problems. I know that's not how the internet is supposed to work. But it's how I always built strong teams.

[@ShimoriUta77]

I hear you talking about this discord community, but there is no link to it :(

[@HealthyDev]

Check the video description. There's a link to sign up for the KZbin membership or Patreon. If you sign up for either one you can get into the discord server.

[@luckyluc9972]

What do underemployed and undereducated developers do? Being self taught is a marketing nightmare

[@HealthyDev]

I never completed my associate's degree and was self taught the entire way. I know the industry has changed, so this isn't an apples for apples. But what I did personally is try to learn the most in demand, marketable skills and be able to demonstrate them with side projects. Nobody cares about your education if you have something amazing you've built you can show them that's in line with their business goals.

[@ffatheranderson]

The answer to the question in title of this video is simple - programmers are expected to solve all the problems in their area of responsibility - because we are paid to do so and the only way to handle our responsibility is to overcome all obstacles we meet, because if we do not overcome them, then nobody will do it for us.

[@alanforrester9766]

I'm not addicted to the internet. *Watches another youtube video.*

[@mage3690]

Honestly, the biggest reason I don't want to seek help is because I see the sort of messages put out by people seeking help, and all too often, I don't want to be that guy. Most messages seeking help are fine -- great, even. I know I won't be That Guy™. But I'm still kind of terrified of being That Guy™.

[@HealthyDev]

I'm not totally sure what you mean here. What kind of messages? What "guy" are you so concerned with being?

[@mage3690]

​@@HealthyDev the "hey I live in , , any opportunities?" messages. I see them, I cringe, and I just don't want to be the sort of guy who elicits that reaction in others.

[@HealthyDev]

@@mage3690oh I see you mean getting a job. Yeah people go about it completely the wrong way. I teach people to get to know hiring managers first before their interest in a job is ever brought up. It’s a requirement to diffuse people these days to get through to them.

[@panosdotnet]

It's a slaughter house out there.

[@HealthyDev]

What's the most distressing thing you're facing?

[@bobfarker4001]

Linkden has some nasty people on it. It did not help me get a job, instead all i got to see was office politics. What is a good alternative to linkden?

[@HealthyDev]

When you say all you saw was office politics there, how did that manifest? Like do you mean just reading posts other people put up about politics? Or was this specific interactions with people's teams at companies via DMs?

[@bobfarker4001]

@@HealthyDev real nasty gossip people would post. I'd see it in organizations I don't even belong too.

[@HealthyDev]

@@bobfarker4001 ah OK. Yeah people seem to gossip everywhere online these days. I wish I could say that surprises me...

[@personalbranddata]

I used to enjoy some of your older videos but the past year or so you're just constantly complaining and even making up non-issues. By doing so your channel doesn't help people with improving their mental health.

[@HealthyDev]

Can you offer something substantive like specific issues with specific videos? I can't take action on feedback that's a generalization. If you really feel the issues I’m addressing over the past year don’t exist, I’m glad you’ve found apparently a really healthy company!

[@l1f07bscs0035]

Bro you have to be weird to think he is doing it for mental shi* it's all about KZbin views and easy money. We all know it is not easy to be developer people look for easy money and an extra income stream

[@HealthyDev]

@@l1f07bscs0035 you do know I don't monetize ads on my videos right? I make exactly zero off views. I make a living off career coaching now. I've been a developer for 27 years. If that makes me a "shill and sellout" to decide to help other devs after two decades, I don't know what to tell you. If I wanted easy money, I would help other people than developers. They are the HARDEST group of people to help. I have been at this for 7 years, trust me lol.