How well has that worked? Has it backfired?

I think you both are right in different ways.

> Has it backfired?

You weren't asking me, but I'll chime in anyhow. If by "backfire" you mean have I suffered any adverse consequences, then no.

Interestingly, in several cases, I've had other engineers talk to me privately to express gratitude that I said something. They had the same concerns as I, but were too afraid to speak up for fear of consequences.

My attitude has always been that if I'm being punished for doing my job then I'm in the wrong job anyway, so I don't worry about it.

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tyleo 8 hours ago | parent [-]

Yeah, I love this take. Very similar for me.

I have encountered people who don’t want to hear advice and repeatedly have a sort of knee-jerk negative reaction. It’s very rare though and I’d leave an org if this was the norm. I can count these people on one hand in my 10-year career.

I’ve also encountered people who have an initial negative reaction but considered the advice over the next few days or weeks and later thanked me.

	▲	JohnFen 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I don't think that I've ever had an actual negative initial reaction (ignoring them thinking I'm wrong -- I don't think that's negative, that's an opportunity for growth and learning, maybe by me). I am, however, careful in how I say things. Specifically, I'm careful to avoid any criticism of other people's judgement. I talk about the project and the project only, never the people working on it. Handling people is the job of a manager, and I'm not a manager.

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tyleo 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I’ve generally had more good outcomes than bad, as long as I don’t take on the emotional burden myself.

Some people don’t actually want advice. In those cases, the issue isn’t technical, it’s interpersonal. In my experience, engineers who refuse to hear advice tend to struggle the most for obvious reasons.

Where I’ve gone wrong is taking on the emotional weight of other people’s projects. When I do that, the balance shifts toward more bad outcomes than good ones.

	▲	dwaltrip 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That seems like a good approach.

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t-writescode 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I’ve suffered adverse consequences for it. I didn’t take the other advice in this thread, though: to not put emotional investment into it.

	▲	nomel 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		To me > You shouldn’t ignore a problem when you’re in a position to help. is incompatible with > not put emotional investment into it I'll only help because I care (maybe it's the person, the larger goal, etc). To me, everything behind the experience that I call "care" is an emotional one. If I don't care, then that means it doesn't matter to me, which literally means there's no emotional response/motivation to do it. Is this odd?