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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?

#921

Post by engineeringwoke »

Karawebnetwork wrote: post #887
dx034 wrote: post #849

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure about the arguments regarding ethics. When I'm an employee, my contract is with the employer. They pay me, they evaluate me and their success is what determines my progress (in a good company). Sure, coworkers can suffer if I refuse to do my work, but I'm not there to make them happy, I'm there to make the company money. So I don't think it's unethical to work less as long as your employer is still happy wit…

> So I don't think it's unethical to work less as long as your employer is still happy with what you do. Then tell the truth and deal with the consequences.

Why? Perception is reality in engineering. I'm not incentivized to be anything other than slightly above average... people have horrible memories and velocity is very arbitrary. Engineering is a charlatan's paradise full stop; sounding smart is easy. In sales (especially) and marketing, there are real numbers that you drive. Everyone has bad quarters but if it continues, you will be let go.

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

#922

Post by theskypirate »

agagrgar wrote: post #159
paxys wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At Microsoft at least that wasn't my experience at all. I knew several people there who hadn't done any real productive work for the last 7-10 years, probably longer.

I've been in Azure and GCP. IDK how anyone would get away with it. You constantly have customer issues, people from other teams pinging you, needing help with something. I don't see how it would be possible just to do nothing and survive. Maybe in some team that is further removed from customers?

It's easy to be productive in that context. People pinging you to get help with something, that's a "positive distraction." You'll write a block of code super fast and send it back to them.

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

#924

Post by NikolaNovak »

Dave3of5 wrote: post #823
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…

Always found that quote interesting as is not really correct. Everyone is a percentage of those traits. No one is universally clever and never does anything stupid for example. It's putting people in a box which people love to do.

That's fair, but I think in this case boxing people is a method of telling the story, not the end goal; the goal is to point out how a seemingly good quality (Industrious, hard working, energetic) can have negative consequences and results if misused and misguided.

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

#925

Post by fshbbdssbbgdd »

abledon wrote: post #101
Kranar wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who worked at both Microsoft and Google... you can get await with doing little work at those companies for maybe a year, two years at most, but after that you're gone. The expectation at those places skyrockets after the first year.

hypothetically, do you think if people weren't allowed to drink caffeine or use performance enhancing drugs (adderall etc..), what % would not make that threshold of performance?

I’ve never mentioned my ADHD diagnosis and medication to my coworkers and none have ever mentioned it to me.

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

#927

Post by cwkoss »

throwaway934876 wrote: post #875
robmccoll wrote: post #867

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes! I bucket people into paddling the right direction, sitting in the boat, and paddling the wrong way. With enough momentum, you can tolerate the people that are sitting in the boat. Sometimes they have good reasons and it's temporary. The people always actively working against progress need to be overboard. Smaller teams may need all paddlers. I'd like to think I'm always paddling and usually the right direction.

I'm like OP, I feel like I paddle along, minimal effort, then sometimes I take some strong strokes and get many of the people that work "the wrong way" to paddle the right way for some strokes and I can continue on momentum for another couple of months. When I'm not 100% sure I'm paddling the right way or management wants me to paddle the wrong way, I don't really peddle, I complain and start playing around with fun…

I think another interesting aspect of software development is that critiquing others' paddling technique (code review) can be as or more valuable than just paddling yourself - it makes both of you more effective paddlers.

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

#928

Post by codingdave »

robmccoll wrote: post #867
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…

Yes! I bucket people into paddling the right direction, sitting in the boat, and paddling the wrong way. With enough momentum, you can tolerate the people that are sitting in the boat. Sometimes they have good reasons and it's temporary. The people always actively working against progress need to be overboard. Smaller teams may need all paddlers. I'd like to think I'm always paddling and usually the right direction.

There are days when I feel like I'm outside the boat, calling out to all of those guys, saying, "You know you are in a swimming pool, right?"

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

#929

Post by aw9f70gae »

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…

This just makes me feel worse because I'm a very hardworking noob.

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

#930

Post by Lord_Zero »

aw9f70gae wrote: post #929
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…

This just makes me feel worse because I'm a very hardworking noob.

You don't start there. You end up there when you can crank out line of business apps super quickly. You start as a screw driver, takes a lot of manual work and time, and you end up years later as a power drill.
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