Sounds like I got recruited for a job change just in the nick of time. This was almost me.
Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer
461–470 of 519 posts
Re: Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer
#462I have the exact same feeling though I have only 6 years of experience(being 29 years old). At this point ~90% of the code we have, was written, touched or refactored by me, so I know everything in my org, I know services we use, even 3rd party ones, I do my work usually twice as fast as other developers, my contributions double the amount of the developer behind me. I am the guy that everyone comes to with problems, issues, ideas, architecture questions. I had similar experience in all previous companies.
At the same time, I feel the impostor syndrome hitting me hard, I never worked at big tech, never worked on multi-million-user applications. I know there's a lot that I don't know or things that I have never done. Yet, whenever I look at tech 'influencers', people who give talks, write articles, I feel like I'm nothing compared to them, like I don't know anything. That's why I'm switching jobs now again, to see new stuff and meet new people, see what's out there. This way I have somewhat of a challenge for at least the first year of new work, new environment, new project.
Re: Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer
#463Earlier quoted context omitted.
you need to see a therapist about feeling guilty about overworking. You only need to work as much as whats required, nothing more. If you can close off your assigned 'tickets' etc, given each sprint, do so, then rest. Your personal well-being is #1.
It's kinda weird watching team members finish two tickets per week when you know they could finish two per day . I know I should probably relax like them but it feels too much like cheating (and let's be honest, it is).
You're stuck in an hourly mindset. If you pay someone to build a house, and they complete the house, they're done. They get paid. Whether they build it in 1 day or 200 days, the price is the same.
Getting paid for time is a trick that you need to surpass. Get paid for what you produce. That is the primary difference between businesses and individuals: the non-correlation of time and revenue for a business versus an individual.
Re: Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer
#464You're not a 10x engineer. You're a 2x who hasn't figured out yet how to teach other engineers what you know. It sounds like it's past time you got started, for your own sake as much as that of those around you.
> You're not a 10x engineer. You're a 2x That's not a fair characterization. Did you read his post? He said, > In my direct team of 10 people, myself included, I have completed 71% of all story points in 2022 So on average, the other team members complete about 3.2% of the work, and he does 71%. At least in relation to his team, he's ~20x in output.
Without knowing how a story-point is derived, it's not possible to conclude how much "work" this entails.
Re: Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer
#465>I don't think that the number of git commits actually proves anything, other than I commit, code review, and merge code frequently. I wanted a better metric to quantify my feelings of alienation. I looked at Jira stories and story points. In my direct team of 10 people, myself included, I have completed 71% of all story points in 2022, the other 9 are responsible for the other 29%. That jives with my number of git commits compared to others as well.
You joke that you are a 10x dev but do you understand why? In fact doing the math... 71% vs 3% is more like 23x.
So you're a 23x dev. But it's not because you're 23x better than the average dev. You're 23x better than those devs. They achieve nothing and get away with it. Same pay either way. You are 23x against devs who are probably watching youtube, doomscrolling facebook, or playing video games.
>It feels like I don't have peers. I'm solely dragging my entire team and everyone else around me with me for the ride. This leads to stress, it feels that if I am not working on the "thing" it won't get completed.
You are lonely because everyone else isn't showing up to work. They are getting away with it because the managers also are doomscrolling facebook and playing video games.
If not for you holding shit together and getting abused someone would eventually ask why nobody is getting anything done.
You might be frustrated but any amount of holding back or trying to get this fixed will never work. You might think you can fix this situation but you cant.
The only option is to find a new job.
Re: Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer
#466Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's kinda weird watching team members finish two tickets per week when you know they could finish two per day . I know I should probably relax like them but it feels too much like cheating (and let's be honest, it is).
You're stuck in an hourly mindset. If you pay someone to build a house, and they complete the house, they're done. They get paid. Whether they build it in 1 day or 200 days, the price is the same. Getting paid for time is a trick that you need to surpass. Get paid for what you produce. That is the primary difference between businesses and individuals: the non-correlation of time and revenue for a business versus an i…
It's not just me that is stuck in an hourly mindset, it's every company offering developer jobs ever. In my contract it's not defined how much I have to get done, only how many hours I have to work per week. Time worked is tracked, work done not really.
Re: Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer
#467I think this is one of my favorite Ask HN's. Just, yay.
Unfortunately, I have to write my thoughts quickly, because otherwise I will not be able to write them at all. Got some things to do :)
When I get to this stage, I can get self destructive. It sounds like you're heading down that path with the negative framing.
I don't know if any of what I say will make sense.
First: negative framing. Commit to positivity. Commit - spiritually, if that makes sense to you - fully, to the idea that everyone is contributing, and can contribute at your level.
Second: communicate (positively). Figure out a way to communicate your concerns to your colleagues in a non-judgemental way. (shit, this is inadequate)
Third: challenge. It sounds like you're not being challenged anymore. Same framework, same issues. This is actually a really bad thing. It means that once this context is obsolete, your finely-honed abilities might be obsolete. Take it from a guy who got his start as a Flash developer, you need some challenge. This could be something else than development, though: start a business, move to a different country, throw massive parties (what I did). Find a challenge that's hard and meet it.
Good luck! I'd love to chat about it more. Contact info in bio. Sorry I could not write a longer letter.
Re: Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer
#468Earlier quoted context omitted.
Difficult to say without knowing the OP personally, but in my experience, all of this can square. There’s complex dynamics at play that are a product of the genius developer mythology: someone produces a lot of code, the system becomes an extension of that person, everyone becomes dependent upon that person regardless of whether the person is good or bad, enjoyable to work with or not, because they’re the genius syst…
This is how it is at every company. The older developers create the universe new developers need to figure out. ON average newer developers don't perform as well as the older ones. This effect is highly correlated by the complexity of the code base.
I feel like that's the only measured answer.
This is normal. The thing that affects the team the most in this case is the complexity of the code base.
A lot of comments are blaming speed for a supposed lack of sophistication, excessive duplication or disorganisation of the code.
But sometimes a developer can be fast is due to someone not introducing unnecessary complexity in the codebase.
A fast developer is not necessarily a 10x developer, but it also isn't making a mess.
Most of the cases of unmanageable code were made by developers with a lot of time and planning on their hands.
Re: Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer
#469I start with that I feel similar type loneliness in my project. I always got a solution that other people were positively surprised of, I'm the problem solver in my small project team, and I also am able to write bulletproof-ish code. And I have exact same feeling, that I don't have anyone around that could, or want to challenge me.
I've recently been chatting with my friend, he works for another company, he has the same issue of being not able to discuss solutions with anyone.
I always wished there was a way or a place that people with this 'problem' can meet, chat and ideally brainstorm ideas in their projects or on some other project that they would contribute in.
Re: Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer
#470I hear you. The one problem with being so useful is that all problems slide your way. While it is hard to hear, you might be enabling the problem. If everyone believes you know the best way or are the most efficient problem solver, they will default to you. There's long maintenance tails in certain problems... so even if you are great at what you do it can quickly become overwhelming. Making opportunities for others…
A lot of people have made comments similar to yours. I do help others, but I could be doing a better job.