In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Hey Jamison and Dave, love your show!

   A question for you guys coming all the way from the Netherlands 🧀

   I’ve started as a software engineer in a gambling company lately and the moral aspect of it bothers me a bit.

   And while listening to you talking about the importance of accessibility in the last episode (#488) I came up with this moral dilemma: should a developer push for making a gambling app more accessible for users with disabilities or better not to? 😅

   Thank you 🖤

2. Listener Arie Marie asks,

   What are some good ways to research prospective employers to see if they have a strong commitment to ethical and human values? What are good questions to ask prospective employers during an interview? How can I be a developer and do what I love, and know that I’m not making the income inequality greater? How do you develop a lens to look at a company and discern it’s positive impact? How do you know if you’re making the world a better place?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Hey Dave and Jamison,

   Big fan of the show — listening from Portugal! (Proof that even across the Atlantic, software politics are universal.)

   I’m a tech lead, and lately I’ve noticed a culture where people seem to care way more about how things look than what actually gets done. It’s like the appearance of productivity matters more than real impact. Honestly, it drives me nuts!!

   I know politics are part of any organization, and way more in a leadership role, but this feels excessive. As someone who values substance and solid engineering, how do I deal with or influence this kind of culture without losing my sanity (or turning into one of those “optics-first” people myself)?

   Thanks for all the insights and laughs. Kudos from Portugal!

2. Listener Charlie says,

   I’m fresh out of college at my first software engineering job. Several months ago I was appointed the accessibility champion for my team. I proposed a few items in the quarterly planning session, but I think it wasn’t enough. My project manager called out our whole team, but I think it was mostly aimed at me.

   I’ve been struggling with creating Jira cards, shaping with the team, writing a11y guidelines, etc. It’s tedious and I’m not really familiar with this kind of work. How can I get better at the “other stuff” besides just writing code?

   P.S. I volunteered for this responsibility 😩

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. How would you handle a situation where a team forms a negative opinion about you from day one — without any clear reason and without ever giving you a real chance to prove yourself?

   Even when you contribute technically, your suggestions are ignored… until someone else repeats the same thing and suddenly it’s considered valid.

   Is it possible to stay in that kind of environment without becoming bitter or burned out?

   Can you keep contributing professionally — or is it healthier to just walk away?

2. You guys are awesome. Jamison, I interviewed with you and it was lots of fun and productive. Which is really rad.

   Now… I just landed a 12-month contract in big tech role. It’s perfectly aligned with my long-term career goals. My current fintech FTE is perfectly opposed to my long-term career goals.

   The question — how unethical / despicable would it be to start one week of PTO at my FTE on the same day as Day One at my contract role so that I can onboard without distractions and then put in my resignation upon returning to my FTE? What about two, three, or four weeks of PTO?

   Also… are two-week notices still the default still in 2025?

   Also also… I promise I’m not AI — I’ve been using em dashes since the 20th century.