The Emotional Engineer
I'm not the first to admit it, but I am an emotional engineer.
In an industry where many engineers are protrayed as heads down, headphones on, keyboard clacking individuals...sometimes I find it hard to navigate the emotions of the day to day.
College and studying on your own will teach you the ins and out of writing code and having proper syntax, but it does not teach communication or human interaction.
Sometimes it seems like simple interactions don't even phase my coworkers, but to me the emotions hit hard.
Like that time I spent weeks on code and met with my manager all for my manager to say "cool. Did you grab your next jira card?" I invested days on days and poured my heart into this code and my manager communicates as if he could care less.
Or the other time when I helped fix my coworkers code, made a pr for it, and upon review the only thing my coworker had to say was how the white space is messed up. Not even a thank you for assisting with the code.
I hope for future engineers that someone creates a resource to help teach engineers how to navigate their emotions and communications.
Is it just me? Have others observed this at their companies and careers?
Emotional behavior is commonly used by every human, you're not a robot. Western societies are considered more typical and friendly compared to others. In Eastern Europe for example, you could just get fired for a simple argument with your manager, I've seen it many times but not experienced it yet. IMHO everyone gets emotional for everything, even the guy who whined for a bunch of whitespaces or comments.
You are not alone. I am right there with you. Left my previous role because of many reasons, one being the lack of eq from senior leadership all the way down to the keyboard clackers around me. My new company is better. EQ is definitely something that we culturally care about. Sadly, as we have grown from 5 engineers to 30 engineers the cultural pillar of eq>iq has become forced and cliche. Teammates are getting praised for simply showing up and doing their job. Ladder climbers are simply praising each other during our all hands for ladder climbing behavior. Kudos are given to the wrong people. It’s a tough line to toe. It does sound like you should switch jobs as I am happier with my new problem set compared with the problem set I was grappling with before. Working at places you dislike is important as it helps you figure out what you need from a company. You should take your new found learning and apply for a company that has marked eq>iq on that culture match site :)
> Or the other time when I helped fix my coworkers code, made a pr for it, and upon review the only thing my coworker had to say was how the white space is messed up. > Not even a thank you for assisting with the code.
This is a trap I personally find myself falling in to when reviewing: when doing PRs, I only comment on the things that I think need to be changed, so my communication is sometimes entirely negative, apart from a final positive "[approve]" or "[merge]". I try to make at least one positive comment in all PR reviews, but don't always remember.
I wouldn't comment about this if it is a one-off incident. But if you receive always-negative reviews from a particular coworker, you could try having a quiet chat with them one day (maybe buy them a coffee...) and explain your concern: when they only give you negative feedback during PRs, you don't feel your efforts are appreciated. Could they try to remember to give some positive feedback about parts of your work that they like during reviews as well? If you do this, try to gauge if your colleague is having a good day -- if they are not in a good mood, it won't be the time for them to be receptive to negative feedback.
> Like that time I spent weeks on code and met with my manager all for my manager to say "cool. Did you grab your next jira card?" > [...] my manager communicates as if he could care less.
Similarly, if you find this is a recurring pattern with your manager, depending on your relationship, you can also try having a private conversation with your manager, explain how you perceive their behaviour, how it makes you feel, suggest a change in their behaviour. If you do this, you may get a bit of push back from your manager along the lines of "you took too long to deliver that card, we need to you to work faster, cut quality if necessary for the next ticket" or whatever. You might not want to hear something like that, but if your priorities are different to your manager's priorities, it is better to learn about that earlier!
I am emotional for sure. We are supposed to be emotional. When I hire, I am conscious I am hiring people not a replaceable resource. When I have 10 devs, I see each are unique and bring something to the team. And we take time to just speak about things other than coding. And it has gone a long way for all of us.
Sadly in this fast paced world, human interaction is not the highest priority unless some study points out attrition is less when teams are emotionally engaged. We are zooming past human - human communication. Just like we have apps that control screen time, probably we need something to remind us to look past business objectives. But then just like those apps it would not be effective or natural.
At least once a week, during a standup or other meeting where you are reporting progress, describe what you have accomplished and for which you are proud. This can also include getting information or collaborating with other departments. While this won't make others around you more emotionally sensitive it will build your reputation among your colleagues and also give each of them something they can talk about with you if they are so inclined, which they probably are since I am sure you are not alone.
It's not just you. One of the things I do upon completion of long projects is jotting down in bullet point what I have spent my time on when I submit the works. Make them read every major decision you've made in fixing code or completing a project. Make them read. (I believe this form of communcation is just as important as coding itself).
Encapsulation of the programming work itself indeed has social implications - of worth, of value and many times price.
No, you are not the only one here :-)
Yeah, sometimes I am really pissed off because many people just try to find issues in my PR. They don't care for the rest of the work. I would suggest you talk to your manager about this topic. You need a better environment and which is fine.
> Sometimes it seems like simple interactions don't even phase my coworkers, but to me the emotions hit hard.
I am pretty sure you are wrong here, all of these things hits your coworkers as well they just try to not show it.