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I've been working for almost a year as a sort of graphic designer that can develop, or a developer who knows photoshop. As a side project, my manager and I have been working on a web app, and I've been using the tools I know how to use to stand it up as best as I can. I've never worked in "serious development" before and don't have experience with what a reasonable request looks like. Over the last few weeks, we've gone from agreeing to a timeline for developing a prototype feature by feature over a number of weeks, to him calling changes out to me and expecting them to be pushed to the server instantly.

I don't feel experienced enough to push back on this, but he's now having conversations about rolling this out as an actual thing™ and adding in a bunch more features.

Is there a "correct way" to address these kinds of situations?

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  • What exactly are you worried about? Do you have any concrete issues here or are you just not confident enough in your own ability? What would be the point in having such a conversation, in your opinion? – Bernhard Barker Aug 19 '17 at 13:42
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I think you already know how to address this situation. You are knowledgeable of your capacities:

almost a year as a sort of graphic designer that can develop, or a developer who knows photoshop.

You are knowledgeable of the projects objectives and a rough estimate of the timeline of completion:

Over the last few weeks, we've gone from agreeing to a timeline for developing a prototype feature by feature over a number of weeks

At the moment, you are in fact (and I am guessing) the most knowledgeable person of the aforementioned project on your team despite your misgivings. It sounds like your manager has placed trust in you if he/she is treating you as though you are a foremost expert in the subject matter.

Read about Impostor Syndrome

Although you might not think you are, the perception of others is that they think you are the expert.

Moving forward, I sense that it would be important to keep an open channel and have a frank discussion with your manager about your capabilities and as needed, bring in subject matter experts to the team as the Thing™ is developed. If you need more advanced tools or training, make sure that your manager is informed of your needs. Otherwise you will be setting yourself up for failure as feature requests are made outside your scope of reach.

Keep calm and plan things out.

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    Very good advice. I would certainly insist on the training part, as for the OP that could be the occasion to point his career in a more defined direction. – Laurent S. Aug 19 '17 at 7:49