Hi All,

I have been working 3D game programming for a year now, and that is my first job in industry. Today I had employee appraisal and my manager told me that I don't work independently and I ask for help and two guys (seniors) they are tutoring me for the last year and I'm wasting their time. However I have worked on a lot of tasks dependently too, but for tasks that are beyond my knowledge, yes I ask them.

I asked him what if the situation won't be improved, he said I won't be in the team..however he asked me to be patient with another team member that is causing a lot of troubles to other team members and he is still in the company for a long of years!

I have already another offer from a company that is doing augmented reality, do you think should I wait to be fired or listen to my boss and do better or leave and keep my dignity untouched, in case getting fired?

Moving to the career advice section of the site.

I'm not sure exactly how to interpret your comment. The comments could be advice on how to improve your skills moving from an entry level person with one year experience into an intermediate level employee. The comments could also be a warning that you're on the fast track to being unemployed. Be very careful about that, since your own interpretation of the comments could be incorrect.

I've seen people who take one kind of comment and act as though they are the other. Someone gets simple advice about some improvements and they act as though they will be terminated. Others are told they will be fired in 30 days and they treat it like it was nothing.

I would talk openly with your boss about the matter. Ask directly if the comments about not working independently was a comment about how to improve generally, or if it were meant as a warning about impending termination. Get a direct answer. If you try to get an answer but the boss won't give a firm direct answer, treat it as an impending termination.

You write that at the moment you have a job offer from another company. I would absolutely consider it as an option.

No matter the response from your boss, I would consider moving to another company, especially if the terms of employment are better. Very often the transitions up the career ladder while staying at a single company are tiny. You might get a COLA raise or small benefit with a job title increase. If you want to move up the ladder sadly you often need to change employers. If this is your first job and you are transitioning out of an entry level role, it may be a good decision. Jobs are not permanent in this industry, and sometimes transitioning on your own when another offer becomes available is a good choice. Of course, other times it is not a good choice and you look back with regret, so there is that too.

What can I do then? He said sorry for that ( when he said you won't be in the team), that he needs quality of the product to be high,..etc of none sense reasons.

I wanna dig into the industry, but looks like there are no junior or entry level jobs at all. For example I was asking my colleagues yes about some areas which I'm not expert in! or have no clue to solve them. For example an imposter, a friend told me an algorithm then I implemented it and made it work. what's wrong with that ?!!! what's wrong if my colleague give me advises in how to approach a problem

I think my question to you be, what have you done outside the work on your own to expend your knowledge and learn new things and hone your skills on your own. I hired quite few junior guys in the last couple years and if I did not see measurable improvements in their knowledge an experience after one year, I would consider parting the ways.

I wanna dig into the industry, but looks like there are no junior or entry level jobs at all.

There are positions, but they are generally not advertised.

When it comes to entry level workers companies usually get so many unsolicited submissions from people eager for work that they don't need to advertise for them.

or have no clue to solve them. For example an imposter, a friend told me an algorithm then I implemented it and made it work. what's wrong with that ?!!! what's wrong if my colleague give me advises in how to approach a problem

That is the attitude of a junior developer.

An intermediate developer (which is what you should start to reach after a year or two in the real world) should either have some vague ideas at how to solve it, or be able to do research online to find the answers. Very rarely should they need to poll their coworkers for ideas. You should still collaborate and work together, but for implementation ideas you should be mostly independent.

An advanced developer or a senior developer should have multiple good ideas on how to solve just about any commonplace problem, and if they can't figure one out they should be able to quickly come up multiple possible algorithms if they need to search for them online. If they don't see one they should be able to come up with a working solution on their own.

Again, I would get clarification about intent. Is the boss saying "You're fired", or is the boss saying "You are on track to be fired", or is the boss saying "please work harder", or is the boss saying "here is something specific you can improve on." Ask him directly, because sometimes emotions get in the way.

it was am mixture feeling of please don't do this (work independently ) and when I stressed If not, he said in 3 months to 6 months, we will evaluate, then I said, if not, he said you won't be in the team.

he also said you need to learn much in client programming, so what ? is it bad that I ask colleagues and learn ? what's wrong with him ? he said I'm wasting their time, but to be honest it just occurred one time that a guy asked for per programming for the whole year. and I did a lot of tasks independently, he even didn't know about them, because he is a server side programmer, and the client manager who hired me left the company after three months of my employment

Why it's bad if I'm learning but I'm doing the task ? I have never left a task not done since the whole year! no one single task

what's wrong with him?

That statement summarizes your entire thread.

It does not matter what is wrong with him, if anything. You cannot change him. You can only change yourself.

He is the one in charge of the position. He sets the rules.

You can only change yourself, through improvement and managing perceptions.

Accept the fact that you need to improve, and then do so. Study and work to improve. Everyone always needs to improve. Even the most experienced senior developers have need to improve. if you are not constantly improving the market will leave you in the dust.

You have been with the company for a year. That's usually more than enough for anyone to see how you work, and what you have been told is your boss' perception of your work. He's in charge, and he's clearly not super happy with your work. He wants you to improve, and he gives you time. It's a good thing that he told you this upfront. Some people will let it sit for a long time until you suddenly get the pink slip without warning whatsoever.

Here's the thing of being an engineer. You need to figure things out yourself. That's what makes a good engineer, when they solve problems. Engineering problems are not math problems. There is not one answer, but many. The way I see it, engineering problems are the opposite of math problems. A typical math problem asks you "what's the result of 1+1", an engineering problems is "I have 10 and 3. What should I do to get 2?"

You need to figure out what you need to do, instead of asking people what you need to do. If you are stuck, research things yourself, figure things out yourself. This is part of the reason why tech forums don't want to solve people's homeworks. Don't let the senior engineers solve problems for you.

Based purely off of what I've been reading, I probably wouldn't want to have you work for me either. If after a year you aren't 95% self-sufficient and independent, and working to refine your processes and output quality product, and instead you're asking the rest of the team for help, you're really not a good employee. If I'm paying each employee $60 per hour (just to keep the math simple) and after a year, you still routinely take 15 minutes to get help from someone else, I'm paying for your time and their time, so I'm losing $30 for those 15 minutes. At first, I could justify this as a cost which could be seen as a long term investment in the development of an employee and their skill set. I would expect to see lots of positive growth with a tendency towards self sufficiency and a progression of the technical difficulty of the questions being asked, and a greater independence. If that doesn't happen, and instead I see an employee using fellow coworkers as a crutch in order to avoid the necessary pain it takes to grow, I won't be happy.

I would have no problems IF you said, "Hey, I can't figure out how to do X. I've done all this research and progressed to this point, but Y is really hard to wrap my head around. Have you ever dealt with this before? Do you have an suggestions on where I should aim my efforts?" There are a few important things to realize in this approach. First, you have identified the problem. Second, you have given a really honest attempt at solving the problem yourself, and you have made some progress. Third, you can admit that a portion of it is confusing to you. Fourth, you're not asking someone to tell you what to do, you're asking for guidance.

In my humble opinion, your boss has been really generous to let you stay on the team for a year. Wow. Seriously. That's a lot of money you've costed him in wages. He must really be all about that employee development and giving you a good solid chance to prove yourself. It's a bit shitty that he's only bringing up this issue now rather than nine months ago. You can bet that there have been conversations about you and your performance behind your back with your team mates, and they haven't been favorable. If you want to stay on the job, you need to start pushing yourself towards becoming self-sufficient as a problem solver. When you accomplish great things and contribute to the teams success, don't keep it a secret. Tell people what you did. Talk to people. See how you can help them be better.

If in fact you ARE a great employee and I'm completely misreading the situation here, and you're doing great work, then you have a big communication and perception problem with your boss and coworkers. This is an area we can all improve in, and it may also cost you your job if you don't make some rapid changes. Again, talk to people. Figure out what's expected of you. Communicate your progress, ask for assessments, try to get better, help your team mates, don't weigh them down with questions which can be googled in 5 minutes. Figure out what the big picture is, what the project vision is, where you fit in, and how you can push it forward and bring success to the team.

With no undue offence intended, based on the questions you've been asking about your personal project I can only assume that the assessment is very fair.

Not only do you appear to lack independence, but unfortunately to me it really looks like you lack the basic skills to work in the industry: if you need to ask at least 6 questions within the space of about a month and still haven't got a single basic mechanic for a simple 2d space invaders clone working then there's unfortunately no way you could make any useful contributions to a complex 3d project without constant help from your fellow employees.

a friend told me an algorithm then I implemented it and made it work. what's wrong with that ?!!! what's wrong if my colleague give me advises in how to approach a problem

Occasional advice is fine, and sometimes we all need some help -- especially when working in an unfamiliar field -- but in a professional programming environment you are expected to be able to solve most problems assigned to you without help, and should be able to create your own algorithms to solve problems.


If you've been able to do most of your work independently and correctly then maybe I've got the wrong impression, but even if that is the case you still need to improve. You always need to improve and grow, even once you're a skilled developer with years of experience. You should be putting effort into solving problems yourself or researching online before asking for help, because using your coworker's time if you weren't expected to does cost the company money.

You were given a chance to improve rather than terminated immediately: you should be taking that chance and working as hard as you can at it. Once it's been a while since you initially asked (probably give it about a month), follow up with the manager and ask if your work has been better; if not ask for specific problems you can work to improve.


This may just be communication problems, but you also come across as having a bit of a poor attitude: reading this topic and another recent one about your employment you don't seem to have any respect for your manager, constantly saying that your problems are because the manager doesn't understand, is bad, is an idiot, is giving preference to other developers, etc. Sometimes managers are the problem, but they're your boss and they can fire you; you should always start off assuming that YOU are the problem and looking for how YOU can improve. Even if it turns out they are a bad manager you can probably still learn from the experience and improve yourself.



Sorry for the rough assessment of your skills, but I hope that helps! :)