Managers · Primly Community

what to do when your manager micromanages everything and doesn't trust you to make decisions

bootcamp_bri · 4 replies

i'm two years into my first dev job and my manager reviews every single PR before anyone else can, wants to be cc'd on all external emails, and asks for status updates on things that were assigned 48 hours ago.

i get that as a junior i still have a lot to prove. i actually get that completely. but there's a version of oversight that helps me grow and a version that makes me feel like i'm being babysat. right now it's the second thing.

some data points to try to make this concrete: i asked if i could do the code review on a small internal tool change and was told no, "just to be consistent." i was two hours from finishing a feature when i got pinged asking for an ETA. the task was assigned tuesday. this was thursday morning. i wanted to write a one-paragraph reply to a vendor question and was asked to draft it, send it to him for review, and wait for approval before responding.

i don't know if this is about me specifically or if he manages everyone this way. talking to my coworker (quietly) suggests it's not just me but also not everyone.

things i've tried: being super transparent proactively (status update before he asks), asking what would help him feel confident in handing something off. the second one got a vague answer about building trust over time.

is there a way to ask for more autonomy without it coming across as insubordinate? i don't want to blow this job up, it's my first real dev role and the company is good. but i'm also not learning or growing the way i expected to.

4 replies

frontend_fran

my first job had some of this. what ended up working: i asked explicitly "what would it take for you to feel comfortable giving me the code review on X category of PR?" it forces them to name a concrete thing instead of vague "trust building." sometimes they'll name something you can actually do. sometimes the answer reveals they're never going to hand it off and that's useful to know too.

director_dee

from the management side: some of this is the manager's own anxiety and has nothing to do with you. especially new-ish managers who feel like every external email is a liability. if you've been proactively transparent and they're still not adjusting, you're probably not going to unlock it through behavior change alone. the question becomes: is the rest of the job worth it while you wait for them to loosen up, or do you need a different situation to actually grow?

bootcamp_bri

honestly this is the question i've been avoiding asking myself. the job itself is good. but two years of this pace of autonomy and i'm going to plateau.

intl_isla

also worth figuring out: is there anyone else on the team or in the company who has a different manager and could be a growth path for you? internal transfers are underused. you learn where the trust dynamics live in the org before making a bigger move.