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Ask HN: Autistic employees think they’re better than everyone

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Re: Ask HN: Autistic employees think they’re better than everyone

#11

Post by jamestimmins »

updateYourMind wrote: post #9
jamestimmins wrote: post #3

You're not working with a 10x engineer. It sounds like you're working with someone who may think they're a 10x engineer, but they're likely just reducing the effectiveness of the rest of the team. Hopefully your company/team's management is aware of the distinction. If not, you and the team need to communicate this to them (in a tactful manner). I've worked with people who were truly 10x engineers and others who just…

I think they are different definition of 10x engineer and OP’s definition is someone who writes a lot of code and understand the stack.

Perhaps, but I've never heard of a definition involving someone who writes "really bad code".

Re: Ask HN: Autistic employees think they’re better than everyone

#12

Post by lozenge »

You mean autistic employee, singular.

Whether the behaviour "comes from" his autism or not should not have any bearing on how you deal with it. (This is not legal advice)

Do you not have a code review step to prevent bad code from entering the repository?

Re: Ask HN: Autistic employees think they’re better than everyone

#13

Post by updateYourMind »

jamestimmins wrote: post #11
updateYourMind wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they are different definition of 10x engineer and OP’s definition is someone who writes a lot of code and understand the stack.

Perhaps, but I've never heard of a definition involving someone who writes "really bad code".

OP is not saying they’re the one who are responsible for the bad code

Re: Ask HN: Autistic employees think they’re better than everyone

#14

Post by the_clarence »

lozenge wrote: post #12

You mean autistic employee, singular. Whether the behaviour "comes from" his autism or not should not have any bearing on how you deal with it. (This is not legal advice) Do you not have a code review step to prevent bad code from entering the repository?

OP didn’t say he was the one responsible for bad code. Autistic here probably means that he seems better than most people and most engineers can’t compete with his output

Re: Ask HN: Autistic employees think they’re better than everyone

#15

Post by the_clarence »

cjblomqvist wrote: post #7

The title is not a question, but a statement. There are no evidence more than this anecdote to support this statement, and it's a very harsh one, putting all autistic people in one basket - despite the likely chance this has more to do with the person than autism. Please be more careful when putting out/framing your personal thoughts than this. It's the same category as racism.

I agree but this doesn’t help gamma-male. I’ve dealt with people who were producing more than everyone else and must have been on the autism spectrum. It’s not a bad thing per se, but it makes you wonder “can non-autistic people achieve as much and compete with their asperger coworkers?”

Re: Ask HN: Autistic employees think they’re better than everyone

#16

Post by badlucklottery »

I would say this particular situation is rare but the underlying problem is pretty common.

This is a management problem manifesting as an IC problem. If management is aware of this jerky behavior and lets it continue, they're hobbling the team and limiting their overall productivity. If they're unaware of the problem, they're just clueless.

Either way, you probably want dip out on that team. If you're the conscientious sort, you can tell them why as you go.

Also:

> 10x engineer

> he steals work from others

> It’s also really bad code so he’s the only one that can understand it and refuses to document or explain what is going on

10x more code produced != 10x better engineer. When people talk about "10x engineers" they usually mean the latter.

Re: Ask HN: Autistic employees think they’re better than everyone

#17

Post by mytailorisrich »

sen wrote: post #8

I think if you remove the word “autistic” from the title then almost everyone on HN would have worked with someone like your description. I’ve worked with a few. They’re usually solid over-achievers in general, and have gotten by with their toxic personalities due to their above-average output. They’re a burden on those around them but management just see the output so don’t really care. I’ve quit jobs due to people…

Some people are dicks, but in many teams the 'over-achiever' with an 'above-average' output ends up effectively subsidising others and the team, which can also rightly piss them off.

Re: Ask HN: Autistic employees think they’re better than everyone

#18

Post by terminalcommand »

updateYourMind wrote: post #10
terminalcommand wrote: post #4

I suspect writing bad code with poor documentation has nothing to do with autism. I'd suggest don't treat him different than any other employee. If he steals work he steals work, less to be done by you. If he crashes and burns, so be it.

What if he’s the supposedly tech lead who is not interest in leading and growing the team?

My objection is this, the fact that he may be autistic has nothing to do with his behaviour. This kind of labeling would hurt autistic people.

If he were the tech lead I do not think he would steal work, he'd just delegate it. I think OP and the 10x programmer are peers and they are in an unhealthy competition.

Re: Ask HN: Autistic employees think they’re better than everyone

#19

Post by terminalcommand »

the_clarence wrote: post #15
cjblomqvist wrote: post #7

The title is not a question, but a statement. There are no evidence more than this anecdote to support this statement, and it's a very harsh one, putting all autistic people in one basket - despite the likely chance this has more to do with the person than autism. Please be more careful when putting out/framing your personal thoughts than this. It's the same category as racism.

I agree but this doesn’t help gamma-male. I’ve dealt with people who were producing more than everyone else and must have been on the autism spectrum. It’s not a bad thing per se, but it makes you wonder “can non-autistic people achieve as much and compete with their asperger coworkers?”

Coding capability is not everything, the asperger programmer probably has serious problems in social skills, social life. Let people be. If you're neurotypical aim for management, earn more code less.

Re: Ask HN: Autistic employees think they’re better than everyone

#20

Post by [deleted] »

sen wrote: post #8

I think if you remove the word “autistic” from the title then almost everyone on HN would have worked with someone like your description. I’ve worked with a few. They’re usually solid over-achievers in general, and have gotten by with their toxic personalities due to their above-average output. They’re a burden on those around them but management just see the output so don’t really care. I’ve quit jobs due to people…

[deleted]
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