Comment by zdragnar
2 years ago
I had a similar experience to yours. Back when I was the equivalent to what is now staff engineer, my team got a new boss. On paper, I didn't look amazing, but I was constantly helping people.
My new boss admitted at our first review that he had written up a performance plan, but threw it out not long before. What happened was we just transitioned to an open office, and he got to see the line of people who would come to me for help, and how I wouldn't turn anyone away.
I was a little salty about losing my cubicle, but that experience definitely made me appreciate being in an open office.
Of course, I haven't worked in an office of any kind for years and will never take a job that isnt WFH again, so take that last bit with a grain of salt ;)
Have you found a way to keep up with the "question answering"-part while working remotely?
Did the culture around questions change compared with working from a shared office?
Switching to remote work also brought about a significant change in the types of teams I work with. In particular, I avoid larger companies, so there's fewer structured relationships between juniors and seniors.
That said, the challenge is getting over the hump of being proactive. I'm not sure if it was working in an office or the agency model of hourly billing plus time sheets, but I find people are far more likely to spin their tires and waste time until I finally convince them that they can ask me questions any time.
Perhaps there's something about working remotely that people feel the need to be more independent workers, I'm not sure. I'll initiate pair programming sessions and ad hoc design discussions to get the ball rolling, and encourage them to do the same. That tends to do the trick, though as I mentioned at the start, my day to day the past 6 years has had much less mentoring responsibilities and opportunities.