Ask HN: Advice for lead engineer who is not engaged

[pk2506]

As the title says, we have a lead engineer in our small startup who is not responsive or engaged anymore. The engineer seems to be getting progressively worse each week.

There are severe issues with meeting deadlines because the engineer decides to go AWOL and then comes back with reasons that are downright ridiculous. Things that were supposed to be done 2 months ago are still in backlog for example.

We have few other people on the team who are working great! But the lead engineer is a roadblock right now for lot of tasks. We are concerned about letting the engineer go because of the 'brain drain' that would occur as a result.

How do we rectify the situation?

[alexmingoia]

Your employee's personal goals are not aligned with your organization's goals. "I pay you to do X" is a recipe for apathy. In other words, your employees need an exit plan (all of them) that furthers your company. Sometimes that's promotion, sometimes it's bonus and vacation, sometimes it's help moving on to another company. Communicate with your employee to discover their personal goals, and work on developing a plan that achieves both their personal goal and your organization's goal.

What does that look like? Some examples:

- Company wants to be acquired, so employee is promised X% of equity and a timetable of acquisition that aligns with the product's development. In other words, when they finish the product they know they get a chunk of money and can move on.

- Company wants to grow existing product, employee wants to grow their career, so company agrees to promote employee (to management, to another position, whatever they want) after they build the next release or reach some product milestone.

- Company wants to develop their MVP, employee likes new challenges but has no plans to be promoted. So employee is guaranteed a generous severance bonus for completing the MVP and help transitioning to a new company.

- Employee really wants to work at a gaming company, but you're a finance company. So when a product milestone is reached you help employee get a job at the gaming company and he helps company hire a replacement.

If you help every employee develop a plan to exit or advance, you'll see them happier and more productive as they feel a sense of purpose and clarity around their role at the organization. But it takes empathetic communication, an open mind, and an attitude of helping your employees.

And be proactive and patient, because you'll find most employees have not thought about their personal goals and need help developing them.

[Jtsummers]

I was that guy once, caused (in my case) by handling severe anxiety poorly. I recognized it and went to my boss, then therapy, and got better (both at work and personally). But if they're not recognizing or acknowledging their performance problems, you need to intervene. Ask them what's actually going on. Document responses and issues. Offer to lighten their load while they deal with whatever it is. Give them a reasonable amount of time to get back to work.

But make it clear that they're on a performance improvement plan, and if they don't meet the expectations after giving them some time, then they will be removed from their position or let go. It's not fair to the rest of the team to answer to someone who isn't behaving properly and it will hurt their morale and performance after a while.

[gshdg]

Ask them what's going on. In the current climate, they may be struggling with anxiety and depression. Or distracted by having their kids home all day; etc.

Be up-front about what you need from them and why. Be clear about what accommodations you do and do not have the ability to make.

If it turns out that they're dealing with something temporary, or if they can continue being worth employing in general, consider shifting the bottlenecked responsibilities to someone else.

[collyw]

Hire me remote.

Seriously though, how much of a mess is the product from a technical viewpoint?

I pretty demotivated some days (not lead, but senior enough), because our product is a big mess of technical debt that only our lead understands (he built it all). I want to make it nice, but he wants to add more features.

Other days I just accept its a big pile of shit and try to get on with what needs done.

It can be pretty demotivating when you see just a pile of unmaintainable tech debt in front of you. Could that be the problem? Is he allowed to refactor it and make it better? Is he capable of that? (Assuming a he).

[pk2506]

What is your tech stack? The lead engineer was the one who build 80% of the system. So they are very well aware of the technical debt.

We actively encourage the developers to refactor/document the codebase if they see fit.

[collyw]

Ok, well he has himself to blame if it's a mess.

I am Python / Django Relational mainly (a bit of everything but I like old school well understood stuff). If by chance its built on that then get in touch.

I would love to be given the chance to refactor stuff properly. Most manager talk about it but rarely that it actually gets done.

[rajeshamara]

1) Ask the other team members can they function without the lead engineer 2) Ask the other team members to do all the work for 2 weeks without the lead engineer 3) Ask the lead engineer to start documenting 4) You always need to have a backup plan (what if a member gets killed by a bus or quits after winning lottery) 5) I doubt that other engineers would be lost without the lead engineer. In general no one is valuable 6) Put a plan in place thinking that lead engineer will quit and he has given 2 weeks notice

[pk2506]

What if the engineer turns cold during knowledge transfer?

[AnimalMuppet]

The brain has already drained. The lead engineer is not there anymore, even if the body is present.

I suppose, though, the question is whether the brain is just gone temporarily, or permanently. If you think there's decent odds that it's only temporary, you might not want do anything hasty. But if it's permanent, you've already lost them. Cut your losses.

[dakiol]

Assign the lead role to another team member and see how it goes.