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1) I think you're underestimating the number of shops that ARE "in trouble". There's a lot more tech-need in the world than tech-capable people right now, and

1) I think you're underestimating the number of shops that ARE "in trouble". There's a lot more tech-need in the world than tech-capable people right now, and with the places that have resources and organization gobbling up people, a lot of smaller shops (small startups, govt shops, small non-startup businesses) DO have indispensable people. And often those people will want to stay there. As for becoming indispensable on purpose...I'm sure some people do this, but most don't. This leads me to #2 below. 2) ...All of which is irrelevant since "indispensable" was mild hyperbole for "important/beneficial/worth keeping" in this discussion. I suppose I'll take the hit in the name of accuracy.

sevensor 10y ago
Good points, both of them. My experience with indispensable people comes from a big manufacturing organization. When I talk about people trying to become indispensable, I mean the engineer who had her hand in everything her department did and supported the line 24/7, and the technician who told me, "they'll never get rid of me, this place would fall apart without me." Among others. They really do exist, but perhaps it's less of a thing in software? I haven't worked with enough programmers to judge.
- ergothus 10y ago
  Software is by no means immune to what you list. Indeed, as Hubris is one of the Three Virtues of a Programmer, you definitely find it. That said, I think (my opinion) that you'll find more devs/admins that are PROUD to be indispensable than you will devs/admins that SEEK to become indispensable. Both cases are ignoring what you point out: having a indispensable person is a bad thing for the long term health of your business. But one case (pride) is just mistaking doing a lot of essential work as not also creating a problem, while the other (seeking it) is less forgivable. And of course, there's a third, much worse option ("spaghetti code is job security") that doesn't rely on good work at all. I've known a lot of devs that were close to indispensible and trying to fix it, fewer devs that were indispensable and proud of it, and only one or two that did crappy work so that they became more vital. A fair number of all of these devs were "responsible" for becoming indispensable simply by improving things to the point that their improvements became essential...and no one else had the skills/knowledge to easily replace them. But of course, my experiences are subjective.
  - knicholes 10y ago
    I think that these devs writing spaghetti code to stay indispensable should never get their code into the codebase through code reviews. Then that person would fail to contribute anything.
    - perseusprime11 10y ago
      You become indispensable by doing things that nobody wants to do. For example, I remember an Engineer I used to work loves writing Perl/awk scripts to go through tera bytes of data to create reports. The data has anamolies and you need to custom create regular expressions to filter data that you don't need. The last I know he is still there.
  - thwarted 10y ago
    Software is by no means immune to what you list. Indeed, as Hubris is one of the Three Virtues of a Programmer, you definitely find it. Hubris isn't necessarily the wrong word in this larger context of indispensability, but I've always viewed Hubris in the context of the Three Virtues to be of "I can do this, against all odds", and being on the negative/low end of the Impostor Syndrome spectrum. Three Virtues Hubris is internal confidence; Indispensability Hubris is (perhaps unfounded) confidence in the perception of how others view you.
- nikdaheratik 10y ago
  IMO, people often become "indispensable" in software when their responsibilities have grown over time to the point where they're actually doing something that should be two (or more) roles. But they've been doing it so long and are comfortable enough in the role that no one realizes it until they have to hire a replacement.

sevensor 10y ago

Good points, both of them. My experience with indispensable people comes from a big manufacturing organization. When I talk about people trying to become indispensable, I mean the engineer who had her hand in everything her department did and supported the line 24/7, and the technician who told me, "they'll never get rid of me, this place would fall apart without me." Among others. They really do exist, but perhaps it's less of a thing in software? I haven't worked with enough programmers to judge.

ergothus 10y ago
Software is by no means immune to what you list. Indeed, as Hubris is one of the Three Virtues of a Programmer, you definitely find it. That said, I think (my opinion) that you'll find more devs/admins that are PROUD to be indispensable than you will devs/admins that SEEK to become indispensable. Both cases are ignoring what you point out: having a indispensable person is a bad thing for the long term health of your business. But one case (pride) is just mistaking doing a lot of essential work as not also creating a problem, while the other (seeking it) is less forgivable. And of course, there's a third, much worse option ("spaghetti code is job security") that doesn't rely on good work at all. I've known a lot of devs that were close to indispensible and trying to fix it, fewer devs that were indispensable and proud of it, and only one or two that did crappy work so that they became more vital. A fair number of all of these devs were "responsible" for becoming indispensable simply by improving things to the point that their improvements became essential...and no one else had the skills/knowledge to easily replace them. But of course, my experiences are subjective.
- knicholes 10y ago
  I think that these devs writing spaghetti code to stay indispensable should never get their code into the codebase through code reviews. Then that person would fail to contribute anything.
  - perseusprime11 10y ago
    You become indispensable by doing things that nobody wants to do. For example, I remember an Engineer I used to work loves writing Perl/awk scripts to go through tera bytes of data to create reports. The data has anamolies and you need to custom create regular expressions to filter data that you don't need. The last I know he is still there.
- thwarted 10y ago
  Software is by no means immune to what you list. Indeed, as Hubris is one of the Three Virtues of a Programmer, you definitely find it. Hubris isn't necessarily the wrong word in this larger context of indispensability, but I've always viewed Hubris in the context of the Three Virtues to be of "I can do this, against all odds", and being on the negative/low end of the Impostor Syndrome spectrum. Three Virtues Hubris is internal confidence; Indispensability Hubris is (perhaps unfounded) confidence in the perception of how others view you.
nikdaheratik 10y ago
IMO, people often become "indispensable" in software when their responsibilities have grown over time to the point where they're actually doing something that should be two (or more) roles. But they've been doing it so long and are comfortable enough in the role that no one realizes it until they have to hire a replacement.