Episode 440: How do I help my boss not burn out and should I tell people I'm older than I am?

Soft Skills Engineering

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Stefan

   Help! Most of the time people ask questions about issues that already happened. I however, would like to prevent one.

   I am a young Tech Lead and really love my responsibilities, team and especially my manager. With the help of your podcast I could even resolve my last issue regarding compensation. Of course I dutifully did my part and reallocated some of my payment increase to finance Jamisons yacht.

   My very awesome manager “Bob” is so great that he has to manage 4 teams. Naturally, because Bob and those 4 teams are doing great, Bob gets rewarded with even more work. In his “free time” Bob is a parent of two teenagers which is also not necessarily known for being a stress free environment.

   Lately I noticed that Bob is more stressed than usual. Bob told me that he wakes up in the middle of the night because he remembers missed TODOs in the job. I also see this change in his body language and general demeanour.

   Now that a very critical project is coming up, Bob, as the go to person for more work has to allocate a significant time of his day to support this project.

   I fear that Bob is on a path to burnout and this new project might be the last drop. I would really hate to get a different manager. Statistics claim it will probably be worse… Also I really wish for Bob to be well and health, too. ;)

   How can I help Bob in his situation? How do I address those concerns with him without looking condescending? We have a good and open but not close relationship, that I would not like to ruin by overstepping my bounds.

   Thank you very much. I love the podcast. You make me laugh and learn with every single episode. You rock!

2. I am a very young senior engineer at a big tech company and I think nobody really knows how young I actually am. I just turned 24 and usually in prior jobs other developers started hating me once they found out that I am this young and already in a senior role. Here at the current place, I have the feeling that all of the engineers in levels below me are already a lot older and have more years of experience under their belt. Also, I think they do not know about my age, because I never shared that in the recruiting process, nor later on. Usually people assume I am in my early 30’s and have a baby face, but when I tell them that I am a baby face because I am actually young, they become envious and things go south from there. Should I keep this a secret or am I playing too much into this?

   PS: I am also already married and have kids, so that could make them assume that I am older.