Disappearing for long periods of time and the giving vague updates like "everything going well guys" is not the behavior of a (even mediocre) senior. This is the behaviour of a poorly managed junior.

As a senior its your responsibility not to disappear into a cave but to do the opposite - show what you are doing, show your thought processes so juniors can learn. Discuss openly your problems and encourage discussion and feedback and show the juniors that its ok to be vulnerable and not know everything.

Then you have to keep management informed exactly whats going on, where your Blockers are, what intermediate goals you have and progress towards them.

This hits home. Had the _exact_ scenario play out last year at my last role

  > the thing they do is they tell themselves they need to almost cosplay being a more senior engineer than they are.

Isn't this explicitly written in every promotion guide? Every one I've ever read says you need to be working at X level for Y months before getting promoted to X. Thats not delusion, that's codified. There's good reason people work like that.

  > like, for two, three weeks, you won’t hear anything from them.

Two might be fine, three is probably pushing it, but a lot of times this is just bad communication (which I think is more the point). But also our field is extremely rushed for some reason, especially with AI. Sometimes things do take time. Honestly, I think the whole industry could move a heck of a lot faster if we just cooled our jets for a bit. Innovation doesn't happen by slamming your head against the wall, it happens in the quiet moments after lots of head banging. But our culture acts like we can brute force our way.

We constantly say "I'll fix it later" and we never do or do it when the problem has turned from a small one into a big one. Why can't we fix problem while they're still small? It's penny wise and pound foolish. Does your manager actually know if it will become a big problem? More than you, the person in the weeds? How would they even know? Would you even tell them? Are you afraid to tell them?

We're constantly jumping from bandwagon to bandwagon, not taking any time to even check where we are or look up to see where we're going. And we attack anyone who pokes their heads up like we're afraid we'll get hosed reaching for a banana.

Is it really any wonder people burn out? You can't operate at high anxiety forever.

sounds like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle

Yep, been there, and I will add that they will think you are not doing anything or just slacking, meanwhile you are the opposite, and creates resentment from each side, and I wasn’t doing it for cosplaying or similar, but I am too passionate about it, plus, in these situations the team were all juniors or even coop so they won’t add much. What I am doing now is the opposite, and I keep my passion for my personal work, both business and fun, life never been better!

Man this really hit close to home as a guy transitioning from engineering to GRC. The last 1.5 years I have absolutely burnt myself out going flat out trying to make the transition to the next level and it has gone so poorly.

Sadly in many organizations it really does come down to a “consensus” within the environment about if you are succeeding in the role and fit. Woof.

I liked this a lot. I have also struggled with this, and I feel compelled to suggest my own angle: this is often caused by issues that are not (just) professional skill gaps, though closing those gaps can help resolve it.

Avoiding status updates, needing to “prove yourself,” things like these, were all products of a deeper lack of trust for me. TFA alludes to this with “imposter syndrome”. I was so used to this that it took a long time to figure out. What helped me (and I wouldn’t say I’m better, but better than I was) was a few ideas:

1. Trust is equal parts competence and communication. Trust is lost when you expected X and didn’t get it, which means half the problem is not getting it and the other half is expecting it in the first place.

2. So trust requires clear communication, and clear communication requires trust in the other direction. At a totally dysfunctional company, all of engineering doesn’t trust leadership, so they're not honest with leadership, and soon enough leadership doesn't trust engineering, if that hasn’t happened already. So lack of trust in one direction breaks down trust in the other direction.

3. If you don't feel comfortable saying something that's true (anything! “I got nothing done yesterday because I still don’t really understand the problem I’m solving,” or whatever kind of thing you’re afraid to say), it means you don't trust whoever you're talking to. This is a problem—see #2. In the context of TFA, this is the problem that leads to you skipping status updates or going off and building without prior discussion.

The solution is building your own trust, which can actually be hard to do and requires some self-knowledge (e.g. did you have a bad experience at a prior job? Are you dispositionally a nervous person? Did your boss/leadership break your trust in some way already—large or small?).

This is IMO what TFA is really about, and the strategy it suggests is a great one if a bit of positive feedback and encouragement is what helps you extend trust (which is fine! It's worth knowing that about yourself) and grunt work earns you that feedback (which it might, though you can't control what other people do—it may also help to communicate that you're looking for that, e.g. "I want to see what kind of contributions are celebrated here, and I thought these might be." A small trust exercise in the context of the larger one.)

It might be something else. Off the top of my head: will work respect my needs if a life event temporarily interferes with my work? If I'm missing context on a project, will I be given help or hostility? Am I being given a clear explanation of the expectations for the role?

(Finally, I think it's worth mentioning the version of this where your boss or leadership isn't building trust in you, and IMO it looks like you stuck in a marginal role and not given a path to larger ones, even though you're clear that you want them. Sometimes you can convince them to trust you, but you can't control what other people do. In particular, if you're building something without prior discussion, consider that a lack of trust from the company to you is now creating a lack of trust from you to the company. Maybe it'll be fixed, but no guarantees.)

I have a lot of trouble reading prose that’s written without capital letters. I can’t understand why writers would do that. Nor can I understand why readers engage with this.

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