Colleague on a different tech-stack has been made redundant, is it wrong to speak to boss about training? [closed]

manpreet Best Answer 2 years ago

I recently discovered that a colleague is being made redundant. I do not speak often with this person but I have always felt sympathy because he is the sole developer on a different technology stack, which noone else knows - including our boss. So he has had no real support.

My colleague works as a PHP developer, but most of our software is C# ASP.NET MVC. The product he has been working on does not make money, so there's a business case to be made for the redundancy, but there are plenty of new products coming up in the future, and we are hiring developers for the .NET stack, which my colleague does not know.

My impression is that the boss isn't satisfied with my colleague's performance, but my boss lacks the technical ability to help or advise him. In fact the boss has only database/SQL skill and is unable to help anyone on a technical level, but knows enough to be dangerous.

I would be willing to help train this person on the .NET stack, I am a confident Senior full stack developer with over 10 years of experience. I feel most of the motivation for the redundancy is because my colleague isn't liked by his boss. Yet I feel the under-performance is a result of not having the right support structure in the company.

For my colleague to be "saved" an idea is forming in my head that I would take responsibility for this person, train them up on .NET and give them the support structure they've been sorely missing. The thing is, I've never been interested in management, and my people skills aren't great, yet they are surely better than the person who has decided to make this redundancy.

I suspect the boss does not have a good relationship with my colleague because of the tension caused by his inability to understand or help. My boss has a vindictive streak and I suspect would be glad to see my colleague gone. I feel like I'm being a spectator to gross unfairness. Should I approach this topic with the boss, or keep quiet and be glad I have a job?

manpreet 2 years ago

Doing the right thing is often not easy.

But, before talking to anyone else I would discuss the matter with the collegue in question: does he want to be trained by you? Is he even interested in learning new tech? It is imperative not to be pushy, because you can end up between the nail and the hammer.

Given that your collegue is interested and willing to learn - I would definitely talk to the manager and offer such training. It is not only beneficial for the collegue (and a moral thing to do), but it will be highly developing for you. I know for a fact, that if you want to understand something really good you need to teach it. If there are any gray areas in your understanding of the tech - you will push yourself to get them right.

Go for it.