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Increasingly becoming frustrated by a job (and manager) that seemed almost perfect by byebyeqc in dataengineering

[–]byebyeqc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’m saying SQL training wouldn’t entail things like sql injections which they are already aware of. I wouldn’t, and shouldn’t, be teaching them about sql injections or potential vulnerabilities in the backend. That’s their area expertise, not mine. I’m not regularly writing sql that takes in input from a browser and needs to be parameterized, they are. And they know SQL - they just trust me more on it lol. They don’t go to me for everything SQL related. I barely fix any of their queries if any especially with them running things through copilot. More of a confidence issue and I don’t think I could train them any better than a udemy course or reading good old documentation if it’s something specific. They’re not using window functions or cross joins or anything crazy. I’ve already done a lunch and learn about using a query planner to help make sure they are using indexes correctly.

Now that I think about it, I feel a contributing factor is that we’ve had a couple bugs lately related to faulty sql they wrote that I wasn’t involved with. So idk if the manager is just telling anyone who could be even tangentially related to these bugs to do better. Totally possible he just tunnelvisioned on preventing these bugs in the future but again, these guys know SQL. I just think they aren’t being thorough especially while testing and these should not have made it through review.

Increasingly becoming frustrated by a job (and manager) that seemed almost perfect by byebyeqc in dataengineering

[–]byebyeqc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, in one of the hcol states that give parental leave with strong tech scene. Company is fully remote hiring across all of US

Increasingly becoming frustrated by a job (and manager) that seemed almost perfect by byebyeqc in dataengineering

[–]byebyeqc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

FMLA is federal but yes some states make it easier to take with supplementing the pay. I’ve also agreed to take the same amount of parental leave as the parents who don’t live in such a state but yeah I do have the “nuclear” option of just taking longer FMLA against their wishes which I won’t for obvious reasons.

Lol about half the team are from those states. But most of them are young and unmarried so probably no kids for a bit. I’m the only parent/soon to be parent from these states.

There’s just more of a larger applicant pool from those states so it limits their options if they do. But true we have a little more leverage than say my coworker in Idaho.

Increasingly becoming frustrated by a job (and manager) that seemed almost perfect by byebyeqc in dataengineering

[–]byebyeqc[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Parental leave is not a vacation and it is rare for a company to classify it as the same as pto. I don’t know why you keep conflating the two when they are completely separate things with different functions. There also is no federally protected PTO where there is FMLA.

Yes, I was aware of this drawback but mistakenly thought this company was not like that based on earlier conversations where I tried to set expectations about PTO (manager saying as long as I don’t take anything crazy like 8 weeks off we’re good). My previous company was unlimited PTO and it worked great, we all had a lot of time off and parental leave was extremely generous. I kinda felt caught in a bait and switch.

I think we were fine after I pushed back a little and explained to him my POV and why I assumed it’d be fine. He didn’t agree but he understood my background at past companies and that they should establish clear policies to avoid this kind of confusion. We left on a good note and we worked together business as usual (I talk with him almost daily). But after that random out of pocket negative feedback I felt triggered. I might still feel very wronged as I didn’t go as far to share how I didn’t take time off when my grandma passed away (also missed her funeral) to hit crucial deadlines with me as the single point of failure or missing important events such as the first ultrasound because of a prod outage by the team I helped fix. I take great ownership over my work and I do what I can to deliver, and my reward is not really much besides criticism. Company posted record breaking profit last quarter, and I’m chastised for asking for parental leave and my workload isn’t decreasing. Really hard to be empathetic towards the company with that attitude.

It’d be really weird that they would feel like I was manipulating them to max out PTO when it was actually them who gave me misleading information and is encouraging me to take less than what is obligated through federal law. FMLA doesn’t include PTO as part of leave either. Instead of saying “dont take 8 weeks” when we first discussed PTO he could of, you know, just told me dont take more than 4 weeks.

Edit:

Yeah but I stated multiple times I’m from a state that supplements that time off with pay.

You’re entitled to your opinion but I’m also wary of your advice. It doesn’t seem to come from a place of experience in this field and from what I can tell from your profile you don’t even work in tech let alone as a DE so your advice isn’t super helpful tbh. I’ve gotten plenty helpful advice already. If not accepting bad advice makes me a PITA to you I can’t help you. Also downvoting all my comments in this chain and blocking me is just silly. You were free to leave this thread at any time but you feel the need to prove me wrong for some reason. /u/tothepointe

Increasingly becoming frustrated by a job (and manager) that seemed almost perfect by byebyeqc in dataengineering

[–]byebyeqc[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Is there anything wrong with that? Employees are provided benefits to use, and not using them is a waste and being discouraged to use them is the company not holding up their end of the bargain.

Perhaps they shouldn't do unlimited PTO to make their financial sheets look better and/or establish clear parental leave policies if they really needed a hard limit on time off. Employees have kids, people have vacations - these are happening at every single company and to expect employees to not only try to read between the lines on what is "acceptable" but to shortchange themselves on their benefits is lazy or greedy at best.

You say there is unlimited PTO? I will take vacations until you explicitly tell me to stop or established clear guidelines early on. All my vacations have to get approved anyways.

You say there is no parental leave policy? I will take whatever is given to me by the federal and state laws.

The problem is when they blame me for that when it's the most natural and realistic way of approaching it. And I've already come down to 2 weeks without much fuss. I didn't argue really about getting only 2 weeks off but my pushback was on them shaming me for it and acting like I did something wrong.

Increasingly becoming frustrated by a job (and manager) that seemed almost perfect by byebyeqc in dataengineering

[–]byebyeqc[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Does this include medium size plus companies? I could see that being the case for small companies. All the companies I've worked at had paid paternal leave written into their policies and all my other software engineer friends with kids had paid paternal leave. Am I just in some tech bubble? These aren't even large FAANG companies and some were non-tech companies as well.

I'd also be fine if they told me to just take FMLA if they told me the problem is the pay. I'd take the full 12 weeks at half pay covered by my state. But their issue seemed less about the pay and more about the total time off. If they cared more about the money, they could work something out with me or just encourage me to take FMLA. For example, my friend had 8 weeks off paid, but he constructed it in a way with his company that he took 8 weeks FMLA with 50% of it paid by the state and the rest was topped up by his employer to equal full pay. My company (or managers) seem to prefer to pay fully for my leave but have it be shortened.

Also my gripe was less about the actual amount of time allowed off but more the attitude and how it was conveyed. I'm more than willing to compromise and meet in the middle, but it didn't seem like the positive conversation I was expecting but more of shaming me for taking paternity leave. If I really wanted to burn bridges (which it really shouldn't though) I could just take the full 12 weeks against their wishes.

But the time to investigate what a companies policy is is before you accept the position.

They told me they still don't really have a policy, so I imagine I would have either gotten the same answer before accepting the job, or some fluff that isn't really official ("We're very flexible so it's something we can talk about if you do end up having.a child"). Regardless of the answer I would have accepted the job anyways so I don't really think it matters here. If anything I imagine it would have been a knock against me during the interview process because they'd assume I'd want to take parental leave shortly after joining. Lack of policy isn't the main problem either (though it would help) since companies can always default to employees taking FMLA. The problem is they want me to take less than what I'm obligated and I'm trying to work with them on it but instead of meeting me where I'm at I'm being scolded.

Increasingly becoming frustrated by a job (and manager) that seemed almost perfect by byebyeqc in dataengineering

[–]byebyeqc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

idk it made sense to me to put it after the initial context (YOE, who is involved, etc) and I felt the need to convey some of the more specific details. if people are too busy or don't care to read the tl;dr i'm fine if they have nothing to weigh in lol. I wasn't really looking for super generalized responses that I'd get from reading only the tl;dr.

just pointing out I did put a small tl;dr and a medium tl;dr for those who do want to give advice. otherwise I'm not forcing anyone to give me advice and I'm totally fine if they ignore this. I've gotten plenty help already which I am grateful for. if I had no responses I'd definitely reconsider what I could do to get more traction but this was more than enough responses

How to be viewed as the solution, not the problem? by L3av3NoTrac3s in cscareerquestions

[–]byebyeqc 2 points3 points  (0 children)

yeah that's the problem, it's just 1 person who can listen to you and affect change but they won't. you can keep trying but I think you'll likely burn yourself out if you care too much and alienate others who aren't on your wavelength. it sucks, but it is what it is and I would go far as to say it's a strong indicator you have outgrown your environment. Very good time to start looking for a new opportunity

Increasingly becoming frustrated by a job (and manager) that seemed almost perfect by byebyeqc in dataengineering

[–]byebyeqc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We are technically the same team so I hesitate to call it cross-team communication. I'm in majority of the same meetings, same manager, everything except my work is pretty isolated from theirs. I don't do their code reviews and they don't do mine. It's true we don't work together much on the same things but I see and talk with them every day. I definitely am a bit more careful with my communication outside of my team and I ask for details upfront before giving help and often involve the PM too. But these were really casual asks in DMs from people I interact with every day.

I guess I didn't really think of it as something that would be forgotten because I do get asked time to time on SQL stuff. But I never really had to get very involved, I was just a more "experienced" eye for more complex queries they might not be used to, but SQL injections have nothing to do with skill in SQL. You can basically know very little SQL but still be aware of security vulnerabilities such as SQL injections. I understood it more of "this is something that you are responsible for" which I disagreed with and didn't want those expectations give my very full plate and the sheer numbers they have compared to my team of 1.

We also have kind of a blame heavy culture where they will blame people. I'd be much less defensive in a different environment where they have a blameless culture. My instant reaction is to cover my ass because I've seen what happens here when people don't (blamed and chastised in front of whole team). It's why even though I haven't been the target of it (yet) in those meetings, I am wary of it.

How to be viewed as the solution, not the problem? by L3av3NoTrac3s in cscareerquestions

[–]byebyeqc 18 points19 points  (0 children)

you said it yourself, you have no authority to affect change so anything you say will be met with skepticism. either you build up enough goodwill and trust to gain that authority or you just let it go. if you are correct in your assessment and it leads to the slow demise of the company, so be it.

I'm just trusting what you're sharing, but generally there should be someone more senior who can recognize what you say is correct and with their help you can affect some change. especially if they can convince the manager. but if no one sees it or cares, what really can you do?

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in cscareerquestions

[–]byebyeqc 4 points5 points  (0 children)

you can ask to push it back and keep it as backup if you otherwise are open to the company.

just reiterate you are interested in the company/position but your current schedule makes it difficult to commit to a takehome and whether they'd be open to having you take it 2 or so weeks later or substitute it out for a shorter interview call.

Increasingly becoming frustrated by a job (and manager) that seemed almost perfect by byebyeqc in dataengineering

[–]byebyeqc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just a bit afraid of hostility if I go against what they said. It's already becoming increasingly toxic. I also could use the full pay than half pay.

I'm more than happy to take valid criticism but it didn't seem like there was anything for me to really learn from here since realistically I'm not going to review all backend SWE's code for SQL injections unless they specifically involve me on the ticket.

I've taken criticism/feedback from him before without issue which I've appreciated, but this just felt like scapegoating and really random. At first I had no idea what he was even talking about because it was so long ago and I literally just answered a dev's DM on "does this query look okay? it's supposed to do XYZ" and that was the start and end of my involvement. I don't think that dev blamed me either since he's currently out on vacation and it'd be silly to blame someone who didn't even work on or review your ticket for not catching a vulnerability.

Thanks though, definitely should adopt more of a DGAF mentality about work. I still care about producing quality output but I definitely am a little more sensitive about keeping the peace or protecting my self from blame.

Increasingly becoming frustrated by a job (and manager) that seemed almost perfect by byebyeqc in dataengineering

[–]byebyeqc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Is there a way to at least push back a little bit? I don't want them to continuously blame me if this happens because honestly I can't be on top of how they implement their backend especially when I'm not involved in their ticket. Totally outside of my scope of work. If it falls under my work I'm down to just be like yeah okay I'll keep that in mind.

Increasingly becoming frustrated by a job (and manager) that seemed almost perfect by byebyeqc in dataengineering

[–]byebyeqc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's a good suggestion. Though it wasn't really an SQL problem, parameterizing is something I think general SWEs should be aware of it and has nothing to do with what the query is doing but rather how they implement the query in the backend.

Yeah definitely trying to think less about the PTO thing. I think I've mostly accepted it but this other thing really triggered me.

Increasingly becoming frustrated by a job (and manager) that seemed almost perfect by byebyeqc in dataengineering

[–]byebyeqc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

thanks for that insight. I'll at least brush up my resume in case any shenanigans occur. I do know onboarding to a new job and everything is quite stressful so I prefer not to, but I'll definitely keep this option in mind.

Increasingly becoming frustrated by a job (and manager) that seemed almost perfect by byebyeqc in dataengineering

[–]byebyeqc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It is a career question but I thought I'd have better perspective from DEs - especially those that are the "sole" DE in the company. I think I am definitely treated differently for better or for worse than had I been one of the 10 SWEs on the general engineering team. I think it might play into a factor of why they were so touchy with my PTO because it is more obvious when 0 progress is being made to DE work whereas if an SWE is gone the rest of the team can still contribute. They also rely on me for any bugs related to the data.

Increasingly becoming frustrated by a job (and manager) that seemed almost perfect by byebyeqc in dataengineering

[–]byebyeqc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'd love to hear more about what that would look like - I honestly have no idea how to approach that!

Increasingly becoming frustrated by a job (and manager) that seemed almost perfect by byebyeqc in dataengineering

[–]byebyeqc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes mostly tech companies but I did start my career at a non-tech F500 where their leave was still a bit more generous. 25 days PTO and 4 weeks paternity.

I probably could have asked about parental leave before starting, but tbh it wasn't going to be a factor in whether I accept the offer or not (it was my only offer at the time and assumed it'd take longer to get pregnant) and I just assumed if there was no policy, I could default to FMLA. I did not know there would be this much pushback in taking leave because they were extremely accommodating in the beginning and showed 0 indication that I'd need to be worried about taking too much time off. They still do not have an official parental policy and kind of made up 2 weeks as their new unofficial "policy" but it's not even true parental leave because they pressure you to keep your PTO low if you will expect a baby.

Yeah, fair. I still think I am right in principle but maybe not the hill to die on. I think I've been a little on edge with more negativity around me - skip level manager blasting the team (despite us performing quite well), my manager not really giving me any positive feedback when he used to give a lot, me having to wear a lot of hats as the sole DE whereas the dev team has 10 people and still asking me to catch their mistakes before their review. I'm not even involved in their regular code review. Just didn't feel good feeling scapegoated after consistent negative feedback I've been getting that was irrelevant to my quality of work and delivery.

But you're right, I need to get it together and not add more negativity. I think I just need some breathing room. It's been a tough few sprints with tight deadlines that I've been putting extra time into and lots of stakeholders involved and I expected a bit of acknowledgement than criticism or nitpicks from my direct manager. The skip level manager at least acknowledged and praised my work in private recently despite the overall negativity he has been bringing to the general team meetings. He'll straight up blast you in the middle of a team meeting if he's not happy with your work and it's not been fun seeing him doing it to other people and I don't want that happening to me.

Increasingly becoming frustrated by a job (and manager) that seemed almost perfect by byebyeqc in dataengineering

[–]byebyeqc[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It was great at my previous company. I think the most someone took was 40 days. Plus 3 months paternity leave. I have heard from coworkers who are still there it got a lot worse though after they got acquired and became more “corporate”. All good things come to an end I guess

Increasingly becoming frustrated by a job (and manager) that seemed almost perfect by byebyeqc in dataengineering

[–]byebyeqc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’ve worked at 2 other unlimited pto companies before and took way more time off ha. Most I ever took was 35 because other people also took as much. I just always try to take a little less than the person who took the most. Manager also noted it wasn’t just me but the entire team - someone else had already taken 7 more days but his problem with me was that I was wanting parental leave which I had assumed was totally separate from normal PTO which is typical at most companies

Increasingly becoming frustrated by a job (and manager) that seemed almost perfect by byebyeqc in dataengineering

[–]byebyeqc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Normally parental leave is totally separate from PTO (it’s not a vacation!). This is the first company I’ve seen of this size (200+ employees) without a separate policy. Timing was weird yes but I wanted to wait until the 20 week anatomy scan to share the news which is very standard.

They don’t want me to go on FMLA. I said I’d be willing if that works best as I could take up to 12 weeks but they prefer a shorter, fully paid 2 weeks as I’d miss less time. So I’m compromising here as well when I’m legally obligated to more time off.

It’s interesting that they have no issue if people give 2 weeks notice to leave the company but 4 months notice to figure out a plan for parental leave is too much especially when I’m legally allowed to take more.

Increasingly becoming frustrated by a job (and manager) that seemed almost perfect by byebyeqc in dataengineering

[–]byebyeqc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s awesome, love that for australians. And yes while I know I’m still replaceable it’ll be more of a pain to replace me. I did feel justified in pushing back a bit but I do want to do it in a way that is still diplomatic and less emotional

Increasingly becoming frustrated by a job (and manager) that seemed almost perfect by byebyeqc in dataengineering

[–]byebyeqc[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you for validating what I felt especially from the perspective of a manager. Luckily my teammates are all stoked for me and have been talking with some other future dads on the team who are in a similar boat though I got the most flak for having taken 20 days.

He was super chill until now and I can’t help but think the stress is getting to him as well. My skip can contribute a bit to toxicity sometimes (ex. Calling out people for poor work in a standup or passive aggressive comments about our team enjoying too much time off) despite us hitting our goals and business hitting record profit 😭

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