Yeah, that’s frustrating and happened to me in the past too.
I think it’s pretty common workplace dynamic – a mix of experience levels.
She’s probably insecure about her work, or worse, not receptive to feedback, and that makes collaborating much harder. A defensive reaction usually to me comes across as feeling threatened, even if you have no ill-intent.
It can get messy if it turns into a tit-for-tat critique war. Probably need to find common ground and set boundaries for public reviews, so that the challenge can be made constructively to each other without coming across unprofessional. I’d start by pointing that out that it’s not helping anyone, most of all the company, the boss, the client, or yourselves. Try to find a common ground where you can maybe start with, ‘You did an amazing job here with this, and I have some ideas if you don’t mind, I’d like to suggest 3 things’ – and that’s all it should take, make small but polite conversation about things you’d approach.
Itching to leave is the worst, I’ve had this many times in my career, and it’s the worst feeling, I remember I woke up one morning and the sun was shining in the window, life was nice, and then I remember it was Monday and had to go into this flipping place again and my day just got worse from 5 seconds of getting out of bed. That is not good – if you feel this way then leave, there’s no point in being there.
If you’re not learning or growing and if you’re itching to leave, friction amplifies the dissatisfaction. If there were better opportunities, I bet this wouldn’t bother you as much.
If you want to hang in there:
Change the way you give feedback – approach first to find common ground
If she’s resistant, maybe phrase things as questions instead of suggestions. Something like “Have you thought about trying X?” instead of “You should do X.”
Some people just don’t take direct critique well.
Pick your battles If her work is objectively fine but just not how you’d do it, maybe let some things slide unless they really matter.
If none of that works for you:
Shift focus to what you can control since you want to leave anyway, focus on building your portfolio, networking, and applying for roles/companies (even if they are not hiring fire them a CV) where you’ll be valued and challenged.
At the end of the day, you want to work somewhere that challenges and respects your experience, and it doesn’t sound like this is it.
