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Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer
221–230 of 519 posts
Re: Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer
#222If you are a truly a 10X developer(TM pending) and this is not one of those copy-paste kids love these days, you could found your own company or consulting agency.With the huge competitive advantage you have (probably unique in the world ) : a 10-men-strength worth development capability that only have to maintain 1 family. If mere mortals have founded companies solo or in pairs, imagine what you could do with 5-10X…
It doesn't really matter how good or fast you are at developing, starting a company is a whole different ball game. The overhead of winning and retaining clients will very quickly ruin any 10x advantage you have. Side note: Judging from the story points it looks like this is a 23x developer not 10x ;)
The fact that they haven’t realized story points are like the score in “who’s line is it anyway” is a major red flag that they probably are not a 10x developer. Such a person would surely have ascertained the reality of the situation. The truth is that this person probably is above average in some aspects, but has a gross deficit in understanding the more nuanced aspects of the software business.
Re: Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer
#223I felt this way somewhat recently. Switching companies to a place that had top tier engineering talent put me in my place pretty quickly. Now I sweat like the rest of them — and trust me this is a good thing. You want your peers to challenge you, trust but verify, question assumptions. You want to cover each other’s backs. I’ve never been happier than I am now, because even though I’m working harder, I’m able to trust and lean on the people around me, and that’s so valuable.
Re: Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer
#224Is this satire? The comments section has brought out the absolute Reddit of HN hahaha
Was wondering the same. Best of all are these "Totally relatable, I feel the same" comments. So many x10 devs that soon one gotta be a x100 dev to be above average lol
Re: Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer
#225Re-balance your priorities, cut back in areas that stress you out, and evaluate frequently to see where you are trying too hard and where you are not.
Re: Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer
#226As someone who has experienced similar feelings. (I average about 250k-300k lines of code a year)[Yes I know lines of code is a terrible measure of productivity, you don't need to @ me]
Take 1-2 months off to travel. If your management team isn't run by a bunch of morons this shouldn't be a big deal. You probably want to go somewhere and you should do it while you're still young. During this time, your team will probably get a bit better. The other plants can't grow if one is taking all the sunshine.
My other piece of advice is to find a new challenge. Start a new hobby and get the feeling of sucking at something again. If you want to stick to computers, there are a boundless number of topics that you can dig into. Only start a company if you feel like you can't imagine doing anything else with your time.
Re: Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer
#227Imo you can't be a 10x+ developer without extracurricular activities. That is: writing books, academic papers, OSS contributions, GitHub projects with 100+ stars, blogging, conference talks, being in the top ~5% of Stack Overflow, etc. Merely "being good at your job" is just the baseline (and often not even an important one; rockstar engineers get fired often; Max Howell was famously not hired by Google; etc.). Not t…
Anyone with that many extracurricular activities almost definition can't be a 10x developer. Producing books, papers, open source contributions, conference talks, contributing massively to Stack Overflow is doing a lot of things that aren't software development. As they say, those that can't do teach -- and you're describing the latter.
Re: Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer
#228This post reminds me of the 'nice guy' asking why girls only seem to love jerks and how he can't get a date.
Except this is 'nice guy', workplace edition.
Just like you don't win at dating by being nice, you don't win at corporate wage slavery by being a hard working slave.
You lose by being a 'nice guy', you lose by 'working hard'. Get it? Because you'd be trying to do the wrong thing? Figure out what the right thing is, but you'll have to let go of your slave morality to get there - as long as you think lying is bad, while working hard to make someone else rich is good, you will be stuck.
Re: Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer
#229Thia post is kinda the epitome of HN being humble. Especially when each second comment is of the form "Totally relatable, I feel the same". So many x10 devs that soon one gotta be a x100 dev to be above average, yikes...
Re: Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer
#230“If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room.” I know saying this is easier than doing it, but; seek upward movement until you no longer feel like you're the smartest person in the room. I would also add, although it's purely personal opinion, that seeking a solution to loneliness through work is a surefire way to feel more lonely. You say you're big on self-improvement, but are you only focus…
I like to say I aim to be the second dumbest person in any room.
Couldn't agree more. You never want to be the dumbest one in the room. Stressful and dangerous position to find oneself in.