Great Startup Engineers
blog.derrickko.com
Great Startup Engineers
1–10 of 11 posts
Re: Great Startup Engineers
#2None of the qualities mentioned here are really specific to startups. Even if you work in a big company with lots of product managers and marketing people, being able to focus, take responsibility and empathize with your users is key to being a good developer. And definitely good qualities to have if you ever want to be promoted beyond an entry-level job.
Re: Great Startup Engineers
#3So great startup engineers should have focus, compassion, balance, responsibility, and openness. When would you ever not desire these traits in someone? The opposite is scatter-brained, indifferent, unbalanced, irresponsible, and uncommunicative; all rather undesirable traits.
I'd much prefer to learn about some trade-offs. Is lacking any one of these traits a deal-breaker? What if someone's very focused and compassionate, but a little irresponsible?
And most importantly, how does one evaluate these traits?
Re: Great Startup Engineers
#4Stop blogging and add a fucking progress bar and transfer speed indicator to your file transfer app, ffs.
Re: Great Startup Engineers
#5So great startup engineers should have focus, compassion, balance, responsibility, and openness. When would you ever not desire these traits in someone? The opposite is scatter-brained, indifferent, unbalanced, irresponsible, and uncommunicative; all rather undesirable traits. I'd much prefer to learn about some trade-offs. Is lacking any one of these traits a deal-breaker? What if someone's very focused and compassi…
Hey, you brought up another one: not a black-and-white thinker!
Things are not only their extremes and the opposite. Hence why "balance" is actually an extremely undervalued quality in a person, and it was very apt of the author to call it out.
Re: Great Startup Engineers
#6I went in expecting something about dedication and ability to go the extra mile and be a "rockstar"—but instead it was a refreshingly short and focused list of often undervalued traits. Nice article.
Re: Great Startup Engineers
#7Compassion is a great one, a trait I feel like we don't spend enough time talking about as an element of success. I've worked with many extremely talented, genuinely bright people whose business skills suffered because of a lack of compassion and empathy: for their users, coworkers, or people they generally (and probably correctly) considered less intelligent than themselves. Making a conscious and genuine effort to understand someone else's position and needs will get you MUCH further than dogmatic self-righteousness - even if you really are right. ;)
Re: Great Startup Engineers
#8So great startup engineers should have focus, compassion, balance, responsibility, and openness. When would you ever not desire these traits in someone? The opposite is scatter-brained, indifferent, unbalanced, irresponsible, and uncommunicative; all rather undesirable traits. I'd much prefer to learn about some trade-offs. Is lacking any one of these traits a deal-breaker? What if someone's very focused and compassi…
Hey, you brought up another one: not a black-and-white thinker! Things are not only their extremes and the opposite. Hence why "balance" is actually an extremely undervalued quality in a person, and it was very apt of the author to call it out.
I think your observation about thinking in black and white is a good observation. However, you still haven't answered the OP's original question. And adding your observation to the list, these sorts of things are still required at large organizations.
Re: Great Startup Engineers
#9So great startup engineers should have focus, compassion, balance, responsibility, and openness. When would you ever not desire these traits in someone? The opposite is scatter-brained, indifferent, unbalanced, irresponsible, and uncommunicative; all rather undesirable traits. I'd much prefer to learn about some trade-offs. Is lacking any one of these traits a deal-breaker? What if someone's very focused and compassi…
In my experience, it's rare that all of these traits are active in someone at the same time. This is what he was getting at. One can still be a good engineer and lack some of these qualities, but that wasn't the point.
Re: Great Startup Engineers
#10He is missing one thing a great start-up engineer should have: a great big chunk of equity, preferably all of it.