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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?

#951

Post by CRConrad »

bern4444 wrote: post #753

I don't think I work more than 2 or 3 hours a day if that at a large - but not evil - social media company. I've been amazed. My previous job was much more involved - easy to hit 6-9 hours of work every day. It depends a lot on the company, pace of work, expectations etc. If you're happy with this, enjoy it and ride it out. It's the best deal possible. If you're unhappy with not having enough work then it may be wort…

> at a large - but not evil - social media company.

Do such things exist?

If it isn't evil yet, it will become so.

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

#952

Post by FloNeu »

Well - if you do little but productive work that causes no problems it's progress, if you're an idiot that works 100% but messes up a lot and causes damage to the product - that's worse definietly. I mean i had a job where i was paid to not really touch anything on the actuall product. In the interview they said they wanted me to do this/that ( i think it was something like make the gambling page responsive ), but when i told them how todo it and how i wanted to improve the site - they basically said. No we don't want to change anything on this website that has been up unchanged for two years. So well - i did improve some stuff and 'researched' stuff - implemented some unit-testing and stuff - then decided to get fired (with pay) and fucked off because i was bored as hell after about a year.

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

#953

Post by FloNeu »

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…

Haha. that's pretty funny way to look at it. i like it.

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

#954

Post by timini »

jesuis_14 wrote: post #200

In the last year or two, I have not "worked" more than 1-2 hours a day on average--some days for a grand total of zero hours. The quote/unquote is not there by accident. I manage a team and some projects, and most of the time I let other people do the technical work while I get to chat with higher ups or give some general direction on where the work should go. I consider myself very competent in my field even though…

What practical things can I do to get better at my job? Ive always been a procrastinator but since the pandemic I've become like op. Very little work on job, whole weeks where I don't do anything. It's double edged sword, I have rekindled some old hobbies but I feel a lot of guilt about not being good at my job. I get by just about at work some people love my work some people hate working with me.

I would love to learn from successful people like you, is there anything you can recommend reading or any course to learn?

I'm in the middle of my life and feeling stuck and confused about working in tech. What's the remedy?

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

#955

Post by danjac »

notreallyserio wrote: post #182
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…

I see this regularly at small companies, too. They add process they think is necessary but don't have the human resources necessary to ensure these don't become blockers.

It's usually a result of cargo-culting: companies think that if they imitate what the big boys are doing they'll see the same kind of success. You also see that with hiring practices or adopting technology such as microservices or Kubernetes which are overkill for their real needs.

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

#956

Post by CRConrad »

dang wrote: post #26
pictur wrote: post #13

You have very serious ego problems. I think you should focus on that.

Please don't cross into personal attack. It just makes everything worse. Perhaps you don't feel you owe people with "ego problems" better, but you owe this community better if you're participating in it. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

Hey, that could have been earnestly meant as helpful advice, couldn't it? "You seem to have psychological problems, better seek professional help" kind of thing...? Charitable reading and all that.

But yeah, maybe you've looked into their posting history, whereas I definitely haven't. [Edit:] Also, their reply supports your reading more than mine. So, uh, sorry; never mind. [/Edit]

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

#957

Post by CRConrad »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #907
CRConrad wrote: post #898

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Maybe I wasn't clear, but I'm definitely billing for the meeting time. They're absolutely mandatory as that's generally when we talk about requirements and challenges

Ah, good. Yeah, the sentence about time tracking was a bit ambiguous; "meetings" and "work" could apparently be read as opposites... At least it seems I did.

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

#958

Post by galoisscobi »

derekp7 wrote: post #730
what_is_orcas wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Did I work 20-30 minutes, or have I been working for a day or two? I would say a day or two, and the 20-30 minutes was the time needed to produce the deliverable of that work. I would say that I do this too. There's a lot of stuff I can more or less do on autopilot and stuff that requires actual attention and finesse , for lack of a better word. I feel like management thinks that I'm good at my job for all of the a…

The way I explained it to my boss, is to give him a list of numbers to add up in his head and come up with a total. He looked at the list for a couple minutes, then gave me the answer (I framed the whole thing as a riddle). I then looked at him and said it looked like he wasn't working on the problem for the last couple minutes. He replied that he was thinking during that time. My reply back is "That is what I have t…

This is great! Wish our senior director would understand this. The man loves the idea of butts in seats for long hours and can’t wait to have us back in the distraction riddled office.

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

#959

Post by dang »

CRConrad wrote: post #956
dang wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't cross into personal attack. It just makes everything worse. Perhaps you don't feel you owe people with "ego problems" better, but you owe this community better if you're participating in it. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

Hey, that could have been earnestly meant as helpful advice, couldn't it? "You seem to have psychological problems, better seek professional help" kind of thing...? Charitable reading and all that. But yeah, maybe you've looked into their posting history, whereas I definitely haven't. [Edit:] Also, their reply supports your reading more than mine. So, uh, sorry; never mind. [/Edit]

Not at all - I appreciate your watching out for a fellow user, and the guidelines do say "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#960

Post by Viliam1234 »

breakpointalpha wrote: post #319
Viliam1234 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What you've said is clearly resonating with a lot of readers, even if they may not say so in the comments. The way it resonates with me specifically, is that I am curious how does one get a job like this. Is this company hiring? Do they allow work from home? Don't get me wrong; I am a lazy person. If I had an opportunity to work like this, I probably would do it, too. But I don't know how. For example, it happens t…

1. You need to look for a team/project with more developers. It's hell to be a solo developer when you don't also control the "promised" features and timelines. I've worked 6 positions for 5 different companies over 12+ years. Two of those as a solo developer. Neither had upper management promising things I could deliver on deadlines. I was still fairly stressed out because I was always afraid I wouldn't be able to s…

Yes, working solo is scary. There are so many things that are needed for development these days, that almost everyone has a blind spot somewhere; at the very least in the "unknown unknowns" category. (People who insist that they know everything... they usually don't, they just refuse to admit when they are wrong about something.)

My experience with working in a team is that when a team gets too successful, the management will start removing team members, to put them on a different project. (At the extreme case, this is how one can become the solo developer.) Which drives me crazy! It's like -- if you see that our team has great synergy and no personality conflicts, so we are too productive and could get more work done, why don't you instead assign a second project to the same team, so that we could use the same synergy there, too. And if the other project is similar (projects done in the same company usually are), we could even re-use half of the existing code. -- But, nope.

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