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.
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Jamison Dance And Dave Smith Podcasts
In each episode Adam interviews somebody who works in the web world as a designer, developer, manager, advocate, or founder. These are people who have built something awesome or are experts in something awesome. Together we're all building the web of tomorrow.
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Episode 469: Passed over for lead role and perhaps I'm the jerk
35:53
35:53
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35:53
In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I’m a long time listener to the podcast. Thanks for reading and answering my question! I have over 20+ yrs experience as a manual QA and 6+ yrs experience as a SDET. I’m in a new role as a hybrid manual QA / SDET for a company that hasn’t had QA for a few years. After a couple of months a ne…
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Episode 468: Should I take a mini-retirement and doubling down on anachronisms
31:12
31:12
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31:12
In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Hi Dave and Jamison, Long-time listener, first-time question asker. Thank you both for the wisdom, perspective, and jokes you bring to the podcast. I recently received an inheritance of around $500,000. It’s not “quit your job and buy a yacht” money, but it is enough to reshape my life. I’m …
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Episode 467: I can't get promoted if I do my job and should I get a degree to get a job in this economy
40:52
40:52
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40:52
In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I am a data scientist and was recently passed over for promotion to senior because my projects weren’t “senior level” enough, and I do too many ad hoc requests that delay delivery of my bigger projects. I am a go to for VP and C suite level execs in my company and am commonly asked to help w…
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Episode 466: Bad performance review and moving in to the caves
29:56
29:56
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29:56
In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I had my performance review two months ago where I scored a “Does not meet expectations”, which I definitely understand, and my manager told me that some of my coworkers had been complaining about me. I’ve been working hard on improving ever since and my manager told me that they were really…
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Episode 465: Talking to your report's previous manager and how to replace a 30-year-old ticketing system
29:44
29:44
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29:44
In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: A listener named Mike says, To what degree do you think it’s appropriate to talk with your peer managers about people that have moved from their team to yours? How much weight do you give their criticisms of an IC that they used to manage that is working out just fine under your leadership? …
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Episode 464: Rehiring an overpaid boomerang and AI has taken over my teammate's brain
49:38
49:38
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49:38
In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Mr A. N. Onymous says, Hi Dave and Jamison, Long time listened, second time caller! I wrote a little while back with a common new-manager question about how to handle one of my reports who was at the lower end performance wise, but at the top end on the pay scale. I’d been trying to manage i…
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Episode 463: CTO w/ weak resume and I tried management and it was TERRIBLE
27:16
27:16
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27:16
In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Albert Nonymous asks, I am the CTO at a small (5 engineers) tech start-up with non-technical founders. I was their first full-time employee and as such have been able to fully form this company the way I want. I’ve worked here for 9 years now and own 10% of the company. I enjoy the tech and …
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Episode 462: Supporting laid-off employee and how to rebuild culture after layoffs
28:46
28:46
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28:46
In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: One of my employees is probably getting laid off, what do I do!?! I’m a tech lead / manager for a consultancy and a contract reduction means that one of the people I supervise is likely going to get laid off soon! We’ve found new roles for most of my people, but it’s likely that at least one…
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Episode 461: How to do side projects with a family and demanding job and my company promised me a raise, but didn't give it
32:40
32:40
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32:40
In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Hey, long-time listener, listened to almost all episodes now and have been loving it since day 1!! I am a senior engineer at FAANG and work 45-50 hours a week and have a lot of cross-org responsibilities. I am lucky to have a beautiful wife and two wonderful young children. I guess, you can …
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Episode 460: Losing autonomy and I got skipped for a promotion even though I'm awesome
33:07
33:07
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33:07
In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I have managed a product for some months now. My previous manager split their team in to mini-teams of 2-3 people. They gave me a small team and plenty of autonomy to own the product and go crazy on it. I had the time of my life as the team lead. I learned a ton and was really developing man…
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Episode 459: Am I cutting edge and how to compliment someone who went from super jerk to super nice
22:44
22:44
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22:44
In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I work for a B2C fintech startup as a senior engineer. Our onboarding funnel has a lot of moving parts due to regulatory compliance and a litany of requirements from various parts of the business. As a startup, we also live and die by optimizing for and demonstrating growth, so we need to ga…
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Episode 458: Infinite tech debt hack and figuring out what is going on
34:00
34:00
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34:00
In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Nearly every time certain developers on the team want to address technical debt, they end up just adding more technical debt. Of course, after one round of addressing technical debt, the developers in question believe that yet another round of redesigning and refactoring is in order. This st…
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Episode 457: How do I get off the on-call rotation and "big tech" == "big leagues"?
27:25
27:25
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27:25
In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I am a senior software engineer in a big tech/faang company and this week is my first ever on call rotation. My team is doing a lot of CI work, monitoring pipelines and support queues during on call. It is probably not as much of a hassle as on call for product teams, but for me personally o…
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Episode 456: Will I look bad on the job market if I'm a crypto developer and struggling to go from management back to dev work
31:39
31:39
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31:39
In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Hey, I am a web developer getting bored of the regular development work. I am interested in finance and the monetary system and due to the overlap of finance and engineering I feel down the Bitcoin rabbit hole and even spiked interest in crypto like Solana and Sui. I am pretty sure most of c…
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Episode 455: UX designer without a mentor and I get bored too easily and stressed too easily
33:00
33:00
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33:00
In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: A listener named Dakota asks, I’m a UX designer, and I’m constantly looking for growth opportunities. I’m having trouble finding mentors to help challenge me, as every time my boss/senior designer leaves the company, I assume their work and we don’t backfill their spot or my old position. Th…
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Episode 454: Tracking productivity? and my CTO is ChatGPT
28:11
28:11
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28:11
In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I’m a manager on a Product team. I’ve been asked by upper management to measure “story points completed per developer per sprint” and display the results publicly each sprint to motivate lower-performing employees. I explained why, according to Scrum, I don’t think this is a good idea. But I…
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Episode 453: Why did my company build an internal LinkedIn and how do I not get stagnant in my skills?
31:34
31:34
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31:34
In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Greetings! I work at a research company with ~500 engineers and scientists. My company started promoting this new portal they setup that is like a private linkedin. You can fill up the profile they setup for you and apply for positions within the company. Why is my company doing this? They e…
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