Who's your line manager while your normal manager is on holiday?

@thebluefox It would be the general QA and Dev team manager, but I never spoke to him and I'm not sure he knows about which dev does what

"How can we make him code without burning bridges?" - you can't. It's not your job to make someone do anything.

The important question is: What are you supposed to be doing instead of that? This is what you should worry about.

@SJuan well I have tasks to do on the project, given by my manager before he left, while the senior dev has other tasks to do on the very same projects, but gives it to us instead

I'd bring the situation up to the senior developer--if you can, just do the work. If not, tell him you need his help and you can't be successful in this project without him. Try not to consult the manager unless you have to--but burning bridges is worse as an intern here in my opinion than failure or delay of a project due to someone else's negligence.

Why do you care? If I was in his shoes, I wouldn't like that some interns tell me what to do.

@BЈовић Of course we don't tell him what to do, we don't want to do HIS job, it's different.

@sh5164 Why are you throwing an opportunity to learn something? If I was an intern, and told me to work on code, I would do it. You still didn't answer why do you care what he does? If he throws all your code to garbage, it is his decision.

@BЈовић Ok so to sum up, I was given work, way enough work, and he has work too, but gives it to me instead. I care because I can't do my work PLUS his work.

@BЈовић And for that matter, he's throwing an opportunity to learn too (he always coded in C, the project is object-oriented which he never experienced and the manager wanted him to start object-oriented programming via this project, quite uncommon situation here)

Unless it's too much work for you to handle, you have to work extra hours to get his work done, or your assigned work suffers, you still haven't stated a legitimate reason for caring. You're worrying about what you deem to be HIS job. That's not your worry, really. If you're an intern and you are saying "I don't want to learn as much as I can," then that reflects poorly on you. Whether he is supposed to be doing X, for reasons Y, is something that his boss determines, and will bite him in the face once you are gone and he hasn't developed the expertise. But that's really not your problem.

@PoloHoloSet "But you learn" seems to me as stupid as an argument as "Why would I have to pay you to do a website if that's your passion ?"

@PoloHoloSet In this case atleast, of course it's important to learn things but I still get a salary, deadlines and tasks assigned. For that matter, I learn via the tasks I've been given, I don't need extra tasks from a developer who don't want to do his job.

@sh5164 You are an intern. You are lucky to get to do real work. Many interns don't. Learn to accept a gift.

Tangentially, but not entirely tangentially: Please don't call what this senior dev is doing delegation. Delegation involves assigning a task and following up reasonable to make sure it's done to standards. Shirking sounds more accurate here.

@JimmyJames Maybe in your country or field they don't, it's actually really common in programming in France. That's my third internship and I've been given real work everytime

@sh5164 The point of an internship is to gain experience. That's what makes it different from a job. You are getting experience but instead you are worrying about what the regular employees are doing. Maybe it's different in France but where I've worked, that's called being 'a pain in the ass'. The best advice I can give you is to let it go. This will all soon be a distant memory and you have real problems to deal with. You have nothing to gain and much to lose.

@sh5164 On the other hand, you could move forward with this and have an object lesson in organizational behavior. It will likely be unpleasant but you will learn a lot.

Your senior developer is doing exactly what a senior developer should normally be doing, and that is delegating the work not doing all the work (or at least the hard parts) him/herself. If your team manager hasn't explained why that doesn't apply on this project, it's not your job to do what your manager should be doing!

Do you have any insight into what the senior developer is actually doing? If you're going to argue that you know how to do his job better than he does, it'd be good to know what he thinks his job actually is!

@alephzero There is delegating, which is what any good manager should be doing (but he is not even a manager), and there is delegating all of your own work

@CortAmmon I would never even dare to think that I know how to do his job better than him, come on I only started programming 3 years ago and only have three internships as work experience, it's just that our manager, who I trust by his experience, had to prevent him from giving us his work. But he's in holidays so now it looks like he thought "slacking season has started my friends" and started giving us all his work...

@JimmyJames the point of intership is to gain experience. Experience is not only about technical stuff, it's also about to learn how to handle stuff like OP met like that. I would not do a single extra hours for tasks that was set at start to not to be mine, if you really want OP to earn usefull experience, here is one very usefull he can make here : learn to say NO.

So, you just started programming, and think a senior engineer can learn something from you? Come on. So far (in my 16 years of experience) I never saw a code from an intern to go into production.

@BЈовић I know this is a very unusual situation...But this company does hire interns to have production code from students coming from a particular school with a pretty good reputation. Plus, to make it even more unusual, the senior dev has never done any object-oriented programming and I was asked to give him lessons on object-oriented programming. As I said, really uncommon situation here.

This is somewhat tangential, but how long is your internship, and how far into the internship are you? Are you getting paid? And what do you hope to get out of it? Experience? Recommendation letters? Something else? If it's a very temporary situation and you're just in it for the work experience, it sounds like most of this is not worth worrying about, though it does sound annoying. Just do good work and then leave.

@FaheemMitha The internship was 5 months, I'm on my last month. It was paid more than most internships. What I hope to get out of it is experience and a possible future reference.

@sh5164 Thank you for the reply (most posters just ignore questions). It sounds you have basically nothing to gain, and probably something to lose, from taking any action with regard to the matters in your post. The problems of your very temporary employer are not your problems. Just keep everyone happy till you leave.

@FaheemMitha Well the trouble here is I can't make everyone happy (including me but come on, I can take a hit for an internship). I can't do both the work assigned by my manager (who assigned a lot of work since he was happy with my performance from the following months) and the work of this senior dev. And by logic, if I have to disappoint one of the two...It will be the senior dev.

@sh5164 Yes, point taken. That does sound like a difficult position to be in, and an unfair one. It sounds like the manager is the person you have to be listening to. I think the simplest thing would be to tell your manager something like "Senior Dev wants me to do such and such, but I can't do that and also the things you have assigned. So, what should I do?" Obviously, avoid any appearance of criticizing SD. I would just keep your question as flat and simple as possible. This isn't a great choice, because SD may think you are "telling" on him, but I don't see any good choices here. Sorry.

Oh, and I see from your comments that the manager is not currently contactable. That does sound like a drag. I'd look for someone in a fallback position that you can report to. But either way, I wouldn't stress about this too much.

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

Since the mgr is going on holidays soon: when the senior dev tries to get you to do his work, get the request in writing, then get a written confirmation from the mgr that you're not supposed to do it. Then if the senior dev asks when the mgr is away, tell him the mgr told you not to. Do the work that the mgr assigned you. End of story.

I would suggest you learn to worry about yourself. You are always going to find those types of workers. You may ask how do they stay employed? Well the short answer is they are effective in the social game and do just enough to put off a perceived value. Until your a manager, focus on your work, and just report the FACTS when asked. Who knows, maybe your supervisor asked the SR guy to back off to truly gauge what you can do.

@MisterPositive "Bob, you shall watch out for this intern, do not achieve any work and let's see how much time he holds up. If he looses it, feed him to the lions" (Joke aside, yes that's a skill that I deeply need)

@sh5164 I am not following the logic of your comment at all. The main point you missed is not to worry about how little someone else is doing, and to do the best you can do. Keep track of your commits ( as others pointed out ), and at the end report what you did. What wasn't done by whom will be figured out if the manager is competent.

@MisterPositive My comment was a reference to your sentence: "Who knows, maybe your supervisor asked the SR guy to back off to truly gauge what you can do."

@sh5164 maybe he did. But again, so not the main point.

@MisterPositive Well I wouldn't see why, I have not finished my studies yet and I told him that I have for plan to create a startup at the end of my studies. If I had chances to be hired at the end I would understand but other than that it seems weird

@sh5164 Regardless of all of that, being young and new to the work force, learn to focus on doing your assignments ( work ) to the best of your ability and not worry about what others do. Eventually the slackers will be left to hang in most cases. In other cases after a while you move on to a better environment. Don't sweat stuff you cannot control.

@MisterPositive Thanks for the advice, I guess slackers will be found out eventually some day

You're now part of a long tradition in programming of getting interns to code things and other grunt work. It's regularly joked about.