Episode 133: Herding Linter Cats and Surviving Until Severance Time

Soft Skills Engineering

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. How can I make my team be more proactive and go out of their comfort zone more?

   I recently started a new job as the team lead for a team of four developers. Each developer has their own pet things that they keep themselves busy with; one likes to configure linters, another has a long-running project they keeps to themselves, and so on.

   We have been tasked with a new, high-priority project which involves new technology and would require everyone to pitch in. So far, though, that has only happened when I’ve directly asked someone to do something.

   I absolutely do not want to end up in a position where I have to tell people what to do. How can I make them realize that this new thing should be their top priority, even if that means going out of their comfort zone?

2. TLDR: My role and product are moving to a different country. I don’t want to relocate.

   I have to stick around at least another 3-4 months to get my redundancy package. In some ways this is great as I’m pretty unprepared for interviewing right now. On the other hand, this is terrible because I’m pretty unprepared for interviewing right now.

   How do I keep morale up, for me personally and the wider team during this period?