But he doesn't. He doesn't even ask. Just plays politics from day one without a deep knowledge. What would you do in a situation like this: be a jerk and expose him or play nice?
Worry about yourself, it’ll catch up with him
Some stupid engineer wrote some substandard code and now the "new hire" is supposed to take "ownership"? And then what? All Senior Engineers face this exact same problem. The code we see is obsolete and at least 4 years old. The practices, standards and refactoring everyone seeks is at least 4 years in advance. Politicing is the best survival where Loyalty will not work.
The problem is that he will come and bite you pretty soon. Ideally, this situation wouldn’t exist if there were decent managers. The fact that the person was hired proves otherwise. You have 2 choice here if he tries to get a boost at your expense: play his game by proving him wrong or decide it is not worth your time and leave.
It is really a tough spot. I’ve been a manager in the past and my strategy was to absolutely destroy and crush those kind of people. Basically you keep the conversation so technical all the time that they can’t play politics anymore and their lack of substance shows, while the more technical folks shine. It worked quite well and I was known to be a “strictly no bs guy” and as far as I know the team liked me. But I was a hardcore technical IC before trying management so I knew how to deal with fakers. most managers would get completely tricked by someone who wings it by playing politics. They might even get promoted to team lead.
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They sell those stickers saying “Be careful. I know everything!” Give him one to put on his desk. In the meantime let him get outed by the system. Nobody likes those anyway
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Let him destroy himself. If he's politicing from day one, he's bound to falter. Remember, no one can fool all the people all the time
I don’t think it’ll necessarily work. Answered below.
I do like and agree with your suggestion below: Set up the conversation in a technical direction to prove how out of depth they are. But I think staying above the fray helps. You could hurt yourself also politicing