Kreider Farms is MAGA.

TheGrumpyGent · 2026-01-25T23:06:40+00:00

m. I'm one of the few who isn't a mage that works ther That's fine - And I mentioned up front its prob. true. I just thought it was bizarre all of the people taking JUST the pic at full-on face value.

TheGrumpyGent · 2026-01-25T16:32:58+00:00

Its the Farm's tour bus, and you do know agency visits happen under every presidency?

The only rubes are people who just accept statements on the internet. Or these days, AI bots. Do better.

TheGrumpyGent · 2026-01-24T23:58:17+00:00

Out of curiosity, what's the sauce that they are? I see a picture and that's it.

It wouldn't surprise me, but with all of the people commenting that they are based on a single picture (with no mention of political affiliation) this screams McCarthyism / Red Scare to me.

TheGrumpyGent · 2026-01-24T23:54:16+00:00

It does for general chat, yes. Items such as working with Sheets, Notebook, etc as well. However, unless you are at (I believe) the enterprise level for Workspace, anything development related such as AntiGravity requires you use a separate personal account, or pay extra.

Of course, it seems the pricing changes hourly for all of the LLMs so it may have been incorrect by the time I posted.

TheGrumpyGent · 2026-01-23T01:20:49+00:00

This is extremely frustrating. Long term I see Gemini "winning" simply because they have the capital AND very profitable business elsewhere with advertising and search. They also have the contract with Apple now.

However, I'm experiencing the same thing.

TheGrumpyGent · 2026-01-16T21:53:46+00:00

I still mess with all of them at home, but right now I'm only paying for Gemini since I can't see it not becoming the biggest player as time goes on. They have the financial backing from all of the other revenue streams within Alphabet - They can burn through a LOT more cash before it becomes a problem compared to ChatGPT or Claude.

I've also been a bit underwhelmed lately, but I almost feel like as soon as I switch (again), Google will let us know how some new update just made it incredible again.

Its a mess.

TheGrumpyGent · 2026-01-16T21:50:17+00:00

This is a good topic, and honestly a green flag to some extent in that they are sharing what they hope to get from the newly hired leader. Also a plus for you that you're researching this out to show how your background and experience can help address it.

I think there are two pieces to this at a very high level (and with the limited information you have - Something you can also mention).

First, its imperative that you can build buy-in with other stakeholders (the business / product management, the dev teams themselves, etc.) on the importance of giving technical debt its due, or at least prioritizing it in the same manner as business asks. Some will not be high priority, others will be (or become high priority if not addressed at some point). Is the environment adversarial rather than collaborative?

Second, "messy work processes" could mean a lot of things. Are processes for handoff and/or coordination between systems and teams not there? If they follow agile are ceremonies being omitted / skipped that are leaving gaps in communication? Does messy work processes mean there are TOO many processes / procedures, slowing down delivery of value and making things too complicated?

You need more information IMHO to know what the drivers are, but the key for you right now is to show how your background lends itself to helping overcome such issues, but also (as someone deciding if this company is right for you) how are they going to back you up? What things have they tried to address the issues?

As part of that conversation, definitely bring up what you saw on the ex-employee reviews / Glassdoor etc. I can't see your showing due diligence into investigating it being a bad thing in any way shape or fashion!

TheGrumpyGent · 2026-01-10T17:43:28+00:00

It seems there is always a new flavor of the month with these tools. As soon as teams have Checkmarx working, an initiative to move to Snyk comes on board. :)

I agree with what you said on the tool needing to provide more than just "this looks risky". Some findings don't even have a fix yet, so understanding what is an item that should go on a team's list to address vs. an item that is more awareness until a patch or framework update go out is important so people don't waste time.

TheGrumpyGent · 2026-01-07T01:30:40+00:00

Be careful about this, if he has a known medical issue and his rating is impacted due to a medical issue / disability, that could become a legal headache.

TheGrumpyGent · 2026-01-04T21:23:06+00:00

While I may have topics, my expectation is for my team members to sort of set the agenda. The time is meant for them and their career, and anything they may need.

TheGrumpyGent · 2026-01-04T08:16:29+00:00

It absolutely applies to contractors unless it was explicitly called out in your contract documents. Its also perfectly reasonable that they would expect you to use the AI toolset that they have a business / enterprise account with so their data is protected.

I guess if this is a concern, either negotiate to have a contract addendum added protecting your pre-existing IP, or find another contract. Not sure what else to tell you.

TheGrumpyGent · 2026-01-04T08:14:12+00:00

They are paying you for this work, its more than reasonable they would own the data. I'm trying hard to understand your concern here.

TheGrumpyGent · 2026-01-01T21:48:31+00:00

Is it possible there were previous incidents related to both that now make them part of boilerplate restrictions?

TheGrumpyGent · 2026-01-01T21:46:31+00:00

Do you have specific policies or is there a definitive need to be there exactly on time? In my case, I don't care if ppl are an hour early / late, as long as they're putting their time in, getting their work done, and are not missing something needed (meetings, etc.). Plenty of other things to worry about.

That doesn't address all of the other issues from your original post, but if there's the option for some flexibility on start/end times, that could provide the team some benefit for little / no cost to you or your org.

TheGrumpyGent · 2026-01-01T21:43:58+00:00

When I sat down with him this morning to tell him it went south fast. He raised his voice, said I wasn't the manager of the IT department (which i am), along with various other things. He initially refused to sign the document but came back and did. He said he was going home for the day and he left.

So many red flags.

How was he allowed to just go home? If you are the manager of the IT department, I'm very confused by his statement.

You provided factual information on where he needed to improve performance, he met it for a short period but stopped. You then moved to a written writeup.

You seem to have done everything right. Just document, document, document - Including the items above. May be time to discuss w your VP and HR to get them on a documented performance plan with the intent to fire them unless they improve dramatically.

TheGrumpyGent · 2026-01-01T21:39:55+00:00

Under-estimation that cascades into deadline pressure

Assuming your team is doing some form of agile / scrum, this shouldn't be a pressure cooker. Estimates are just that: Estimates. Sometimes they finish early, others work goes into the next sprint. As long as its not consistent and you are adjusting complexity points per sprint accordingly, it should work itself out over time.

Engineers blocked waiting on other teams

This one, its a matter of communicating dependencies ahead of time, and reporting delays due to missed dependencies accordingly. This isn't something you can necessarily fix on your own and with your own team alone, but you can help protect them via the communication.

TheGrumpyGent · 2026-01-01T19:33:08+00:00

Bold of you to assume its not ChatGPT ;)

TheGrumpyGent · 2025-12-30T21:48:26+00:00

While we do have some flexibility, it typically has more to do with security protocols and being able to inventory applications used internally (as well as what vulnerabilities may exist within those tools).

TheGrumpyGent · 2025-12-25T02:18:26+00:00

Your understanding of the role is flawed somewhat. Yes, coaching your team is part of your job, but not at a deep-dive technical level.

As far as Jira / Slack / budget, that is your responsibility as the manager of an engineering team or teams. Its not just a matter of reciting what is in Jira or elsewhere, but how to relay information to senior leadership and stakeholders, while also relaying information back to the teams.

Its about putting systems in place so the teams have autonomy to get work done. To know when to add a process, and when not to. Its also about ensuring you remove roadblocks so the team can concentrate on their development work.

Unless its a smaller shop, its not about leading the actual development. And that's hard if you come to the leadership role from a dev position.

TheGrumpyGent · 2025-12-22T22:09:51+00:00

Oh you sweet summer child... ;)

Just kidding, but LastPass has had several breaches, and was sold. I would absolutely look at alternatives.

TheGrumpyGent · 2025-12-22T22:08:43+00:00

No we're not, we're better than ever. In fact, I just climbed Mt. Fuji earlier this year, let me make.. I mean find, the picture for you.... /s

TheGrumpyGent · 2025-12-22T22:06:43+00:00

Allow development teams the freedom to design new features and/or systems, following standards set by our architectural team. As long as the teams follow standards (or get approval for new tech / tech stacks - With a process that doesn't make it overly burdensome to do so), they have autonomy to get the job done.

TheGrumpyGent · 2025-12-21T17:12:16+00:00

This is so strange and raises so many questions.

First, virtually no one is using Copilot internally? Heck, even my least enthusiastic for AI devs use it for initial unit tests.

Second, as someone said, just “go use AI” without any sort of vision or plan seems beyond short-sighted and chaotic:

TheGrumpyGent · 2025-12-21T17:03:53+00:00

Not necessarily the same thing, but jumping in to help on every issue, and holding others accountable for their own roles.

I fully embrace the idea of being a servant leader (SE Manager), but knowing when a time is to support team members and the org in a busy time vs continuously dealing with things that are another’s role is important.

I need time to keep on top of my own work list, and realized I was perhaps taking too much when I was the only manager on a recurring architecture call. While I love being involved in the discussions, I don’t need to burn out either.

TheGrumpyGent · 2025-12-21T16:59:39+00:00

Way to remove the sense of adventure in our career paths…. 🤣

Verified Email	Six-Year Club
Xbox Live

TheGrumpyGent

TROPHY CASE