Leave and go work at a company where you feel stupid and incompetent
Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer
351–360 of 519 posts
Re: Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer
#352You need to get back to your edge of proximal development.
I would venture you’ve done well and have saved up a bit. Take a dive off the stage into something new that gets you excited, and you are challenged. Find smarter people to collaborate with.
Re: Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer
#353“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…
> “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.
Since there are many dimensions of intelligence, the above is very underspecified.
Once you disabuse yourself of the fallacy that there is a single dimension of intelligence, it opens up a whole new world of possible mindsets. This allows you to rethink your goals and even your metrics for fulfillment. Perhaps it is more rewarding to think of how you complement others, for example, in terms of capabilities, personality types, and life experience.
Re: Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer
#354> I worry that by not being challenged I will become complacent. Fair worry. > What can I do to change things? You should switch jobs. I've been the top technical person at a couple of companies (not the size of your company, however). It can be exhilarating to be "the person". You get a lot of respect and autonomy. But it can be easy to fall into the curse of the expert beginner: https://daedtech.com/how-developers-…
Also: don't rule out an intra-organization move.
Re: Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer
#355> Nowadays people just accept whatever I say as the best way.
If you don't have management aspirations, this is a very clear signal that you should leave. Growth is almost impossible in this position.
Re: Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer
#356Learn to delegate.
Re: Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer
#357Hey OP,
I sometimes feel the same way as a director-level UX'er. That said I take great pride in mentoring juniors so if you do the same maybe it's time to think about giving back (you'll probably also find that you also get rewarded personally and professionally by doing so).
Also, at my company we recently hired another senior ux'er whom I consider a peer. She works alongside me on many of the same projects and the feeling of "the two of us against the world" is SO MUCH better than "individual against the world".
Re: Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer
#358I’ve worked with people who could have written this post with the stats and how they consider themselves, but they were awful to work with. People didn’t challenge them because it was exhausting, because they knew best, despite their constant churning out of garbage code that the business didn’t have the guts to address. That’s not to say you’re bad or your code is bad, but it’s definitely worth considering whether t…
From my experience, a person claiming to be a 10x developer probably isn't one. All real performers I knew were pretty humble people.
I wonder if this is based on a statistical summary over your experience. What does your confusion matrix [1] look like?
Also: (1) It is easy to say "from my experience" without sampling from it representatively. (2) It can be difficult, in general, to gather life experience that is balanced across all four elements of the confusion matrix. (This is a general statement that includes survivorship bias.)
Re: Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer
#359Ill tell you a cool trick: just halve your hours. This is what i do. You’ll still challenge yourself but with more constraints.
Learn to let go of things and let them get a little fucked up. It makes the people around you feel better too.
Find ways to expand yourself but not technically. See how much joy you can inject into your workplace rather than story points.
Re: Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer
#360“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…
> “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. Since there are many dimensions of intelligence, the above is very underspecified. Once you disabuse yourself of the fallacy that there is a single dimension of intelligence, it opens up a whole new world…
Spoken like a true midwit. Having had the extreme privilege of actually working with some really exceptionally smart people I can assure you that intelligence is a general trait without any significant extradimensionality. The best possible outcome for any organization that has such a person is not the crab bucket ideology you propose, but rather celebrating that exceptional person and benefiting from that person.