Contingency Plan

Where I currently stand:

  • Tanner (Senior Engineer) has left
  • Scott (Senior Engineer) is leaving in 4 weeks
  • Jim (Manager) is leaving for ~12 weeks
  • Jordan (Director) is leaving for ~12 weeks
  • There is some overlap with Jordan and Jim leaving
  • The current team is Jack (Staff Engineer), Scott (Senior Engineer), Matthew (Senior Engineer), Patrick (Software Engineer), and Jim (Manager)

What is currently happening:

  • I am being asked to pick up more work to fill the gaps
  • I have been told that my teammates would support me for taking Tanner’s role

How I currently feel:

  • I have the ability to take on more work, I can recognize that it will take time for me to get up to speed on the work that I am being asked to take on
  • I am confused as to what my priorities are supposed to be at work, my manager leaving and I can see it getting more confusing
  • The day to day work stresses me out before the preconditions have hit
  • I am not sure of the value I get day to day with current work
  • I am in a position of continually needed to learn which feels like subtle burnout
  • I am not sure if I want Tanner’s role but I most likely do
  • If I were to get Tanner’s role, it comes with increases responsibility and expectations
  • I am working in the gambling industry which presents an ethical and moral dilemma for me
  • I am frustrated by having to be on call. Me getting pages in the middle of the night is correlated with someone not being able to gable. An investment of my time comes at the cost of supporting someone’s ability to gamble
  • I like parts of my work. I enjoy working on technically complex things that require investigations. I enjoy solving the problem that was the cause of the investigation. I do not enjoy being involved in product meetings or meeting that expand outside the scope of my current team. My dislike most likely comes from inexperience but also having to work outside of my circle of competence. Getting questioned on parts of the system I own is frustrating. I feel like I know parts of the system but when I am challenged, it feels like I can know nothing. This is not always the case and would most likely change over time, but the frustrating part is that my counterparties do not bake time into the equation. Here is the expectation is always knowing now.
  • I do not want to be caught holding the bag and be stuck working on a team that violates the premise of why I joined the company in the first place. I joined to work with a talented team and learn from them. If Jack, Tanner, and Scott leave, then I am stuck with a remaining team that might take months to years to rebuild. In that scenario, I feel like the expectation would be for me to expand my scope and take ownership of helping the team.
  • I do not feel support or enjoy working with my manager. We have a decent relationship but I have a distrust in his ability to say no or recognize the sentiment of the team. I also do not like the fact that I get asked or really told to do more. I have earned this and it could be viewed as a good thing. I get the work because I get the work done, but the negative effect of that is that I will always be the one to receive the work.
  • I cannot answer the question of what my career goal is properly. If honest, I would say something along the lines of building my own business, but that is not an appropriate response in a corporate setting.
  • I feel overwhelmed from the drastic change that has occurred over the past month.
  • My relationship takes on added stress because I am personally stressed
  • I struggle with passion and leaning into my job or the people around me
  • I do not want to fail
  • I question what is right
  • I watch others take ownership of the career and I struggle with the how or why

What I can do:

  • Apply for the opening of Tanner’s role
    • If I get it, then I am promoted
    • If I do not get it, then I stay in my current situation
  • Apply for a different role in the org that would lead to a lateral move
    • Not confident the time interval to get that is predictable or reliable
  • Apply for a role outside of my company
  • Begin developing skills outside of my current organization to remove the dependency of working a corporate job

What could also happen

  • If Jack leaves, then this compounds
  • I do not have close relationships with Patrick and Matthew who remain on the team
  • My original premise of joining the team was to learn from talented people and Jack would be the last remaining person that I respect