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Long story short we've recently had a lot of work to do at my job and in order to fill that vacuum my boss has been hiring temp workers. At first he hired 3 which stayed for about 2 months, but after the client moved up a deadline he hired 1 back recently.

I've been very cautious about delegating work to them as they've been making a huge mess of the code base and then when a push to production approaches I'm approached about making it workable. My boss is getting a little picky about this and made a comment to me about them being here to help and I need to give them something to do. The problem is he's not a developer, so he doesn't have the perspective of what it can take to fix or patch together bad code, he only has the perspective that he's paying for them.

I wouldn't have a problem giving them things to do if I didn't know (as it's happened numerous times now) that in a few weeks they'll leave and when something breaks I'll be the one who's tasked to fix it in record time. The last time this happened a temp spent almost 2 weeks writing out code that I was then expected to fix in 1 days time.

How do I convey this without seeming like a perfectionist who just wants to do it all himself?

You might want to take some arguments from the book The Mythical Man-Month by Frederick Brooks. Although it was originally written back in 1975 (overhauled in 1995), it is still one of the most important works regarding management of software development teams.

It is most known for codifying Brook's Law:

adding human resources to a late software project makes it later

The reasons are:

• New developers must be taught about the existing architecture of the project before they can do something useful. This takes time away from the existing development team.


• There is an upper bound to how many people will be able to make useful contributions to a software development project at the same time. It is often not possible to find reasonable sub-tasks to assign to new people.

Good software development requires a stable core team which works together from start to finish.

Your manager might not be aware of this rule. So he tries to help you in the only way he can think of: Add more people to your project.

The issue with temps and contractors (disclosure, I am one) is that there is often no comeback if the delivery is awful.

It may be worth having a chat with your boss about the quality of the temps. Hiring cheap means moving the costs further down the road, but eventually he'll be paying to fix the code.

You might also ask to be involved in the hiring process by providing a small coding test to make sure the temps are actually worth hiring. Nothing too dramatic, less than an hour of work to get an idea of ability.

This ventures into general software development advice....

1) If the code anyone writes breaks something add an automated test so that you can see it earlier next time.

2) Review pull requests, don't merge anything until you're sure nothing else breaks.

3) Tests make a good spec. TDD is a good way to ensure that what you're getting is what you want. Give someone a task to write the code you need (as exemplified by the tests you already wrote).

4) peer programming might be an option. You can correct things immediately and answer questions as things go on.

The skill level of the temps is likely dependant upon the amount of money your manager is investing into them. As they are only temps he obviously doesn't want to be wasting too much funding. As you say your boss is not a developer and likely just assumes that a coder can code.

However, if it's increasing your work load in the long term and it's affecting your current work. You need to pull him for a 1x1 and just convey your issues and the reason that you are not delegating as much work down to them and your worries for the future if you do delegate work to them

You want to make sure you don't come across as if you're having a go at your boss but at the same time you need to get the message across as he doesn't understand what happens within development. If you simply mention that you would be happy to delegate the work but only when you feel safe to do so.

How to approach boss that keeps hiring temp workers only to have me finish something?

You already have. All you can do is persevere with telling the boss.

Meanwhile there is a solution, the reason you're having to redo work is because you found out it was rubbish too late. You have an opportunity to practice some skills and take on more responsibility, but you're not doing it. It's not an esoteric problem, it's just a way of looking at a problem and resolution methodology. Well worth learning.

This is one of those times that micromanaging is critical. Assess the situation as a whole (including the people, they're a resource) and make a plan of resolution, use the manpower efficiently on those terms. This is the ONLY way to do it, you don't let even experienced people deviate from your plan, they don't have the full picture, you give them small tasks and check everything they do, they report to you at every step.

The most important bit is to understand the problem wholly and have a solid plan. Then break it up into simpler tasks wherever possible and don't rely on anyone to do their bit unsupervised.