How to deal with incompetent lead from another team that you need?
Posted by mpanase@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 23 comments
Hi,
I'm the lead of a team A. The team is purely frontend right now.
There's also team B, which is purely backend and infra.
I know that this way of splitting teams is silly, but honestly that's where we are. I'm trying to make a change, but don't see it happening any time soon.
There's a few new features that the CTO and of Head of Product want implemented. They all require team B to work on them as well.
First, we need to design them: APIs, infra, etc.
Problem: the lead of team B has traditionally been the architect. Essentially taking a screenshot of the AWS recommended way, tbh.
Problem: the lead of team B is just not good at his job. Just so you get an idea: the rest of devs think that he has 2 jobs (we ar efully remote) and never does anything that's not purely AI generated. I can confirm that every time I work with him, he just doesn't know what he is talking about; he only sounds like he knows what he is saying on presentations, and crumbles with literally any question you ask him (I think he is just reading AI-generated text).
Additionally, it might be worth highlighting that team B does have a couple of very competent people.
How do you deal with these leads?
wrex1816@reddit
Regardless of the skill issues or not, you're description makes this sound like you've got far too much personal feeling wrapped up in all this than you really should, while still trying to remain professional.
I'm 50/50 on this one. I understand sometimes working with other teams and personalities is a challenge but you're a team lead too. The fact you can't play nice here and don't seem to have to soft skills to work through this in a professional manner regardless of what personal feelings you hold or how good/bad the other team is, is a red flag on your part.
If the other guy seriously does have a major skill issue, well, you can't change that, you can only do your part and try to guide him/his team in the right direction by offering good solutions, this making it easy for them..
I'm just getting the impression that you're coming across with a lot of attitude. When I've seen that happen, often the issue isn't really that the other team lacks skill, it that they lack the will to really work with someone they know will be difficult and condescending. That's why you get minimal effort from them.
Like I said, I'm 50/50 on which one it is because this is reddit and I'm obviously not there, but some food for thought of you genuinely want to work well with the other team and this isn't just a vent of how everyone but you is an idiot.
SmellyButtHammer@reddit
I got the same vibes reading the post. The reply with just question marks solidified it.
mpanase@reddit (OP)
???
wrex1816@reddit
The information is all there above. You may need to drop the ego a bit.
whataterriblefailure@reddit
damn, such insight
don't be a dick
CanIhazCooKIenOw@reddit
You book working sessions to start the work and stop waisting energy in understanding if he has one or two jobs or reading from AI or not.
mpanase@reddit (OP)
That's what I've done with him in the past.
I ended up doing his job (which is not nice for either of us) and implemeting it (each their side of it) together with his team. With daily progress updates.
A couple weeks after the job was done he called a meeting with 12-ish people, in which he spent 1 hour describing a proposal to tackle the same problem with the same solution that had already been implemented. Some people asked questions, and he immediately crumbled; I don't think he understood what he was explaining, tbh. Some people reached out in private during the call asking me "Is this not what you guys have already implemented and deployed?". I couldn't understand what his intention withthe meeting was.
Maybe I'm too concerned about working normally and exposing the guy, "creating" an issue?
Isogash@reddit
You're a bit too concerned, just work with it and worry about whether or not you're communicating that you're doing a good job personally, and escalating blockers rather than only dealing with them yourself.
PsychologicalCell928@reddit
Depending upon market conditions where you live/work - we always found it effective to have incompetent people recruited to a competitor!
;)
arstarsta@reddit
I found it more effective to work for the competitor myself and let the inefficiency die.
BeenThere11@reddit
Put the ball in his court constantly. Dependencies amd delivery. Document. Keep doing again and again in an automated way and raise to cto and product till they understand the bottleneck
Sykah@reddit
Think that setup is strange and I'm the opposite I lead a team of 7 BE devs, theirs 2 FE Devs who work on their own projects and each are essentially their own team. (CTO won't let me merge the teams, the CTO is an ex FE Dev)
My solution is to raise work for them in the system that relates to your work and when the eventually don't do it, raise it up to person above you. Easiest way to remove a work obstacles is to build a case for its removal
throwaway_0x90@reddit
If I were Team-A Lead, I would focus exclusively on what actions, or lack thereof, result in negativity impacting my team's ability to deliver on time.
MapLarge614@reddit
BusEquivalent9605@reddit
lol - we just had a meeting where we were all like “shit…we’re gonna need to ask them to do something. no way around it. 🤦♂️”
WorkFrmHomeAstronuat@reddit
Make it clear to everyone that they're blocking you. You can't consume a backend that doesn't exist.
Medium_Chemist_4032@reddit
You have access to their codes? Spend a day prompting it directly. Then use that to ask on a public channel, not directly, just hint at a solution. Often they think they got it themselves
testeraway@reddit
I've been dealing with similar situations for a long time. Mostly management, but leads as well who continuously make poor choices. This leaves us having the same meetings over and over again facing the same problems for years.
I think all you can do is protect yourself. You can try to guide him in the right direction if you think it's worthwhile, but you may just end up driving yourself insane. Especially if other people think he's good. The people who are competent on his team likely know that he isn't great. His manager is either also incompetent, or doesn't care.
All you can do is voice your opinions and try to communicate the stronger path forward. If they side with the other lead, then just document that's the direction that has been chosen, review what has been discussed, etc. CYA type of thing.
Curious if you have more of a concrete example?
ArtSpeaker@reddit
The best you can do, really is report to team B'd bosses. manager, CTO, head of product. Then it's up to them if the work is good enough. Then you grit your teeth and do you best with what you have.
ryzen98@reddit
change teams or company
rcls0053@reddit
So the lead has become a bottleneck? Can anyone else do the architectural planning? Just have someone pitch the design in a meeting where you decide the contract (interfaces) for these new features. Then have their team devs implement them, once everyone has agreed that this is the way to go. No need for him to be the one who has the say.
crankyguy13@reddit
It’s not complicated. You can either work around him, find a way to get him out of the picture, or just live with it. Which one you choose depends on your tolerance for the fallout.
mxldevs@reddit
Give them full responsibility of the project. If they succeed, they get all the bonus and credit.
When they fail, they fail hard.