pcloadletter_

I am getting tired of web development after a couple decades. Anyone work in an interesting software development area that you'd recommend?

I'm on the cusp of going back to a job I really enjoyed that paid pretty well, but I was lured away by my current, high-paying job (for the money, prestige, etc.).

I'm getting cold feet because of the money, but I'm fairly sure I'd like the day-to-day much better than my current job.

So tell me -- what are your stories?

I work at a Big Tech company and in my part of the org I can't help but feel like the EM role here adds more of an inefficiency than anything else.

Our EM has 10 backend engineers under him. There are about five other teams, each of which is a fully frontend or fully backend team. We have biweekly sprint planning meetings where EMs assign out tickets to engineers on the team.

The problem is that between the 10 engineers on our team we're working on 5 or so distinct product areas. Each of us knows more about the product area than our EM. The sprint plannings become painful because we have to explain to the EM the status of each project and what work we should really be doing on the sprint.

Furthermore, it feels like splitting the teams up like this has resulted in "over-the-wall" thinking: I finish my work and throw it over the wall to the frontend people. This works really poorly. We have had some decent success by creating "pods" where integrated product, design, frontend, and backend teams for a product area meet at some frequency. But, we're still stuck with EMs doing sprint planning and there is no way he can know what's going on in all the pods.

In all my previous experience, I have never actually had a dedicated EM. Instead, we worked entirely in vertical product teams. That worked great. I did have managers but they were entirely people managers -- nothing about the work itself.

So, does my current situation sound... correct? It doesn't feel correct at all. What in your mind is the correct role of an EM?

My job is pretty terrible aside from the pay. What that means is, in this market, it's been basically impossible to land any job interviews for positions equal to or greater than my current pay (or honestly even close). Does anyone feel in the same boat and are just waiting it out?

I am noticing a trend, perhaps a "do more with less" thing, where frontend job postings are starting to ask for frontend engineers who can also act as designers and even UX researchers. Is anyone else finding this? Is this a normal or correct expectation?