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Hey, n00b, we didn't hire you to complete tasks

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Re: Hey, n00b, we didn't hire you to complete tasks

#21

Post by Fr0styMatt88 »

logankeenan wrote: post #19

> You uncover a better design and submit a string of diffs not only implementing the task but simplifying other parts of the code too. Bonus points for doing this before you implement (make the hard change easy then make the easy change). The last part of this really stands out. A high performer understands that software is malleable. However, the way you shape it, when things change, and how much is changed at one t…

As a senior you can get into a bad habit of being scared to make changes. It happens after enough experience with enough codebases.

It’s good to not just go change things for the sake of it — it’s equally as important to ask yourself if you’ve gone too far in the other direction and to always remain curious and critical of yourself.

Re: Hey, n00b, we didn't hire you to complete tasks

#22

Post by accurrent »

chalupa-supreme wrote: post #6

For a B level: > * You did not cause other people unreasonable amounts of work.* I would be careful with this one. As the examples listed after, such as an on-call incident or extra review of code isn’t necessarily on the n00b. Maybe I’m biased being only 4 years into my career but engagement on stuff you did wrong or even points on what you can do better are extremely valuable. From my standpoint, screwing up isn’t…

A lot of this article reads like an egotistical toxic senior dev. I agree with your take. I tend to agree that "not generating unreasonable work" is not a good signal. If I do 0 work I can fall in the "not generating unreasonable work" category - thats not a good signal.

Also the "Your manager or your tech lead could finish those in much less time and with much less hassle than it takes to help you through them." suggests that he is not hiring talented juniors.

It is also a good senior dev's job to architect and scope tasks so that juniors dont bring the whole system crashing down.

Re: Hey, n00b, we didn't hire you to complete tasks

#23

Post by colechristensen »

noodletheworld wrote: post #15
colechristensen wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh. There is a lot to be said about how efficiently you work. This involves making choices about how you solve problems, in what order you solve problems, how you manage people interrupting you, your personal life interface with work, how you advocate for what work to be done... on and on and on. An easy example: spending 2 days on automation for a task that takes an hour to do manually -- is this a task you have to…

This is self-help nonsense your manager will tell you when giving you too much work. Companies will smartly balance the amount of work allocated to people. …and then they will push you to take on more work. High achievers, across the board, consistently demonstrate putting more effort in . Its just a bitter pill to swallow for some people.

I'm telling you for me being a better more productive engineer had a lot to do with making better choices. I'm not selling you a book or inviting you to my TED Talk.

Not wasting a tremendous amount of time automating something is indeed an important skill to learn (because automating things is way more fun for some people than actually doing the thing).

Coaching junior employees to neither ask me for help the instant they're confused nor spin their wheels for two weeks without asking for help is a COMMON thread.

>High achievers, across the board, consistently demonstrate putting more effort in.

Growing up, in school, I did almost nothing and was consistently at the top of my class until I got older and things started requiring effort for me. The early years of high achievement had literally nothing to do with effort.

These days being a high achiever has a lot to do with managing the perception of your work.

Re: Hey, n00b, we didn't hire you to complete tasks

#24

Post by Fr0styMatt88 »

smackeyacky wrote: post #7

I work at a place that is actively hiring juniors. While they don’t have an explicit rating system I feel like we unconsciously follow a similar pattern with new coders and it’s unfortunate. Given that older staff generally have a legacy of responsibility they don’t always have the time required to coach people who lack that self-starting spark. The quality of the questions and how much effort they have put in to ans…

How is the place you’re at approaching AI in this context?

As a senior I worry about the juniors coming in — Claude can do what I would have previously tasked to a junior.

I guess the shape of the junior role just changes.

Re: Hey, n00b, we didn't hire you to complete tasks

#25

Post by malux85 »

ANarrativeApe wrote: post #8

This makes complete sense in an environment where people transition from noob to senior engineer within the same company. It makes less sense in an era when tenure is better measured in months than years. It makes even less sense in an era of LLMs. One area where it might be relevant is the military. People are more likely to stay for longer (unvalidated assumption) and the same personnel jacket follows them if they…

I completely disagree with you and it seems like your assumption is that the transition times are years.

I've seen a B player on my team turn into an A player in just the last couple of months

But I do agree with you about the C thing, if youre a C you need to move immediately to at least a B, otherwise leave

Re: Hey, n00b, we didn't hire you to complete tasks

#26

Post by throwaway219450 »

chalupa-supreme wrote: post #6

For a B level: > * You did not cause other people unreasonable amounts of work.* I would be careful with this one. As the examples listed after, such as an on-call incident or extra review of code isn’t necessarily on the n00b. Maybe I’m biased being only 4 years into my career but engagement on stuff you did wrong or even points on what you can do better are extremely valuable. From my standpoint, screwing up isn’t…

The article sounds like a company with toxic blame culture. If critical aerospace can be no-blame, software can too.

Sure, try not to be useless, but if the company doesn’t have guardrails that’s not on them. If an intern deletes something: why did they have access in the first place? Why wasn’t there a backup?

Re: Hey, n00b, we didn't hire you to complete tasks

#28

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

"Brutal as it seems, we’d like to expend as little effort as possible on people who aren’t going to make it. It’s your job to get in the category you want to be in and send us the signals that tell us that’s where you belong."

And this is what a complete lack of leadership looks like.

"We are paying your salary now as the option premium on the engineer you are going to become. If we play this game right, we’ll have a kick-ass next generation of engineers."

Not if you do jack shit to help them improve.

Re: Hey, n00b, we didn't hire you to complete tasks

#29

Post by econ »

You missed figuring out if your position is supposed to make [grandiose] proposals.

Monitor what everyone else is doing, how fast they do it and what you can do to help. Condition everyone to think it's Xmas if you hand them something. After doing that 200 times hand them something obviously nonsensical just for laughs.

Re: Hey, n00b, we didn't hire you to complete tasks

#30

Post by iJohnDoe »

This only works if the culture is healthy and the seniors are mentally healthy. Usually, most are trying to protect their turf. Because even having “seniors” in the first place means they been there for a few years and they would like to keep it that way.

Otherwise, no one gives a crap about what the n00b is doing.

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