Ask HN: How to deal with 0.1X programmer colleagues? • Hacker News Board

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

#101

Post by agg23 » Tue, Jul 18, 2023, 8:25 PM UTC

Apreche wrote: post #18

Your mistake is caring. Are you being rewarded for working much harder than your colleagues? Are they being punished for working hardly at all? Why are you working hard for the benefit of the company's bottom line? It's a big company, why do you care about its bottom line? Your colleagues have the right attitude. They are doing the absolute bare minimum to collect a paycheck and go home. I suggest you do the same. Ca…

Passion can be good, but it must also be measured. I was in a similar situation for several years where I ended up running the show. Was super passionate about the project and doing all the things...

Ended up horribly burnt out, to the point that I'm still struggling with the idea of working 2 years later.

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

#102

Post by karmakaze » Tue, Jul 18, 2023, 9:23 PM UTC

> but I would feel guilty slacking off all day. What do I do?

Raise your quality bar. Work on things that are peripheral to the original issue but makes everyone's lives better. Improve effectiveness of testing, make invalid situations impossible or unlikely to arise. Document what you learn, which is ideally done when information is new to you.

Another thing you can do is pair with some of the other devs. Maybe you can offer some insights that make their work go more smoothly, or maybe you'll get some context as to what complications exist that aren't in the original estimate.

The only good use for points anywhere I've worked was that we could measure 'firefighting hours' per sprint for the whole team relative to the stories that got done. I wish there was a way of connecting slow delivery with tech debt to allow focusing on reducing it.

OTOH I've also worked at a supposed-tech-startup where other team members were literally telling me not to work so hard, it's making everyone look bad.

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

#103

Post by trog » Tue, Jul 18, 2023, 9:35 PM UTC

miroljub wrote: post #61

If everyone else is wrong, and only you are right, what does that tell you? Maybe you are the outlier that moves fast and breaks things, while the rest prefer sustainable progress over the long periods?

Spent a while looking for this comment - doesn't seem like this occurred to many people, but maybe the 0.1x programmer is actually the OP and not the colleagues.

I'd view anyone new in my team racing through tasks very quickly with suspicion - are they documenting their work? Are they writing robust, maintainable code or just trying to tick a box? Are they writing tests? What, in short, are they missing?

The probability that we'd landed a 10x programmer (a mythical beast of which I've only encountered a few) would literally be the last thing to cross my mind.

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

#104

Post by fuzzythinker » Tue, Jul 18, 2023, 10:25 PM UTC

I'm quite surprised that everyone here is questioning your ability and truthfulness of the situation instead of taking giving advance on the face value of your assertions. If you believe in your assessment of the situation, I would do one of 2 things. Either look for new opportunities or don't feel guilty spending less time at work. Use the time to better yourself.

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

#105

Post by michaelmior » Tue, Jul 18, 2023, 10:48 PM UTC

sonicshadow wrote: post #72

michaelmior wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A "sprint" when managed well, doesn't need to mean working tirelessly the entire period. One of the features of sprints is a way to avoid scope creep by imposing a deadline. I would argue that generally the more appropriate response to not meeting a sprint deadline is more often to cut scope than to insist than to insist devs put in extra hours.

Wish that ever happened. We just add shit to our sprint and yell at devs when they are burned out.

Unfortunately, that does of course that does happen a lot. My point was that I think working sprints doesn't necessarily mean overworking.

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

#106

Post by noirbot » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 3:22 AM UTC

ryandvm wrote: post #95

This is how big orgs ALWAYS work. You have to get used to it or go back to the startup trenches. The startup pace can be grueling, it can have terrible hours, it can be unrewarding, but at least you're always working. At big orgs with plenty of funding you just sort of marvel at how so many people can accomplish so little. Everyone is always blocked by another team or some arcane bureaucratic process. It never ends a…

The other aspect of it is that with a big company, it's often much more about choosing what is valuable to work on vs. just doing everything you can put your hands on. Large organizations generate large numbers of requests and suggestions, many of which aren't worth anyone's time. You're usually not working on a project where you're needing to add new features or fix bugs ASAP or else the company disappears. The low-hanging fruit of time spent to value created has already been picked years or decades ago.

Ironically, part of the point of having so many people accomplish so little is agility. It's the HR equivalent of owning a gigabit internet line when you're mostly browsing HN and checking your email. Most of the time, it's a waste and no doing anything for you, but when you need it, you don't want to be calling your ISP to try to upgrade. Having tens of "hot spare" engineers who are already used to the product and system who can jump on a big product need on a week's notice can be worth paying them the rest of the time to do very little.

It doesn't mean you're going to feel like you're solving amazing problems every day, but it doesn't mean those other engineers aren't sharp people who can get through a meaningful ticket when it needs to be done. They just know when it doesn't need to be done.

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

#107

Post by noirbot » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 3:30 AM UTC

ojhughes wrote: post #85

Apreche wrote: post #18

Your mistake is caring. Are you being rewarded for working much harder than your colleagues? Are they being punished for working hardly at all? Why are you working hard for the benefit of the company's bottom line? It's a big company, why do you care about its bottom line? Your colleagues have the right attitude. They are doing the absolute bare minimum to collect a paycheck and go home. I suggest you do the same. Ca…

This is a terrible take, if you are passionate about your work then those 8 hours go a whole lot quicker. If you’re not passionate then I would question if the position is a good fit

I don't think you necessarily disagree with them. The issue is most people don't have the option to find a position that's a good fit. Or you find out the companies with a mission you're passionate about have a work culture that you're not.

If you're only working places you're passionate about, you're really winnowing the field of possible employers. I say this as someone who's working at a company I generally respect and am passionate about the product of - I think more than most of my friends who work in the field are about their work. If I wanted another job, there's not a huge pool of companies I would even want to apply to.

If I lose my job, or quit, then I'm often going to need to apply and work somewhere that's not a good fit. I can hold out for a bit without a job, but there's no promise that another company I'm also passionate about is hiring for any position I'm qualified for. At the end of the day, I'd generally rather be programming somewhere I don't love than working as a bartender or delivery driver.

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

#108

Post by Fire-Dragon-DoL » Fri, Jul 21, 2023, 4:30 PM UTC

fnimick wrote: post #4

How can you be so sure all your colleagues are useless? Are they doing any important but non-flashy work (planning, documentation, cleanup, etc) that isn't captured by the "story point" metric, which is a pretty bad tool to gauge productivity anyway?

I hear your point but I wouldn't dismiss the op point, those situations do happen.

In this case the problem could be just miscommunication, it's worth asking some help from the team