
Episode 507: I got fired unexpectedly and breadth and depth
From Soft Skills Engineering by Jamison Dance and Dave Smith
April 6, 2026 · 33 min
About this episode
Dave and Jamison discuss unexpected job termination and how to gauge performance in a remote work environment.
In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Hey there, I started a new job in August at a large European retailer. There were ups & downs, but long story short, my weekly one-on-ones with my manager was either positive or neutral. This was my second job after graduating, so the firm factored in, I’d like to think, when setting expectations this was my first time switching codebases and tech stacks. On January 3rd, I was fired in the last month of my 6 month probation. This was a total surprise. My tech lead told me I required too much assistance from others to finish my tasks. Some part of me doubted the sincerity of my boss, since I asked for example pull requests or tickets where this was the case and he was unable to provide a single example, but obviously, like every dev, technical insecurities are a big part of my life. I’ll be starting a new job at a prestigious newspaper in May, so here’s my question. In a remote first environment, how do I determine if I’m meeting expectations? How do I gauge my standing in my team? How do I avoid a repeat? How do I effectively integrate myself into a codebase? Disclaimer: At the end of January, everyone in my department…
People in this episode
Hosts: Dave, Jamison
Topics covered
- job termination
- remote work
- performance evaluation
- team integration
- technical skills
- codebase management
Keywords
- fired
- remote work
- expectations
- codebase
- technical skills
- team dynamics
- job transition
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: European retailer, prestigious newspaper
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