I have been working for a consulting firm since early last year. I’m a programmer and this is basically my first “adult” programming job I’ve had since graduating and briefly working part time as a coding tutor.

When I started at the firm I expected that I would be on one or more consulting teams and I would be learning/working with new and emerging technologies. Instead I was placed on a development team at a corporate banking client, working remotely with other employees of the bank. The bank has a big problem with turnover so having been there for a year I’m seen as one of the more senior members on my team and have been given more challenging projects to work on more or less independently. I’m responsible for the analysis, the coding and most of the testing.

I was assigned a new feature in early October. I was given a brief description of what the whole feature would do, but it wasn’t immediately clear which parts I’d be responsible for. It was a while before I was able to speak with folks about the requirements for my side so I realized I ended up doing work I didn’t need to. Now I understand the requirements but I spend more time researching than actually writing code.

I meet with my project manager remotely every day for standup and he’s always asking me for percentages of work done or some metrics for completeness and I don’t really know what to tell him so I just throw stuff out there. (“Oh probably another few weeks or so.”) I think for a while there I was just saying I knew what I was doing 1) because I was trying to “fake it until I make it” and hope that I make some breakthrough and figure it all out, 2) because in order to ask folks questions I’d have to understand the problem well enough to have some context for what to ask, 3) because the only two people, senior devs at the bank, who could help me have ten other things assigned to them each (not an exaggeration) and they can both be really flippant and unhelpful when I have reached out to them in the past.

I have so much pressure at the firm to put in a good face for the firm with the client. I have tried within the past year multiple times to get transferred to another role but I just get met with pep talks about how I’m “doing better than I think” and how “they really need me there”. When I express frustration with the bank’s management structure and levels of communication my handlers are like “yeah…some clients are tough!” So it seems like I’m stuck. Unfortunately I cannot afford to simply quit.

But I feel like I’m getting close to just blurting out that I don’t think I can do this at all the next time my project manager at the bank asks me how far along I am, despite supposedly having put work hours towards it. I have so much stress and lingering dread that I will be fired, that it will ruin my career, and that I can’t do anything to change my situation. It’s hard to manufacture enthusiasm for finding other jobs because at the end of the day, even though I’m not getting as much done as I need to, I feel burnt out with stress and don’t want to do anything resembling work. Frequently when off the clock I’ll randomly think about work while doing other stuff and I’ll break down and start crying. It’s bad. Every part of me just wants to be gone from this but I can’t leave and I also can’t make things better. The cracks are beginning to show and I feel like it’s not possible to get the support I need. Should I continue to push through the feeling that failure is inevitable and try to succeed? Or should I go mask off and hasten the end?

  •  Scrubbles   ( @scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech ) English
    31•7 months ago

    Sr Engineer here, 15 years experience

    I’ll level with you, I’m all for fake it till you make it, it’s part of our jobs. Imposter syndrome is real and can be a struggle because we are smart, we are capable

    However, there’s about a dozen red flags going off around this gig that are largely unrelated to you. A few of them I noticed

    • The firm hired a Jr, it’s no secret that you’re a Jr. A common practice from firms is to label them as Srs even though they are not qualified. They do this frequently so they can charge more. Your firm put you in a position that you weren’t ready for. That’s not your fault. (I was labeled a Sr by my second firm after 2 years of experience. I thought it was a compliment. It was not. Looking back I was wildly Jr)
    • I don’t see any actual process in the development - not even waterfall. This leads to exactly what you’re feeling - stress, unsure of what work you’re supposed to be doing, unsure of timelines, unsure of who even you report to or who the feature is for.
    • No one gathering requirements. It’s true this is a skill I expect my engineers to have. My senior engineers. A Jr fresh out of college I would expect to be teaching them things like requirements gathering - but at the same time I’d put you on a team with a strong PM to help you get started.
    • Your firm knows you are struggling and isn’t doing anything to help. This is the biggest red flag. I’ve worked with great firms. I’ve worked with firms like yours. Let me be clear. They are not working with you, they are not helping you. You provide them a service and they honestly don’t care how the project goes - they get their money as long as you stay at that company.

    Dude(tte), I hate to tell you, but the best thing is to start searching for something new. I’m not saying within your firm, I’m saying a whole new gig completely. It’s going to feel wrong, like you’re burning a bridge, but from what I read they’re setting you up for failure. Take it as a lesson, know your limits. This is one of those things that we all have learned the hard way. (For example, in every interview I do now I ask “What is your development process like” and “What is your average workload”)

    I’d stay there for now, but job hunt behind the scenes. Learn what you can, failure the best teacher is, but move on. It’s not you, your firm set you up for failure.

    Let me know if you need any advice, I contracted for my first 8 years and I’ve gone through what you have. Always happy to talk about shitty consulting firms.

      •  Ethereal87   ( @Ethereal87@beehaw.org ) English
        6•7 months ago

        Piggybacking on the awesome response you have above here…

        I’m classic ol’ middle management for someone just like yourself. My team is comprised of individuals where they’re in their first IT job and/or first professional job. A lot of my job when they come onto my team is to make sure they have the support they need via coaching from my end or connecting them to the right people to help them answer when I can’t. I try to keep the communication line open and stress that they can ask ANY question/there’s no such thing as a stupid question/etc…because everyone has to learn somewhere sometime regardless of seniority.

        You need help defining scope and objectives basically to try and right the ship for the customer. If your firm can’t provide you the right support, specifically your direct manager talking to the customer to pull this info out of them, you can try to broach this with the customer’s Project Manager. Let me tell you though that bringing this to the PM is probably going to be an uncomfortable conversation. They’re likely to then going to question what you’ve been doing this entire time and you’ll lose some trust with them in the short term. Based on what you wrote here about breaking down as a result of this pressure, a hail mary pass might be the right answer and just get the lack of progress out there. Then you can hopefully get some structure/plan/goals to build up going forward.

        Your manager really SHOULD be the one handling this on your behalf and a good manager can probably pull the requirements out of them w/o making it super obvious that you’ve basically been spinning your wheels. If you feel like your manager can’t/won’t provide that support, bringing it to the PM might force their hand to get involved.

        Echoing a lot of other comments here, find something new. Job hunt on the side. It sounds like you’re not going to get the support you actually need so start working on an exit strategy. Having been in your shoes at one point, this reads very much to me like one of those things you’ll learn from and know what questions to ask next time because of how strongly this has impacted you. We all have these kinds of stories or situations and they help shape our gut feeling of what to say and when to say something if it’s off. Happy to help out if there’s a way I can as well!

        •  loopy   ( @loopy@lemm.ee ) English
          4•7 months ago

          All spot-on advice above. I don’t work in IT but just wanted to add that I learned that the hard way, many managers are simply not good at their job and know they can pull a bait-and-switch with newer employees. It takes a little bit of experience to feel confident enough to say “That’s not what I agreed to.” In the nursing world they call that someone’s nursing voice.

          What helped me and might help you is reassuring yourself that what you’re currently doing is not what was originally discussed, and you are looking for a role doing X. It’s nothing personal toward them, it’s simply “I am looking for this certain role and quality that is not available in this current role.” I personally hated confrontation, so sticking with objective aspects helped make that uncomfortable change.