What do you do when the project you prepared for is no longer the priority? In our first Honest Answers segment, Erika and Bethany respond to a listener's question about a last-minute change of plans. They discuss how communication can make a change feel less arbitrary, why context switching leaves unfinished work on your mind, and how stopping notes, handoff documentation, and an AI-assisted morning routine can help you pick work back up. They also cover keeping a record of contributions when projects don't ship, separating your identity from your assigned work, and the loss of autonomy that can come with a reorg. The conversation turns to disagree and commit, the psychological safety it requires, and recognizing when it may be time to find a different team or role. To close, they translate some familiar corporate memos into plain language.

Hosts

• Overcommitted: https://overcommitted.dev

• Bethany Janos: https://www.trustyduck.dev
• Erika Eggemeyer: https://github.com/eggyhead

Show Links

• Molly Graham, Work Whiplash: https://mollyg.substack.com/p/work-whiplash
• John Cutler, TBM 31/52: Why Does Our Strategy Keep Changing?: https://cutlefish.substack.com/p/tbm-3152-why-does-our-strategy-keep
• ShiftMag, Do managers shift priorities to make engineers miserable?: https://shiftmag.dev/shifting-priorities-development-business-886/
• UW Bothell, Sophie Leroy on attention residue and ready-to-resume plans: https://www.uwb.edu/news/2019/02/12/task-interrupted
• Sophie Leroy's faculty page and research publications: https://www.uwb.edu/faculty/sophie-leroy/
• Jellyfish, Mitigating Context Switching in Software Development: https://jellyfish.co/library/developer-productivity/context-switching/
• Masicampo and Baumeister, Consider it done! Plan making can eliminate the cognitive effects of unfulfilled goals: https://doi.org/10.1037/a0024192
• Hello Interview, Handling a project priority change: https://www.hellointerview.com/community/questions/project-priority-change/cmlj4w9bn01yq08adp1vva9ot
• David Rock, A sense of autonomy is a primary reward or threat for the brain: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/your-brain-at-work/200911/a-sense-of-autonomy-is-a-primary-reward-or-threat-for-the-brain
• Bordia and colleagues, Uncertainty during organizational change: Is it all about control?: https://doi.org/10.1080/13594320444000128
• Glavin and Schieman, Control in the Face of Uncertainty: https://doi.org/10.1177/0190272514546698
• NASA, Managing the Trauma of a Terminated Project (PMHut reprint): https://pmhut.com/managing-the-trauma-of-a-terminated-project
• Disagree and commit, Concept overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disagree_and_commit
• Amazon's leadership principles, Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit: https://www.aboutamazon.com/about-us/leadership-principles

What does Stack Overflow’s 2026 Developer Survey reveal about software engineering, career insights, and engineering culture? The Overcommitted hosts unpack the findings, discuss what they mean for developers, and share the trends they’re watching across the profession.

Links

Developer survey: https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2026

Ed from Polytoken: https://youtu.be/YrmR6EZ5Y1U

Hosts

Overcommitted: ⁠⁠https://overcommitted.dev⁠

⁠Bethany Janos: ⁠⁠https://www.trustyduck.dev

Brittany Ellich: ⁠https://brittanyellich.com

Erika Eggemeyer: ⁠⁠https://github.com/eggyhead

Roxy Rodriguez-Becker taught middle school math, moved into the school library after earning a master's in library and information science, and then taught herself to code while raising three kids. She is now a developer community manager at Torc and the host of the She Ships podcast. In this episode she walks through what that transition actually required: the four AM club, waking up to study until she rushed out the door to a five AM gym session, working through 100Devs, and treating the job search as a numbers game with fifty to sixty outreach messages a week. She is candid about the burnout that followed and what it took to come back from it.The conversation also digs into networking as a skill rather than a personality trait. Roxy describes going to her first conference and barely speaking, then meeting her future colleagues at the second one, and shares tactics that work for socially awkward people. We also talk about the Tube Feed Tracker, the web app she built after watching ICU nurses struggle with feed rate math for her medically complex son. It grew to roughly four thousand users and now includes BMI based rate suggestions and a calorie tracker covering seventy verified formulas. Roxy closes with why career switchers cannot go it alone, and why community matters more than any single course. Plus a tiny internet troll lightning round covering course playback speeds, salmon shirtgate, and conference karaoke.

Hosts

• Overcommitted: https://overcommitted.dev
• Bethany Janos: https://www.trustyduck.dev
• Brittany Ellich: https://brittanyellich.com

Guest

• Roxy Rodriguez-Becker: https://linktr.ee/roxyrodbeck
• She Ships on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@roxyrodbeck
• Roxy's blog: https://foxyroxy.dev/
• Roxy on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/roxyrodbeck.bsky.social
• Roxy on X: https://twitter.com/RoxanaCodes
• Roxy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roxana-rodriguez-becker

Links

• Tube Feed Tracker: https://tubefeedrate.com/
• About Tube Feed Tracker: https://tubefeedtracker-about.vercel.app
• Torc: https://www.torc.dev/
• 100Devs: https://100devs.org/
• Scrimba, Learn JavaScript: https://scrimba.com/learn-javascript-c0v