Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#531

Post by khazhoux » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 11:15 PM UTC

GhettoComputers wrote: post #517

khazhoux wrote: post #513

Yes, your bosses have been too incompetent to notice. Yes, if you only put in 5 hours, you are not delivering at your full potential. You are very unlikely to be delivering "10x Developer" work. I have no idea what your company size is, but I would wager that the top developers at my workplace land 10x as much code as you (and solid, well-tested, and efficient code). Yes, you are lazy. I don't know what else to call…

It’s unfair to quantify it as amount of code, it might be excellent but longer programs and complexity isn’t always better for debugging, understanding, and maintenance even if performance is better simpler code that is lazier isn’t always worst.

Absolutely. I have a longer comment elsewhere in this thread to that effect. There are certainly plenty of Dragon-level bugs that takes weeks to debug, and then it's a single-line fix. A guy on my team once spent something like a month to figure out that the the race-condition in our application runtime was due to a fixed-sized array in linux kernel's library table. It was a one-line patch, and a hell of a debugging exercise. That guy rocked!!

But all things more-or-less equal, if one guy is landing 15 lines of code in the repo a month, and everyone else is landing hundreds a week or whatever, then that guy better be able to show that he is actually tackling really tough problems.

Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#532

Post by tharkun__ » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 11:17 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #485

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am with you on most of your points, but definitely not on the "normal and mostly acceptable". The "normal" part is easy to disprove: If everyone was doing near zero work and lying their way through standup about it, nothing would ever get done. That may be normal in certain zombie organizations, but those organizations can't last forever without people doing actual work. Somebody is doing the work, even if the OP…

This isn’t about dead beat team members, this is about not having enough work to do which can happen for various reasons. Sometimes companies just want redundancy and don’t care if that costs real money. Other times a team is built and just gets less work than expected and or people are simply more productive. And of course, if you actually want to make important deadlines you want be conservative in how much work th…

I would beg to differ. While I agree that some of your reasoning is valid enough I read the OP as what I would call a dead beat developer.

Its not easy to distinguish sometimes because we all know from our own experience that it just happens that you get a task that happens to have 10 pitfalls hidden in a row and what looks like an easy peasy fix is a day of debugging. Sure.

What usually is the case though is that if this happens 10 times in a row it isn't particularly bad luck. It is very very likely something else. Such as what the OP described. And especially if the manager is also overworked then distinguishing the two cases becomes even harder. Then even a manager that wants to do something can't because you don't want to fire someone that doesn't deserve it based on incomplete information.

Some managers are also just afraid of the organizational hassle, the emotional toll on themselves, might fear the overall consequences for morale too high vs. the morale impact of co workers noticing the slacking or simply couldn't care less since they are doing the same thing just one level up. What's another dead weight at a company the size of GE or a large bank or insurance etc.

I definitely say something. Many others say something as well. But we aren't the majority especially in large orgs. Usually it's known which people you try to keep away from your projects and that's as far as everyone goes.

If you really have a 10x person, there's no need to lie on stand-up 3 days in a row.

Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#533

Post by fakeymcfaker » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 11:17 PM UTC

This is a great question. I'm currently in this position, I do more or less no work other than attend meetings other people have scheduled. I agree with the point you made elsewhere in this thread, working harder has more or less no correlation with how your employer treats you, so why should I try to work hard to fix things when everyone else I work with is slacking off too?

I've had jobs where I worked myself to the bone, literally killing myself to be as productive as possible, taking provigil to work more hours, and then I was fired for no reason and with no warning. It turns out the CEO was stealing from the company (I found this out later when he went to prison) and they didn't have money to pay salaries as a result.

I've had jobs where I did no work, turned up to the office one or two days a week and didn't even try to get anything done, but acted confident and knew how to look good in meetings with upper management, and I was promoted and given substantial retention stock grants. They were throwing money at me and asking me to hire people and build a team.

The whole industry is very much like Office Space, it doesn't matter what you do, management are usually completely incompetent sociopaths and can't tell who is working and who is not, would fire you without hesitation if it would make them 2% more likely to get promoted - regardless of how much you work or how much you have accomplished for the company. This is not a question of morality, the people who want you to work are probably doing even less work than you are, and if the shareholders want work to get done they should fire the board and hire competent executives.

Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#534

Post by xupybd » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 11:18 PM UTC

raducu wrote: post #489

2-718-281-828 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well put! I work in consulting for a large corporation and they pay for me more than 1000 Euro per day. I don't see much of that money but I can't really complain about my salary. It's pretty good (not SV-good, though). Now on average I'd say I work no more than 4 hours. Some days even less. Occasionally I feel proud of that and even brag about it to friends. But deep down I feel how this is just not making me happy.…

I used to work about 4 hours a day, sometimes not at all and felt terrible inside about myself. Then I got diagnosed with ADHD and prescribed Concerta. The focus is not what I want, but the reduction of impulsivity is doing wonders. I started seeing the incompetent, manipulative and rude pieces of shit colleagues that I kept attracting (because of self immage and guilt) and that kept leaching on my time, interrupting…

How did you find out you had ADHD?

I often suspect I have something along the lines of ADHD or Dyslexia ( very mild ) but have no idea how to look into it. I've done a few online tests but end up very border line on most.

Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#535

Post by toqy » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 11:19 PM UTC

a-dub wrote: post #185

pydry wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Large companies have a tendency to throw up all sorts of impediments to actually getting shit done. Simple tasks can take 3 weeks because there are 7-9 dependencies throwing sand in the gears. This not only provides plenty of cover for not getting stuff done it also saps the motivation to get it done quickly. Like, if X team sits on your request for a week that prevents Y feature from getting out are you really gonna…

> Large companies have a tendency to throw up all sorts of impediments to actually getting shit done. early in my career i once worked for a spinoff of a very large tech company and was involved in a collaboration with the mothership, so to speak. my boss pulled me aside and explained to me. "here's how this goes. time here does not work like time there does. what happens in one day here takes two weeks there, and if…

I’ve been trying to get adequate access to Veeva Quality Docs API in their sandbox environment from some team at my job for two months, incrementally getting more permissions every couple weeks. My point of contact in that team is out all of December.

This is so I can build a POC of a feature that they can evaluate to tell me if they’ll give me prod access. No documentation or ui mock-ups will suffice for them to determine that. It must be a functional prototype. I’ve got two hours of working time overlap with their time zone.

Ultimately I expect it to take 6 months and be told no.

Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#536

Post by CloudRecondite » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 11:19 PM UTC

Many don’t put in 40+ hours per week, some certainly significantly less. However your blatant lying is representative of a small minority of people. Clearly your manager is incompetent and your behavior should be noticed and addressed. At the end the day you are hurting yourself even if that’s not clear to you now.

Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#537

Post by GhettoComputers » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 11:21 PM UTC

khazhoux wrote: post #531

GhettoComputers wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s unfair to quantify it as amount of code, it might be excellent but longer programs and complexity isn’t always better for debugging, understanding, and maintenance even if performance is better simpler code that is lazier isn’t always worst.

Absolutely. I have a longer comment elsewhere in this thread to that effect. There are certainly plenty of Dragon-level bugs that takes weeks to debug, and then it's a single-line fix. A guy on my team once spent something like a month to figure out that the the race-condition in our application runtime was due to a fixed-sized array in linux kernel's library table. It was a one-line patch, and a hell of a debugging…

Yeah it’s really unfortunate that volume is spoken of as a good measure, like the failed idea that programmers need to write an amount to be considered productive. You can hire an inexperienced lawyer for less money and have the case take longer and maybe get more money, or they can be experienced lawyers who still know intricacies but need more time, effort, and work for a higher payout.

You get a quick experienced lawyer who charged you a lot more per session, you get advice that cuts down on busybody work and your case is simplified and you move on with your life to spend time doing other things.

Complexity is a trade off. It’s often seen as more work, but more work isn’t always better.

Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#538

Post by ztratar » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 11:22 PM UTC

pdimitar wrote: post #519

khazhoux wrote: post #513

Yes, your bosses have been too incompetent to notice. Yes, if you only put in 5 hours, you are not delivering at your full potential. You are very unlikely to be delivering "10x Developer" work. I have no idea what your company size is, but I would wager that the top developers at my workplace land 10x as much code as you (and solid, well-tested, and efficient code). Yes, you are lazy. I don't know what else to call…

Since when delivering 10x more code is objectively a better performance?

Perhaps not objectively, but PRs will often be reviewed during performance review season. So seeing someone at 10x less than someone else is a major red flag, as long as the quality of PRs is roughly equal.

Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#539

Post by khazhoux » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 11:23 PM UTC

pdimitar wrote: post #519

khazhoux wrote: post #513

Yes, your bosses have been too incompetent to notice. Yes, if you only put in 5 hours, you are not delivering at your full potential. You are very unlikely to be delivering "10x Developer" work. I have no idea what your company size is, but I would wager that the top developers at my workplace land 10x as much code as you (and solid, well-tested, and efficient code). Yes, you are lazy. I don't know what else to call…

Since when delivering 10x more code is objectively a better performance?

If we're talking about point samples, then no, it's not a good measure of performance. You may spend weeks fixing a single line in the kernel, meanwhile someone else cranks out hundreds of lines of verbose but straightforward UI code every week.

And also, we can all imagine a developer who cranks out gigantic commits by padding their comments, or just being verbose, or writing bad complicated code, or even just by moving code around to get big commit numbers. I'm not talking about that.

I'm saying, if you compare apples to apples, and look at a long time horizon (i.e., look at the total of an engineer's contributions over 6 or 12 months), then I claim that yes, generally speaking, there will be a correlation between productivity and LOC. I don't see how it could be otherwise. Software is code.

Edit: Hopefully it's clear that above only applies when comparing a pure-developer to a pure-developer. If your job also includes code reviews, writing design docs, etc, then obviously your LOC goes down.

Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#540

Post by jollybean » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 11:24 PM UTC

a-dub wrote: post #332

jollybean wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" This is both normal and mostly acceptable, in my professional opinion. " It's definitely not acceptable. It's a form of White Collar / 1st World Corruption. Taking money from people with expectation of value, while not providing that value is Fraud. Just because we don't always have great oversight, does not abnegate our responsibilities towards trying to do a good job. This notion of 'I Can Get Away With It' and '…

> Taking money from people with expectation of value, while not providing that value is Fraud. Taking time from people with expectation of opportunity to build career by building things , while not providing that opportunity to build career by building things is Fraud. fixed it for you. j/k this is not constructive. if i join a company and their internal dysfunction gets in the way of me getting projects done that fu…

"The lady left her door open, how was I supposed to know she wanted to keep her furniture? What's wrong with these stupid cops who say I can't take the TV?"

This is some serious gaslighting.

Dysfunction is normal. Teams that are unproductive because of problems, i.e. 'the vehicle is stuck in the mud' are expected. To the extent the problem is known, there's at least some attempt to redress the issue, then obviously people are going to be aware of the lack of productivity, and it is what it is - these things happen.

And it's understandable if someone doesn't want to stick around, that's a legit reason to move on.

But that's a very different thing than people who are expected to do things - who do not do them because they can obfuscate and lie about their situation.

"name-calling and accusations of bad faith don't really serve anyone in the end."

Fraud is Fraud. It's not 'name calling'.

The OP has put lying about how much he does literally in the title of the post.

It's not 'bad faith' to indicate that his lying is inappropriate, and it's frankly repulsive the lengths that people seem willing to go to support someone who wants to admittedly lie about their work and get away with it.