Case guides · Hard conversations · HC-01

How do I tell a senior engineer their work isn't at the level their title says?

Say it now, while there's time to change the outcome, so the review is not the first time they hear it. Describe the bar, not the person, with a specific observation, why it matters to the team, and a genuine question. Care and challenge together, then end with a plan, a date and a check-in.

The situation

Your senior engineer has been in the role for years (maybe longer than you've been a manager). Their designs need heavy rework, they avoid ambiguous work, and juniors have started routing around them. Review season is six weeks away. If you say nothing now, the review will be the first time they hear it, and that is the one outcome you can't take back.

This is coaching, not legal, HR or medical advice. Employment and health rules differ by country and by company. Check local law and your HR team before you act on anything here.

What matters most

  1. No surprises at review time. Say it now, while there's time to change the outcome. A rating is meant to confirm a conversation that already happened, not open it.
  2. Describe the bar, not the person. "At senior level, a design doc needs to survive review without a rewrite. The last three needed one." That's a gap against a standard, not a verdict on who they are.
  3. Use a feedback shape: observation → impact → question. A specific thing you saw, why it matters to the team, then a genuine question ("What's your read?"). This is Lara Hogan's feedback equation, and the question at the end is what turns a verdict into a conversation.
  4. Care and challenge together. Kim Scott's Radical Candor point: challenge without visible care reads as an attack; care without challenge is "ruinous empathy", and it's what got you six weeks from review with nothing said.
  5. End with a plan and a date. One or two concrete expectations, the support you'll give, and a check-in within 2 to 3 weeks. Without a date, it was just a hard chat.

How this lands in teams across Asia

This is where most Western advice misfires.

  • Seniority and age run both ways. If they're older or longer-tenured than you, direct criticism can land as disrespect from you, and they may never show it. Acknowledge their experience explicitly and early; it isn't flattery, it takes away the thing they'd otherwise be defending.
  • Indirect listeners hear "direct" as far stronger than you meant. Erin Meyer's The Culture Map places many Asian cultures toward the indirect end of negative feedback. There, a manager's small "could be better" often is the serious message, so a blunt Silicon Valley-style delivery can land as "you're about to be fired". Say it clearly once, privately, then don't repeat it as a drumbeat.
  • Face is about the audience. Never in a group, never in a channel, never cc'd. Also think about the afterwards: they must be able to walk back to their desk without anyone knowing.
  • Silence is not agreement. "OK, understood" in the room often means "I need to process this". Offer a second conversation in 2 to 3 days ("take time, then tell me your read") and expect the real answer there, or in writing.
  • Multi-country teams. If they sit in another country from you, do this on video, never chat. Check whether local norms differ on what a documented performance conversation implies, and involve HR before anything goes in writing. (Employment rules differ by country; in Singapore, check the current tripartite guidance on fair employment with HR. This is not legal advice.)

A way to open

“You've been here longer than most of the team and a lot of the system runs on things you built.”

The rest of the script is in the app.

Rehearse it

Paste this into any AI assistant:

Play the other side of a hard conversation with me. The situation: My senior engineer's work isn't at the level their title says. Their seniority makes the gap awkward to name, and silence turns it into a review-time surprise. You are the person across the table and I am their manager. Invent a believable person and keep what is really on your mind to yourself until I ask well. After eight exchanges, tell me what I missed.

Rehearse in the app

Sources

  • Erin Meyer, The Culture Map (2014): the "Evaluating" scale (direct vs. indirect negative feedback) across cultures.
  • Lara Hogan, Resilient Management (2019) and her "feedback equation" (observation, impact, request/question).
  • Kim Scott, Radical Candor (2017): care personally + challenge directly; "ruinous empathy".
  • Douglas Stone & Sheila Heen, Thanks for the Feedback (2014): why people reject feedback, useful for predicting their reaction.
  • Your country's employment guidance and your HR team's process, for the HR side (verify the current rules with HR).

Published by Polanyi Works · Updated