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

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

#891

Post by viceroyalbean »

codebolt wrote: post #799
therealdrag0 wrote: post #711

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I once had a coworker who I KNEW was under performing. They went from 'normal' output to just checking in and out. It was pretty frustrating and de-moralizing as it felt like they weren't pulling their weight. Among teams there is a social contract, it's not all just between an employee and the company, it also impacts your coworkers.

Agreed. Really surprised by most of the answers here. On my team, someone like the OP would be found out fast and wouldn't last long.

My interpretation is that most of the people replying are giving the OP the benefit of the doubt regarding productivity, considering OP never mentions anything concretely other than having acceptable performance reviews and isn't jumping between workplaces every 6 months. It's hard to know if they mean "I write code and close all my tickets in 10 hours every week" or if they mean "I touch my work computer twice a week and spend the rest of the time on youtube and playing video games". Depending on what you assume the response would therefore be "yikes" in the latter case or "well, not all programming work is typing code" in the former.

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

#892

Post by J-dawg »

1991g wrote: post #181
J-dawg wrote: post #57

I'm a pretty useless developer who does about the same amount of real work as you per week. I also often don't understand the technical details other developers discuss in meetings. I am generally quite open about my lack of aptitude, as I result I've never really been promoted, I've just bounced around between different junior roles. It always seems obvious that I'm the most junior member of any team I'm on, but I'm…

> I also often don't understand the technical details other developers discuss in meetings. I often worry about this, but unless you're at the Staff+ level, I think the chances of you knowing the intricate details of ~other~ peoples' work is low. And that's probably not a problem. > makes me wish I'd tried a bit harder at bullshitting. Honestly, I'd highly encourage it (a little). Being able to market yourself and yo…

Thanks for the encouragement. I'm going to try a little harder to do some 'self-marketing'

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

#893

Post by stopglobalism »

spurgu wrote: post #601
stopglobalism wrote: post #463

I think 5 hours of 100% engaged, mentally intense work is about all that can be expected from a person in a day. After 5-6 hours of mentally intense work, there are diminishing returns. Therefore, I think about 6 hours/day are what should be expected from a developer, including 30-60 minutes of meetings/admin work. Though some companies might need another hour or two-- hopefully such extra time is not mentally intens…

Huh, why were you flagged? I "vouched". Anyways that's interesting. I actually did a personal study during the course of 1-2 weeks a couple of years ago. I kept track of how long I felt like I could give my undivided focus to my work and found that the number was 5.5 hours on average. People will be different of course, but that's as long as I felt I'd feel good claiming to have given it 100%. Given that I had to wor…

HN is weird about flagging. I'm a bit skeptical about the folks who flag things on this platform-- they are biased and may even have an agenda. Fortunately looks like my original reply has been unflagged.

That's fantastic about your personal research into the matter of length of time of sustained focus.

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

#894

Post by arendtio »

In my experience, programmers who code 8 hours straight produce code of mediocre quality (at best). I mean, we all know the discussion about lines of code. Writing less code to solve the same problem with the same readability is preferable. So thinking is actually a good part of the process.

IMHO even the best coders don't code only. I think the important part is what you do with the time you don't code. If you watch TV you are probably lazy (it keeps your mind busy). If you sit in a distraction free environment and think about the problems you want to solve for your company, you are probably the most productive person in the company ;-)

Probably you are doing something in between, but even taking a walk can be incredible productive.

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

#895

Post by pvillano »

ploxiln wrote: post #717

> Do people regularly run into coworkers like me during their career and simply ignore it because they find it too awkward to criticize them? Have I just been incredibly lucky and every boss I have had is too incompetent to notice? Do I have imposter syndrome and I am actually a 10x developer whose laziness makes them a 1x developer? Lazy developers don't really bother me, if you do a couple hours of high-quality wor…

Limited to my participation in Advent of Code, I am clever and stupid.

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

#897

Post by 10hr »

neilk wrote: post #812
10hr wrote: post #768

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not OP, but I am similar to him in that I cheated/got carried through CS, have produced very little, and now have ~$900k in my 20s. I'm short, male, not physically attractive, but not overweight. People enjoy having me around on the team; I'm a citizen of the country, so not worried about getting kicked out if I'm canned I've also never stayed somewhere 2+ years I almost exited the industry this year, but I'm goi…

Well, good on you for getting so far so quickly. Did you accumulate 900K in wages, options, or through blockchain speculation? Not sure how you could get to 900K so quickly.

Mostly blockchain, with initial capital from wages

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

#898

Post by CRConrad »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #173

I've been there. Maybe not 5 hours a week but certainly 10. I was in a small company that got acquired, and the organizational bloat really killed my productivity. Having to deal with paperwork for payroll and pointless meetings was a distraction from the actual work. I think this contributed to a creeping burnout, which led to me actually working 10 to 25 (tops) hours per week for maybe a year or two. Eventually I w…

> I only run my time tracker when I'm actually working, and in a week I might have 2 to 4 hours of meetings

Are the meetings mandatory for getting your work done? If not, skip them. (If you're tempted to reply "I can't", they're mandatory.) If they are, they're work, so run your timer.

Same goes for a lot of other stuff you're probably doing and not timing.

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

#900

Post by icedchai »

theshrike79 wrote: post #788
mattowen_uk wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adding my voice to this one. I think a lot of work 'normal people' i.e. the PMs the non-technical management, the sales people etc. really don't get how we techies work. Because they have to do 'active' work all day long to keep on top, they think everyone is like that, where in reality we are really efficient in short bursts. I can ponder a deliverable for days and then just churn it out over a few hours, only takin…

The other disconnect is that they can do their work in 30-60 minute bursts (meetings). We cannot. Some things require multiple hours of uninterrupted concentration and if my calendar looks like someone fired a shotgun filled with 30 minute meetings at it, I can't achieve that.

I sometimes feel like I'm trying to squeeze "real work" in between meetings and other interruptions. It's almost absurd.
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