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Ask HN: How to deal with 0.1X programmer colleagues?

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21–30 of 108 posts

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with 0.1X programmer colleagues?

#21
Zoom out. Excluding the tech stack, do you like and care about the product being built?

If you do, then that should be a sufficient motivator. If not, then prepare your exit.

Other questions to consider: Do you need the paycheck? Is this position beneficial to your long term career growth?

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with 0.1X programmer colleagues?

#22
Mature companies can't afford being as fast as startups simply because their different size causes 1) a completely different level of decision inertia, 2) a completely different level of communication issues.

You're not working with 0.1X colleagues, you're working at a 0.1X company. If that's too slow for you but acceptable for your manager, talk with them about it; in the best case, consider yourself free to spend the henceforth-saved time doing something else.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with 0.1X programmer colleagues?

#24
Work at whatever pace you feel like working and don’t pay attention to what others do. Leave to go somewhere where 5x productivity is rewarded. Get recognized for your immense output and get promoted or assigned to work on things that aren’t getting done otherwise.

The members of your team are not reporting to you, so it isn’t your problem, or maybe isn’t a problem at all and the “big” company has enough money and people to get done what needs to get done at whatever pace is normal to them.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with 0.1X programmer colleagues?

#27
Why do you care ? Do your work and get paid, the rest is none of your problem. If you care just bounce somewhere else, you won't change them.

It's a job, if the execs are happy with the output that's enough, not everyone gets a hard on from typing code all day long.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with 0.1X programmer colleagues?

#28
Before you attempt to do anything, first try to assess whether your organization and/or management has a strong “don’t rock the boat” culture. In my experience, an isolated contributor moving super slow might be down to the individual, but a whole team moving slow is usually due to systemic factors.

Attempting to create accountability or meaningful changes to velocity in a “don’t rock the boat” org is usually a one-way ticket to workplace politics hell. If you value building things, small-startup style, you will likely want to avoid this.

Finding a good manager who is willing to give you special-mission style projects to execute on quickly and effectively is often a far better strategy than trying to deal with widespread molasses speed dev culture. Even better, typically, is moving to an organization where the culture and peers match up better with your desired speed and quality of execution.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with 0.1X programmer colleagues?

#29
Unless you're a boss you can't make the kind of changes in the team that I'm guessing you're hoping for, if you point this out in a rude way you might antagonize the situation and curb your potential career growth at the company. I would advise that you raise it in a factual manner with your direct superior and focus on what is expected of you. If you don't see an improvement then look for another team.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with 0.1X programmer colleagues?

#30
I had a working theory about this when I used to be like you.

There seems to always be a finite amount of completable work at any workplace. Let's say for purpose of your example it's 72 story points worth of work.

By completing about 30 story points yourself in a 4 member team you might inadvertendly end up taking work that could be comfortably completed by your team mates leaving them with work that is either very challenging or work that they are not motivated to complete.

At the same time they see you overperforming and basically "carrying" the team. Imagine yourself in your next job, after this experience, having a team mate that is able to do 400% of the work you can do.

Would you fight this teammate for the finite amount of completable work or would you sit back letting them do all the work ?

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