When the lead developer is convinced the project will fail [closed]

Question

What is there to do when the lead developer is convinced the project will fail? This happened to me recently on a project, and I wound up losing my job, because I spoke up. In a little over a month, I had successfully improved a prototype, using a UI framework I had no prior experience with. So much so in fact, that when demonstrated to hundreds of potential users, an unprecedented number of them signed up for the pilot.

Shortly before the demo, a new developer was added, and he advocated using a different technology. This got rejected right away, so instead he went about porting the concepts from that technology to the existing project, and in a very effective manner I might add. Indeed, when the technical manager returned from the demo, he praised us both as having done a "great job", and the other developer was christened the lead, presumably because he had more recent experience with the underlying server side technology.

However, in the meantime, the other developer informed me, (and I believe, me alone), that

• he was convinced the current project was doomed to fail, and
• he did not enjoy using the current technology whatsoever

Immediately the project started to tank. Previously I had actually completed more user stories than were called for in the sprints, but now I was blocked on 3 or 4 stories/tasks with less than a week left in the sprint. One failed sprint may not be the end of the world, but I was a contractor (so was the other developer) with less than 2 months to go, but the possibility of an extension, if we continued to succeed, but this was less in less in my control, particularly so given the lead's disinclination.

So I spoke up, but bear in mind, only to the recruiter(s). There is a lot of other "water under the bridge", but I decided to try to protect myself by re-activating my resume on dice.com, which by the way, the recruiters noticed. So, long story short, the recruiters brought my concern to the client, and the client terminated my contract.

Needless to say, I would have liked 7-8 weeks to find new work instead of immediately being made unemployed in this atrocious economy; another possibility is that the other developer would have left in the meantime and my dilemna would have solved itself.

Hope this is enough background. I'm interested in learning other approaches to my dilemna. Not to mention, job possibilities ;)

Answer 1

I don't ever "inactivate" my resume. If you keep it up to date as a living, breathing document then it's always up to date and no one can question your motives for updating it. Even if you're not really looking.