I need some outside perspective because this situation has been driving me insane for weeks.
I’m a software engineer and around ~9 months ago I moved from one internal tooling/project team to another completely different customer-facing project. Before leaving, I was handling releases and some PR-related work for an internal Python tool used by the team.
Important context:
- I was NOT the original developer/architect of the tool.
- The tool was originally handed over from another country/team to our India team.
- The KT (knowledge transfer) for release flow/process was given commonly to the whole team by the original owner.
- The KT session was recorded.
- I forwarded the recording/documentation later as well.
- While transitioning out, I also gave KT for other topics and assigned sample tasks to the teammate who was supposed to take over.
The actual “deep understanding” I had of the tool mostly came from handling real PRs/issues over time:
- debugging CI failures
- understanding code changes
- fixing release issues
- reading logs
- understanding requirements from developers
etc.
No one gave me some magical expert KT either. I learned by working on it.
Fast forward ~9 months.
The old team suddenly starts contacting me saying:
- new members joined
- they “didn’t understand KT properly”
- they want KT on:
- troubleshooting
- PR reviews
- code validation
- how to know what testing to do
- Azure/tox/CI failures
- release activities
At first I thought they meant release steps, which are honestly very straightforward and already documented:
- update version
- create git tag
- trigger release pipeline
- upload package to artifact repositories
etc.
But slowly I realized this was no longer “KT”.
They basically wanted me to become:
- fallback debugger
- PR reviewer
- release owner
- CI expert
- toolbox owner again
…while I’m already fully occupied in a completely different project/team now.
I repeatedly told them:
- the original KT already covers release flow
- I no longer actively work on this tool
- I don’t even have the local setup anymore
- troubleshooting depends on the specific logs/errors
- code reviews depend on understanding the requirement/context
- I’m happy to help with SPECIFIC blockers/questions
But they kept saying:
«“team still needs KT”»
Eventually they escalated it to my manager saying:
- handover was incomplete
- team is unable to handle things independently
- even German colleagues had to help earlier
etc.
This was frustrating because:
The KT was shared with the WHOLE TEAM, not just me.
The teammate who was supposed to take over later admitted in a meeting that he:
- hadn’t watched the KT video properly
- didn’t even have local setup working after months
Some of the support they’re asking now (PR review/testing/debugging) are things you learn by actively owning and working on the tool over time — not from a one-time KT session.
The latest situation:
There are now 2 urgent PRs:
- one actual feature/runtime XML export change
- one tox/CI fix PR
I reviewed the changes and even identified that the tox PR accidentally included unrelated generated schema changes copied from the main PR.
Meanwhile:
- the PR owner is on leave
- the current team still doesn’t have setup/testing fully ready
- they still keep pulling me into reviews/support
I ended up writing a detailed technical mail explaining:
- what each PR does
- what needs testing
- what tox checks exist
- how CI works
- what needs cleanup
- what release steps are documented
- who needs to validate functionality
Now I’m exhausted and honestly resentful because it feels like:
- the people who never really took ownership are now subtly pushing responsibility back on me
- and “KT” is being used as a catch-all word for “please keep owning this”
Am I being unreasonable here?
I’m okay helping temporarily for specific blockers, but I really don’t want to silently become permanent fallback owner/reviewer again for a project I left almost a year ago.
What would you do in this situation?
How do you support without getting trapped back into ownership?
TL;DR:
I switched teams ~9 months ago after handing over an internal tool with KT recordings/docs, but the old team still keeps pulling me into reviews/debugging/releases instead of taking ownership themselves. I’m okay helping temporarily, but it feels like “KT” is now being used as a reason to push long-term ownership back onto me.