Would you tell your boss that you are thinking of leaving over a lack of seniors at the company? How honest are 1 on 1s supposed to be?

Question

I have two years of experience as a software engineer and this is my second job. One of the concerns I have about continuing is that there are no more senior engineers left at the company, or at least none on teams in my office.

They were never able to fill most of the roles (on other teams, so not an issue that caused me problems) and they fired the last senior a few weeks ago, for something that had nothing to do with his tech skills as he was excellent and knew his stuff but had an abrasive personality.

The problem for me was that I learned a ton from him and am now basically the lead developer on my project. The other developers were hired out of university a year ago and we have an intern. People are now coming to me to ask how things work.

My team lead can code and is more experienced than I am, but he doesn't have time for that as he manages all these development teams and has to deal with paperwork from the people above.

I am not comfortable just marching ahead as a developer as I have no idea what I am doing in many cases here. I really think that at this stage I need to be around people who have more experience and who actually work on the projects I work on and review my code. That is why I am thinking of leaving.

The question is, do I tell my boss this in 1 on 1 meetings or no?

Answer 1

I would absolutely tell my boss about anything that was affecting my continued relationship with a company I was working for. This doesn't work for everyone, mind you. It takes either a certain level of trust and/or a certain level of temerity to do it. The key to doing it is understanding what you want to get out of it.

Do you just want them to be aware that you're unhappy and looking? Do you expect there to be some level of change as a result of you telling them? Are you trying to connect with your manager to tell them that you have no opportunity or capability to grow without appropriate technical mentorship?

What does the company get out of you telling them? If you just want to give them an opportunity to be prepared for your exit, then save your breath. Most companies are already prepared for such an eventuality.

Have a plan and a desired set of outcomes whenever you discuss something like this with your manager. It's just going to sound like complaining and whining otherwise. If you have an opinion on something that is causing you to lose faith in the company, tell them how it can be corrected and what you're ready to do to be involved in the fix. Don't expect them just to fix all of your problems. Be ready to contribute.

Answer 2

Don't talk about leaving until you are actually handing in your notice. It doesn't help anyone. Employers know that people will leave if they're unhappy and no one reacts well to a threat.

However you definitely should talk about your worries. Your team lead (and the managers) should know that without the seniors the department can't continue at its old rate but they might be under the impression that you're all handling it successfully, and then turn around and blame you when things go wrong. When you have problems you can't handle, you need to make someone senior aware of it.

I imagine that you are handling most things successfully, and that you can do more with a little help, and anything else can probably wait 6 months until they replace the seniors - but you can't work in a vacuum, and need more support.

Answer 3

This is an opportunity!

Have a think about what you would need in terms of training / support in order to become the new Senior, and then ask your boss whether they are replacing the one they fired.

If that feels like a bit of a stretch, aim for a promotion to Lead Dev instead, and think about what training and support you'd need to be able to do that role effectively.

When you talk to your boss tell him about the responsibilities you're already handling with the new intake and how you'd like to formalise that with a new job title / pay grade, or at least start on the path to get there in a year's time.

If your boss thinks you're capable of the role it's an easy shoe-in for him and he won't have to go through the painful process of external recruitment.

The worst that can happen is you hit a brick wall, and then you can start thinking about whether the lack of seniors is enough to quit over...

Answer 4

You should definitely tell your manager that you're not happy with the current situation - it is their job to make sure you're motivated to continue working at the company, remove any blockers and support your career development. If they don't know you're unhappy they can't help you.

I would suggest not mentioning that you're considering looking elsewhere though, as that can get you labelled as someone who's got one foot out the door and limit your future opportunities at your current job. Bringing up the issue you have with your manager is enough to communicate the fact that you're not fully happy, if they don't act on it and you eventually decide to leave they will not be surprised when you hand in your notice.

Answer 5

Share the issue, but not the "I'm thinking of leaving". Managers exist to help solve problems for their teams.

"I am having trouble learning and progressing the way I'd like now that there aren't any programmers senior to me except my lead, who's busy with nontechnical work" is a good discussion starter. It doesn't necessarily lead to hiring more senior devs, but could involve discussing other ways to help you out - training, mentoring from senior devs in other offices, having the team lead take time out to do more technical coaching, and so on. Come at it with the attitude of "hey, here's something holding the team and company back, how can we work together to solve it?"

Be prepared that the answer might be "you are the lead now, learn about how to coach juniors." Frankly once you get far enough along the expectation of always having devs more senior to you is a bad one and you may be considered senior enough to keep learning on your own and move into helping others (sounds like this is what they are doing, perhaps without explicitly saying this to you). Maybe you should know enough to be self-sustaining by now, maybe you have imposter syndrome holding you back, maybe you don't really know enough to be self-sustaining, or maybe you're a bit lazy and want a person to ask instead of toughing out the answers yourself. You will need to dig through that and figure out which it is (your manager will, so you need to have a head start).

Answer 6

From myself experience, I would not mention anything.

I ever did some stupid thing like that, however, after some time, the whole team members turn very bad relationship with me and finally I was forced to leave. Of course, I have no evidence to say that is a boss behind.

You find a job, then find a job without anyone notice. Don't test your boss

Answer 7

Don't tell your boss that you think about leaving. That could put you into an awkward position. Instead tell them that the whole development team is in a bad position with you as the only senior developer left, and that it pushes you into a roll where you don't want to be. And if anything happened to you or your lead developer there would be real trouble. And that you think the company should do something about this and fix it.

You'll see what happens. If there is no change, then you have done your loyal duty - you told them that the situation is bad. And you start looking for a more suitable position elsewhere. And once you've found it, and signed a contract, you give notice and there is no looking back.

Answer 8

Yowch! There's a bunch of red flags there.

1. They are actively getting rid of "seniors". That either means they are trying to trim the salaries bill, or don't like clever people telling them that something is impossible/expensive/take a log time.
2. They are having difficulty hiring. That means they are trying to hire seniors for junior money, and refuse to countenance the idea that salaries are set by the market, not what they are prepared to pay.
3. Fired for being "abrasive"? Is that just not another word for "gives unwelcome news"?

This kind of behaviour indicates that a "heart-to-heart" will simply be used to hurt you. They regard developers as a grudging expense, not as an asset. Take whatever experience you can get, because you sure-as-heck are not going to be paid any more for doing a senior's job. Start looking for another place to work.

Answer 9

• At your one-on-ones avoid the "Here's my problem, now you solve it" approach. Come with solutions, with descriptions of what you're trying to do to mitigate the resulting issues, and so forth. Express your concerns, describe the fallout in terms of business cases.
• If you play the "I'm thinking of quitting" card with your supervisor, that quickly moves you into a different area of his or her brain, typically not a positive one. If you're doing it as a heads-up, so be it; if you're doing it as a threat, it won't work.
• One-on-ones are not meant to be soul-to-soul conversations. The best ones are mutually beneficial.
• You already know junior level developers tend to be paid less than senior level engineers and architects. This creates a natural financial stress for supervisors, same as what you see with international talent. You understand the value of a senior engineer, but sometimes the higher-ups don't see it so clearly. Figure out how to articulate, concisely, that your team slows down or is more prone to bad design choices without access to one.

Answer 10

What do you believe that telling him this will accomplish?

• Do you think that this will motivate him to spend more time mentoring you, and if so, will that satisfy you? Otherwise...
• Do you think that this will further incentivize him to hire a Senior? And if you think that, why?
  • Do you think that he just doesn't see the need to hire another, senior dev?
  • Do you think that he's just been too distracted / busy to follow up on recruiting?
  • Do you think that Recruiting / HR hasn't been putting in the effort, and that, if you mention something, that will incentivize him to light a fire under them?
  • Do you think that he, or the other interviewers, are being too picky with previous candidates, and that expectations need adjustment?
  • Do you think that management is being too stingy with salary / benefits, and that he needs to pressure them to raise them?

If you think that having a conversation with him will resolve one of those issues (or something else that I haven't even thought of yet), then by all means, have it. If you're not sure WHAT the "problem" is from your manager's perspective, use your one-on-one time to try to glean that.

But ultimately, if he doesn't see a problem and thinks that current staffing is fine, or if he knows that management / HR / whomever isn't going to let him hire another Senior, then telling him that your position is "unacceptable in the long term" is effectively handing in a resignation that takes effect at his convenience.