3 months into new team dealing with incompetent senior engineer. What do I do?

Jun 30, 2021 4 Comments

I’m several months into my new company as a software engineer (not Walmart lol) my teammates are fine except one senior engineer. He is able to do his job but he is a little ‘slow’ at getting things. The ironic thing is, he talks to me as if he is teaching me things but has literally taught me nothing even when I try to convey to him politely that I’m not a junior engineer and I understand exactly how things work. He struggles to understand simple things to the point where it actually slows me down on something we have to work on together. I brought it up to my manager briefly in our last 1-on-1.

Yesterday I scheduled a meeting with him asking for help regarding a deliverable we are working on together. But later that day I figured out the problem on my own and respectfully told him the meeting was not necessary unless there was something he specifically wanted to talk about. Regardless of what I tried to convey, he asked again to meet later the day and I didn’t want to be a d*ck especially since he is my senior and I am mid level and also a new engineer so I reluctantly accepted.

The meeting turned out to be an hour of me explaining git flow and the current state of our deliverable. I have no issue helping teammates out but someone at his level should not be acting like this. It’s gotten to the point where I actively try to avoid his zoom calls because it always just ends up with me listening to him thinking that he is teaching me something when in reality I get absolutely nothing productive out of it. It seems like the meetings help him though a little bit with some kind of clarification I give him on whatever we are talking about.

should I bring this up again for a second time to my manager on my 1-on-1? If so how do I go about raising my concern professionally without putting myself in a potentially detrimental position that could hurt me in the future? Honestly need some real advice on how I should go about my situation. Thanks.

Tc 150k
#swe #sde

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TOP 4 Comments
  • Amazon
    leftforali

    Go to company page Amazon

    leftforali
    Hey! I also have a Sr engineer (SDE3) who underperformes. Every SDE2 on my team performs at least 2X better, some more. Even one of our SDE1s gives him a run for his money.

    Since this is Amazon I expect he'll be PIPd, so if anything in glad we have him, that means I can chill until he's gone. He's my PIP shield.
    Jun 30, 2021 1
    • New
      GojoSensey

      New

      GojoSensey
      You know your in the wrong place when you need a PIP shield lol
      Jun 30, 2021
  • Yelp / Eng
    B.Obama

    Go to company page Yelp Eng

    BIO
    Backend developer.
    B.Obama
    Unless he is harming you(your career) in anyway, I would give him benefit of doubt and not take any action.
    Jun 30, 2021 0
  • RBC
    Qazwsxer

    Go to company page RBC

    Qazwsxer
    I’d just try and avoid him unless absolutely necessary to work with him
    Jun 30, 2021 0