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Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer

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Re: Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer

#481

Post by QuercusMax »

dosethree wrote: post #474
QuercusMax wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same with me. I was the most senior dev still writing code ~every day, and there was literally no place to grow. Moved to Google and learned a ton, now I'm one of a number of big fishes in my org, and I also feel like I can potentially move on more easily if I want to.

IMO people who describe themselves as big fish in a small pond come off as extremely arrogant

Was just a statement of fact. 11 years at one company with only 20 engineers runs into limits of your scope pretty fast.

Re: Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer

#482

Post by jairofloress »

You need to expand your social circle.

You are not alone in this. As a 25y dev I can relate to this. I wasn't disciplined as you, that's a big difference. I entertained myself learning techs outside my job box.

This loneliness happens in many aspects of life. Reading is an example. I always encourage my children into heavy reading. Even I pay them for challenging books. As a result, their way of thinking is above average in almost everything.

But I constantly warn them to look for good peers, people that share their taste in reading, people who they can talk and enjoy the talking, or else they will end up feeling alone.

So my advice, expand your social circle and find people smarter than you, people you can admire and enjoy listening. It worked for me. Good luck and good coding!

Re: Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer

#483

Post by rattray »

xpe wrote: post #370
rattray wrote: post #350

Work somewhere with really, really smart people. When I joined Stripe in 2017, I couldn't get over the number of people I worked with who were smarter, better engineers than myself. It was new to me. It was hard at times (impostor syndrome, feeling like an idiot, etc), but mostly super fun – and of course, incredibly humbling. Humility is really important to me, and it sounds like it is to you, too – you can gain it,…

I'm not dismissing the comment above -- it is useful -- but it leaves a lot of fundamental questions unanswered, such as: Which kind(s) of smart people? The kinds of smarts that are like yours? What about the forms of intelligence maybe that you don't even recognize yet? What about pairwise intelligence -- that isn't traditionally captured by the term 'smart' -- it is more often captured by quotes such as "he's inspi…

For this particular person, who wants to feel non-lonely and combat hubris while continuing to primarily do what they love (coding), I would say a heuristic I might use would be "developers who humble you with their abilities, and have great attitudes". Raw intellectual horsepower will likely be a big part of that, but I agree that "smart" alone is underspecified. For example, I think this person would enjoy working with other developers with high output at a low defect rate, with additional strengths in architecture.

Different people in different situations should absolutely look for different things in their teammates.

Re: Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer

#484

Post by biosed »

leaflets2 wrote: post #450
biosed wrote: post #445

I think others have pointed this out but this is a small company problem. I was a rockstar in a previous company and then went to a FAANG and lets just say, I am not a rockstar there.

Small company? Can also be an enterprise company problem

I'm prob using the term wrong, it can be anywhere but in a small group or department it is exacerbated. With a large enough group it normally goes away.

Re: Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer

#487

Post by wreath »

lowercased wrote: post #326
wreath wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've debated working one hour less than I'm supposed to just so that I can exercise daily, but I find myself worrying that without me things will fall apart. So be it. This may be harmful to your team/company in the short term but it will make it clear that there is a gap in output and productivity within the team that must be addressed. Go lift heavy weights (im talking about iron).

Came here to say something similar, as I feel the OP's "fall apart" comment too. However, my bigger anxiety is not that it'll "fall apart", but that things will "fall apart" and then it'll be my role to fix it. If I died, I don't care. If I left the project entirely, I don't care. I've moved on many times over my career. I can live with that. But... if you leave early for a bit, then things "fall apart" and you have…

This has been my experience. It became an expectation _of my peers_ that I am the one who should step in to fix stuff when it breaks as if Im the sole owner.

Re: Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer

#488

Post by snickerer »

Dear 100011_100001,

in the olden days hacking was not only a job of producing code, there was a hacker culture. There were the gurus, the diciples, and the anarchists. It was about dediction, love, and fun. Programming is related to Zen.

You are a hacker because you love what you do. But you lack the spirit of Zen and the spirit of community. That's not your fault, it is the fault of the work environment you live in.

A good culture is one of peers who teach each other, not one of workers who get the Jira issues done.

Maybe these good olden days have never existed and Zen is a lie. But to attain enlightenment and contentment, you need the Zen mind. And Zen says that you have to keep the beginner's spirit. You are overconfident. You think there is no one who can teach you at your work place. That is horrible. You obviously are not able to teach your peers how to program like you do! That's worse. You should know: you are truly successful when you have managed to teach your peers how to outperform you.

If that is not possible in your work place's culture then you should go and look for a better place.

Re: Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer

#489

Post by xpe »

freedom2099 wrote: post #458
xpe wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your work is where you go to get paid. The end. As I interpret this statement, it seems too narrow. It is one value judgment of how one person views work. It is not universal. I don't think this view is widely held in the software world, at least in the United States.

I love my job (at least most of it) but I do it to get paid! It is by any means what defines me! I feel sorry for people in the US if work (especially considering what is done in most software companies) is such an important parameter in your self worth evaluation!

I'm glad -- that is a good situation.

I know what you mean: some people's self-worth is coupled to how their workplace perceives and values them.

And there is plenty of room for a synthesized (from 'synthesis', not 'synthetic') view; namely, it is natural and common and useful to enjoy and want to be good at your work.

Many people throughout history enjoy (some aspects of) working. For example there is satisfaction in seeing the fruits of your labor bring value to others.

I think a useful distinction is separating the quality of your craft from the inevitable ups and downs that come from working in organizational contexts, which have power struggles, politics, and vary in terms of how people are respected and treated.

Many workplaces (attempt to) optimize exclusively for short term employee output. This is short term thinking. If a person were to act in such a way it would be foolish in terms of achieving success over most time frames. It perhaps even would be immoral. Many ethicists suggest we should treat people as ends, not means.

Re: Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer

#490

Post by webmaven »

dawwido wrote: post #457
phkahler wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get involved in the hiring process. You should be able to screen candidates well and if the company really is full of sub-par developers (doubt it but maybe) you will bring that up a bit. If you need tips on interviewing shoot me an email (same ID at g mail) it's easy for a good engineer once you know what to look for and how. BTW that's not isolation you're feeling. It's responsibility, respect, and frustration. You…

Hey, could you please share publicly your tips on interviewing and spotting good engineer? Thank you. It would make a valuable HN post on it's own

Note that in my experience, heuristics for spotting good engineers tend not to work unless you yourself are a good engineer. You don'tnecessarily have to be the same kind of good, though that's obviously the least effort, and tends to overemphasize other points of similarity that are conflated with the "goodness".

Specialists and Generalists tend not to respect each other, for example. Folks with CS degrees and autodidacts likewise (though both can have impostor syndrome comparing themselves to the other).

There are also three personality types (or cultural types) suited to different maturity stages of the system being worked on (which also implies different processes, BTW): Pioneers, Settlers, and Town Planners[0][1]. Many businesses tend to collect one or two of the three types. Pioneers+Settlers is viable, as is Settlers+Town Planners. Orgs that only have Pioneers+Town Planners tend to have interesting pilot programs that never get successfully rolled out.

[0] https://blog.gardeviance.org/2015/03/on-pioneers-settlers-to...

[1] https://swardley.medium.com/what-culture-is-right-for-you-ba...

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