> He looks at the code and criticizes design decisions, some of which were made largely on my manager's explicit suggestions. (When I bring this up, he says I probably just misinterpreted an offhand comment of hers as a hard requirement.)
This is very hard to do and feels very unfair, but try to own this rather than say "but this is what I was told to do." If the person is a manager she isn't writing code day to day; she is likely experienced and can offer helpful suggestions, but she can be wrong or vague, or you may simply not be familiar with the way she uses certain terms. Try to discuss these suggestions with technical leaders or the more senior engineers on the team, they will likely have more context.
Make sure you're actively listening to what people are really saying in meetings. Volunteer to take notes if it helps and then review them with the participants at the end to make sure you got their key points.
When I worked at Amazon, I was really impressed by how seriously folks took the "Leadership Principles." Two particularly struck out: "disagree and commit" and "have a backbone." Obviously the two conflict with each other at first view, but on a second look the theme is the same: know when and how to listen to others and accept their suggestions, but also know when and how to convince others to accept yours.
This is very hard to do and feels very unfair, but try to own this rather than say "but this is what I was told to do." If the person is a manager she isn't writing code day to day; she is likely experienced and can offer helpful suggestions, but she can be wrong or vague, or you may simply not be familiar with the way she uses certain terms. Try to discuss these suggestions with technical leaders or the more senior engineers on the team, they will likely have more context.
Make sure you're actively listening to what people are really saying in meetings. Volunteer to take notes if it helps and then review them with the participants at the end to make sure you got their key points.
When I worked at Amazon, I was really impressed by how seriously folks took the "Leadership Principles." Two particularly struck out: "disagree and commit" and "have a backbone." Obviously the two conflict with each other at first view, but on a second look the theme is the same: know when and how to listen to others and accept their suggestions, but also know when and how to convince others to accept yours.