An Indian-origin software engineer sparked a discussion on X (formerly Twitter) when he expressed his frustration over his juniors at work frequently reaching out to him with minor or trivial issues. He said such a behaviour signifies "low growth potential and a lack of self-awareness."
The man, who works at an internet giant, said junior colleagues or his mentees need to understand that constant interruptions can affect workflow and reduce productivity.
"I'm disappointed when my mentees constantly message me with minor issues. This behaviour signifies low growth potential and a lack of self-awareness," Jain wrote.
"It is surprising that junior and even mid-level engineers expect me to drop everything to respond to their Slack messages, despite the brief time it takes to resolve their concerns. They need to understand that constant interruptions disrupt my workflow and reduce my productivity."
He said his job as a mentor is not to "spoon-feed" his mentees but to teach them as much as he could.
"At the same time, the mentee needs to trust that me not being constantly responsive is beneficial for them," the software engineer said.
He said while it was fun to answer “questions raised by curiosity”, it was frustrating to respond to questions that seek guidance in “simple debugging and understanding a process”.
{{/usCountry}}He said while it was fun to answer “questions raised by curiosity”, it was frustrating to respond to questions that seek guidance in “simple debugging and understanding a process”.
{{/usCountry}}“Questions raised by curiosity are fun to answer, those questions are sometimes unique and the mentor themselves don’t know the answer to,” he said.
The engineer's post sparked a discussion on X, as other users responded to his perspective on junior colleagues' constant messaging.
“There was a phase where 70 per cent of my time went into answering queries of other people… When I mentioned this in one of my 1-1s , I was told that it's my problem to solve,” an X user said.
Other users chimed in with their own experiences and how they deal with such situations.
Shobhit Srivastava, a Microsoft employee, suggested the Indian-origin man to document the minor issues raised by team members and share them as FAQs (frequently asked questions).