[sroussey]

Well, it could be the TL is incompetent. The inability to communicate is a possible sign.

However, there could be more to the situation. For example, you may be missing what they are saying! That’s on both of you.

Also, some details are missing. Like is this 50 weeks in and due in two? Or two weeks in and due in two?

And sometimes you need to iterate to get proper understanding of the problem space.

At lastly… they could have given you lots of rope to do it the right way, and the TL was hoping you would have seen the error of your ways by now and finally feels like intervening.

[throwaway2FA69]

fwiw, I don't think they're incompetent! it was a ~4 month project that's due in two weeks now

what doesn't make sense about your last theory, why don't chime in when the multiple specs/documents where defined? why now?

After thinking this through with the answers in here, my current guess is that this is something that just occurred to them, which is totally fine and I shouldn't be frustrated about it, these things happen.