Colleague deliberately delaying code merges.
Posted by TheCollinZRusty@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 27 comments
Hey guys, I currently work for a Multi national bank with a office in Ireland. I mostly work in creating Automation Tests with 5 year expierence.
Spent the first 4 years on a large mostly legacy platform, I was able to make a good impact on the testing. Developed 400 plus tests, developed build pipelines and test run pipelines, refactored a lot of the code and switched a bunch of legacy tests to Cypress as well.
Was given extra responsibility about a year ago, Was put on a team where where we had 5 projects simultaneously working to make a V2 platform to move on from our current one. Most of these teams are based in India and the quality of the project has been hit or miss.
I was tasked with creating a test suite for this, Created about 250 tests. But had a high failure rate because of the constantly changing environment despite, this got better with time but I think the high failure rate and overall being spread thin had made so the team decided to get two engineers from India to help me.
Both those engineers didn't help but instead made a POC of different framework with AI implementation and the execs told us to wind down the old framework and use theirs.
Fast forward 6 months we have just about reached the same amount of tests, a worse failure rate, half baked agent integration that I am being forced to use. Any input I give gets blown off and my direct line manager hears about it from the India based Manager. (he understands the situation and tries his best)
the biggest issue I have is that my pull request which follow all the guidelines he sets out, get sstuck in PR hell, I have a PR that's been in there for a month because every time I fix something, he asks for something else to be changed, then disappears for a week not responding to messages.
He has let multiple PR's developed by Devs outside of the team that were generated by AI with a lot of significant issues but never flagged them in the PR. Even like clearly wrongly formatted tests.
Highlighted it with the managers and they have highlighted it but he doesn't listen. Do ye guys have any recommendations on how to deal with something like this? Never had issues with PR's before and I feel like its him delaying PR's being generated outside of his AI approach.
messedupwindows123@reddit
this is a really common tactic. people who have clout in the company can basically abuse it to punish someone they dont like. and management will say "wow, so-and-so seems to publish work that requires a LOT of conversation, interesting!"
ClimateFit931@reddit
Mark the ticket as blocked
Ack the messages you pr comments that are out of place, then just enjoy your days of freedom.
When the manager asks for a status update, tell them you're blocked by him and just wait for them to deal with the ramifications. Don't try and play his game anymore, ignore his messages and tell him on comments that you disagree and leave it that.
TheCollinZRusty@reddit (OP)
See my issue is that I took a lot of pride in being responsible for the testing, and I feel like the way things are we are seeing a drop in Process. That being said I have started trying to wind down me actually "caring" Because it hasn't been great for my mental health lol.
polypolip@reddit
Are you responsible for testing in the current situation? Is it possible for you to be in any way responsible for it?
TheCollinZRusty@reddit (OP)
Yeah but not entirely, also working heavily on the older platform which I would have a lot more responsibility for testing.
polypolip@reddit
Have you considered just letting go of the new project? Discussing it with your manager as your input not being taken, not being allowed to have any ownership, and your work being obstructed?
It might look like letting the other manager "win" but I'm not sure this kind of politics are worth the mental health toll and it seems nobody else cares.
TheCollinZRusty@reddit (OP)
I think this might be the answer, I want to help. They still don't really have enough coverage. I think your right, If they are making it impossible to help it's on them.
toowheel2@reddit
It's a hard pill to swallow, and I'd be super hesitant (or even indignant) in this situation, but I do think it's the right advice. If execs want this monstrosity which is both somehow AI and offshored, let them have it; you've probably voiced your concern in writing and if they didn't listen, the responsibility is no longer yours.
Easier to say than to do though. I feel for ya
ForeverPrior2279@reddit
Exactly why stress about it
aruisdante@reddit
Let me understand your org chart: * You are not in India. * Your manager is not in India. * Your manager’s manager is in India. * Your forced team mates are in India.
Yeah… you are stuck in an offshoring power play my friend. Your boss’s boss only cares about getting more work outsourced to India. They do not care about the quality of the product, they definitely don’t care about your career. They care about getting more work assigned to their power base. They will say yes to any and all asks even if they cannot actually implement them, they will continue to deliver broken crap, and your executives will continue to say yes anyway because they cost much, much less in salary than you do.
TheCollinZRusty@reddit (OP)
So my managers are all based in Ireland and then report to the US. The India Manager covers the Indian teams.
NightSp4rk@reddit
"based in India" 🙄 - k enough said, you're done for. They can't be reasoned with, they will drag you, and every manager/skip you throw at them, down with them. Only way is to coast and enjoy the free time until the project gets shut down.
sayqm@reddit
I think we should ban posts from people that don't have linter/formatter
TheCollinZRusty@reddit (OP)
See that's the kicker, we have had linters on the pipelines I developed. They have just been pushing through code with broke builds.
JollyJoker3@reddit
They're too incompetent to have their AI run linting. Not a good sign
sayqm@reddit
It's time to leave, you have shitty colleagues and useless manager
TheCollinZRusty@reddit (OP)
Issue is good money and tbf I get along with most of the people I work with.
Fruloops@reddit
Then stay and try to manoeuvre around it 🤷♂️
yolobastard1337@reddit
oopft this sounds like a skip level problem
TheCollinZRusty@reddit (OP)
Yeah my management know about it, and to be fair to them have tried their best. The issue is that it's a large company, lots of moving parts with teams all over the place. So Its hard for them to figure out who to talk to and how to get them to listen if you get me.
yolobastard1337@reddit
it sounds like there's some macro level plays "AI! outsourcing!" and you're caught in the cross-fire by just doing old-skool boring sensible engineering. Your colleague sounds difficult (but also, why is only 1 person reviewing PRs? that's not a team...)
I think you might be happy if were moved to another team, and had more autonomy.
TheCollinZRusty@reddit (OP)
I think everyone else is afraid of him, I've heard about him having nasty calls with people based in India. I don't have any issues responding to him which I think is why I'm getting stonewalled this way.
tripsafe@reddit
How big are your PRs normally? They should be small. That way it’s easy for them to review/approve and it’s easy for you to say anything else they suggest is out of scope of the current PR and can be considered for a future PR.
I’d suggest breaking up your current PR into small PRs if you can.
TheCollinZRusty@reddit (OP)
Usually sub 5 files. one main test file and then updates to methods. Most of the issues I run into are him being "I have a change in my PR and we can implement it into yours" then I have to wait a week for a small change. This goes back and forth and none are issues that will affect performance or affect other tests. For the most part isolated. It's pure nitpicking.
tripsafe@reddit
Ah ok yeah that’s definitely small enough. Also didn’t mean to make it sound like I was blaming you in my original comment. Was just trying to find something else you could do since they seem awful to work with. Good luck
TheCollinZRusty@reddit (OP)
No worries at all, I appreciate the feedback regardless. Cheers 🥂
bstaruk@reddit