Episode 222: Cowboy CTO and underpaid after promotion

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Questions

Hey, long time fan of the show!

Our current CTO came in as the result of a merger. For most of his life, he was a solo developer and owned his own company.

The struggles we are facing now are:

He is not responsive at all, neither via chat, nor email, nor any other communication tool. He often says “I’ll do it” but then takes weeks to finish He has thousands of unread emails in his inbox When he writes tickets, the details are unclear for others He codes way too much for a CTO, in my opinion, and his code is a bit messy compared to the other developers

Since he is a really nice person, we all want to give him feedback that makes him understand his role better, and to avoid being a bottleneck.

I know that changing another person is hard, but at the same time I know that he is motivated to become a good CTO.

How do I help him?”

Hi. I’ve only recently discovered your podcast this quarantine, and it’s been really helpful at work already. So when I was faced with this problem, I immediately thought of you!

I have been a professional software developer for just over a year and have received great feedback from my manager and team. During my performance review, I asked what I would need to qualify for promotion. I got the news that I had already been recommended for a promotion!

Meanwhile, a friend still in university got an entry-level job offer from my company that pays more than I would make if my promotion went through. Where I come from, there are no negotiations when companies recruit at universities, so it’s not a matter of them negotiating a better deal.

If the promotion does not come through I have no qualms trying to negotiate. If the promotion does comes through, would I come off as ungrateful if I bring this up? Am I asking for too much by wanting to be paid more at a higher position than what a new grad would be paid at entry level? I know it’s not an ideal world and I feel greedy as I type this, but I just want to be compensated for what I think I’m worth. I also think that it also comes down to my ego at some point. SEND HALP