How to get more positive feedback from boss? Advice please

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Hello!

I currently work at a software engineer, which means I spend my day writing code. I'm kinda the junior in the office. I have the least experience and thus feel I'm under everyone else. We have a development leader. He is generally a nice guy, funny and helpful when I ask him face to face.

A part of our coding process is that we do code reviews. Which basically means that someone else looks over the code and tell you what they think. Here's where my self-confidence sometimes takes a hit. It's almost always very critical, and often I feel like every possible comment is written in total frustration over my incompetence as a programmer. I know that the fact that it's internet adds greatly to this. But there are ways to be more friendly about it still.

This is especially from the development lead. Usually this happens in code we use to run tests. I enjoy writing this code. It's small and I fell ( or used to feel ) that I'm an integral part of it. But lately the dev. lead has more or less taken completely over. One time he started by giving me a dozen comments. Several dozen, in fact. Then after I had fixed or replied to all of them, he took the code and changed major parts of it and sent it back to me. The functionality was still the same, but he had changed major parts of the actual code.

We have bi-weekly retrospectives were we discuss what we did well and what we should change. I've brought this up several times. Once I just said we should try friendlier comments on code reviews. But I kinda backed down on it, I didn't to be the big crybaby. So it was quickly forgotten. I did the same thing a second time, mentioning how it felt to me like he just threw my code out the window. But essentially the same thing happened again. I backed down, nothing changed.

TLDR ; I don't want to be treated like a child in kindergarten who just drew his fifteenth sheep for the day. I just want to know when I do something right. Not just when I do something bad. Any advice?

Do you know why the lead is removing or changing a lot of your code?
Maybe you can ask him if there is a general problem with your code and what you should do to fix or avoid that problem.
The feedback won't be positive, but perhaps you can learn some things, then feedback will be more positive on future code.

This makes sense. I think the thing is not to think about "is the comment a positive or negative reflection of my value" and more "what can I learn from the comment about how to improve my code?" and when he has changed code, if it isn't clear why, ask yourself "what is better about coding it this way instead of the way I did it?" and if you can't figure it out, then ask him.

I have always found that I like questions from people I work with when the questions are geared toward doing better work. I am annoyed by questions that are about feelings among the group etc. I think those are somewhat unprofessional and need to be kept in check. When I have felt attacked at work, I always ask "how can I do better" and never "please be nicer to me" even if the feeling of being attacked was really horrible.

I agree with what Adamantium said. I also would discourage you from saying anything at work that could be construed as a criticism of what the development lead says or does. That is going to go over like a lead balloon. (THUNK)

It's possible you do have some distinct skills deficits that you are not aware of, or that your ASD contributes to a problem in your code. (Such as perseveration or repetition that don't actually improve the code's performance.) So I would try to take any criticism as constructive, even if it doesn't feel that way.

There's another thing you can do, that doesn't have a thing to do with the actual code. You can be enthusiastic and helpful, get to be seen as a team player, even if you don't enjoy that role. Team players are much less likely to get laid off or passed over for promotion. You can do things like compliment your co-workers and your boss, bring pastries to work (or whatever tradition your work group has), and so on. You might think "what does this have to do with my code?" It has nothing to do with it, but everything to do with how well liked you are.... which really, really matters.

Unfortunately, managers usually share frustrations much more frequently than praise. Try not to take it personally, since it's a flaw of almost all management. When everything's good, they don't feel the need to say anything, but when something's wrong, they nit-pick it. Trying to use the comments to learn from (whether the comments are because it was wrong, or just because your boss prefers it a different way) is your best bet. Coding isn't really an exact science - there's 10 different ways to do the same thing, some better some worse, and some equal but different. It may just take some time to learn how your boss wants things done to be able to do them according to his standards. But, the fact that the feedback is mostly negative may not mean he views you negatively, but simply that - like most managers - he's better at passing on changes than praises.

I did ask about it. I don't really think he thought there was much wrong with it really. It was more a clash of coding styles. Some improvements and changed he felt should be there, though none of it really changed the function of it all. And I've kinda realized that the guy does mean well. He's just not the best person to express himself.


I do kinda agree, I WANT to know whenever there is something I can do better. I always take the criticism and reply. Either by changing my code, or by discussing back and forth about how to do it.

My point is really that negative feedback is a good thing, it helps us get better and write better code. Code that we all agree on. Which is what we want. But there are better ways of doing things, better way to give criticism. Instead of saying saying "this is wrong, THIS is how it should be." Instead of "there is a few general things I think you can improve. Make the code more dry, keep your lines under 80 chars, there's no need for such excessive vertical whitespace" Or maybe do a pair programming thing on it. I don't know. Maybe I just have an extreme sensitivity to being seen as inferior.

Yeah, I try. It's all with the goal to write better code. I think I'm getting better at doing things his way now. Most of his comments now are just things like "unroll this (very small) loop" or "s/misspelled word/correctly spelled word" So I guess that's a positive thing

The reason why I kinda want to bring this subject up is that I feel everyone can benefit from getting some positive praise. Even if it's just a "I like the way you wrote this loop", or "this is a really cool feature". I guess we all kinda take everything for granted, and none wants to be the odd one out or something...

Oh don't get me wrong - I completely agree with you. As a quasi-manager myself, I try to make sure my employees know I appreciate the work they do. But it's easy to get caught up in just doing what has to be done (which is turning out good work, which does require criticism sometimes) and forget to do the more-important-but-less-urgent things, like praising people. It was a good reminder for me to try to make more appreciative comments to my coworkers.

Maybe there are coding guidelines which you have to follow.

A long while ago, I was a programmer. (I was not fired because of programming skills that would lack, but because of staying too separate from the team and lacking social skills).

There were written coding guidelines and there were courses or meetings from time to time in which that was explained. Secondly the editor that we use (before we feed the code to the compiler) was programmed in a way that made it easy to follow the guidelines.

Still you have to discuss why your code was wrongly written and why your boss's code wasn't. Or you could ask for guidelines for coding as I wrote above. I don't know your company's rules.

If a boss gives too little criticism (or no criticism at all) to an employee, it seems to be nice, but it finally will "bite" him in the back, like I experienced. I was overprotected, didn't learn much and finally the supervisor think that I have no organizational skills, not an ability to learn anything, have a intellectual retardation, etc. And I didn't see that opinion coming.

You will be overprotected and you won't learn a thing. Therefore I agree with Btbnnyr and Adamantium. I just learned a new saying in English: Sparing the rod and spoiling the child.

Then you could compare the code as it should be, with your could and try to see the differences. If you once find out, you will also know how to code from now on. Sometimes you have to find out things for yourself.

IMO. In the world of work there is very little reason to praise people for doing what they are supposed to. Produce something to a reasonable standard in a reasonable amount of time, your thanks is in your salary. Praise is due when someone goes above and beyond.

I think you need to ask yourself if this guy is being unfair in his assessments?

Are there any mistakes that you are repeating?

Get in the habit of proof reading your own work, to pick up errors before others have to.
(I say this as someone who is hyper-critical of their own work.)

I have te tendensy to evaluate my way of working, especially the last few months since the summer vacation.

For example I do supply management at the school where I work. It is mainly administration supply (such as paper, folders, staples, paperclips, etc.). I have designed a form for colleagues where they write down if they take something away from the supplies. When the form is full, I print a new form, put it where the previous form was, and I take the old filled-in form away. This form will be processed.

First I subtracted the number of items on the form from the number of items in my supply management system. I found out (without my boss telling so) that that may be not accurate enough. It maybe better to recount the items and put that in the supply management system (that is a bit more work, but the advantage is that the system (an Excel worksheet) may be correspond more with the actual amount of items in the supply room (where the items are stored, and to which colleagues have free access to).

Sometimes I do something, and then I notice a more efficient of better way, because I am not satisfied with the previous outcome.

We have a praising system at our work. Indeed, if colleague A thinks that colleague B does or did something exceptional, A will compliment B by writing a compliment on a yello post-it paper and put it on a board in the personnel break room.

It's possible that my attitude is a bit too 'old-school', and it's been a long time since I have had any colleagues to be concerned about.

We do all off that. 99% of my code is either enforced by Visual Studio or PEP8 ( Python guidelines ) I will agree I had some misspellings, but a new plugin I just installed will take care of those. When it comes to other guidelines there are none. And I started working here before him. I was the one who started working on the test project.

The point I'm making isn't that he should always be nice and treat us like kindergarten students. I know that is destructive. And he should tell us when we do something sub-optimal. The point I'm making is that to always deal harsh critisicm is not a good thing. It's nice knowing when I do something right too. And I think that goes for just about everyone.

And, I might be a bit over-sensitive on this. But to me there is a difference between taking my code and returning the same code, just refactored. Or the tonality of the critisicm. If someone tells me "This is wrong, do this" It makes me frustrated and feel quite worthless. It would be better if he joined med at my desk and had a look through my code, telling me what he though and what he thinks needed to be changed. It would also be more interactive than just comments on a code review.


That makes it sound like it's a lesson. Isn't there a saying that goes. "You're not gonna learn anything if I do it for you" But yes, I do try to gain experience from it. Though sometimes it's more "oh, he wants it this way. I guess I'll write it like that then"

I agree to some extend. I shouldn't be praised every time I do something. But there's no reason for bosses to stomp on peoples hands just because of a tiny ( often subjective ) mistake.

I am getting better at proof reading. I was worse at that before. Maybe I am a bit overly critical or sensitive about my own work. Maybe that's why I feel so bad every time someone points out the tiniest mistake in my code.

Aslo, I remember from my previous job I had a project leader who was really nice. It's not that he had a special eye on me. Or that he always praised me or anything like that. But every once in a while he would tell me I did a good job.

When I was working there, I was hired from a recruitment company, with the intention of making me a proper employee. So I had an interview for the company I was hired by. And before it started, he called me in to a meeting to give me a pep talk. That was something that really motivated me. I don't think he did that with everyone. Though he might for all I know...

So... When it comes to praise I think it's very different form person to person. I am not overly confident in my skills, even though I know I am relatively good at what I do, I easily get pushed over and take criticism hard. And I think a good leader recognizes this and every once in a while give that person a morale boost. Not so much that I feel like I'm treated like a fragile piece of glass. But not so little as if I were a rock either. Getting a few positive comments doesn't make me sloppy or anything like that. I just gives me confidence in doing what I do.