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I am the one who hires devs at my workplace. Have recruited for years. I would never call my devs "mediocre". If they were, I was to blame. I guess i live in

• rsj_hn 9y ago
  Yes, I think so. There is nothing wrong with cheerleading (we are better than the competition). But there is something wrong with drinking your own kool-aid. Then again, you might have all above average programmers working for you -- it's certainly possible to arrange that if your engineering department is very small, and for one instance in time. But the odds of that diminish very rapidly as your company becomes more successful and the size of your engineering department grows. And the idea that no one at your company is mediocre is just crazy. I've seen a lot of start ups, and all of them had some below average people, not to mention mediocre people -- even the very good start ups. Moreover, if you do have good people then your company will grow, possibly rapidly, at which point it's pretty much impossible to beat the market long term -- e.g. to consistently have above average developers while at the same time growing in size. Of course that doesn't stop everyone from saying they are above average, just like every kid needs a trophy and a good grade. But if you are really responsible for engineering, you will be focused on building an architecture and processes that work well for average people and that can be resilient to even below average people, because you either have them on your team now or will have them in the future, whether you like it or not.