11 ms·

What Makes a Great Software Engineer? [pdf]

304 points by vshan 9y ago

lordnacho 9y ago
Seems to boil down to the same old tropes that apply to every kind of work, and every kind of person. A good {worker} works hard, works well in a team, is self-reliant(!) blah blah. A good person is honest, forthright, etc. Outside of very specific fields I haven't seen anyone come up with specific qualities that identify great workers. And the useful attributes will be specific to a field. For height for basketball players, chances created for soccer players, on-base percentage for baseball, etc. We don't like to say it, but maybe there's something similar in Software Engineering, like "Can code FizzBuzz in under 5 minutes". At the same time I recognise that coding quizzes are not the latest word on what makes a guy good at coding.
- luckydata 9y ago
  It is definitely "ability to stay on task". The difference between a great engineer and a mediocre one is the latter will just get distracted, stop working the problem and decide to go for good enough. The great ones will work the problem, try multiple angles until something doesn't just work but offers the right balance of simplicity, elegance, future proofing and does the job well. You can't get there if every 5 minutes you take a facebook break, or can't grind through technical documentation and make experiments.
  - deleted 9y ago
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  - yeukhon 9y ago
    This is one of the most objective views on "what makes a great software engineer" so far here. People who can focus generally deliver better work, even when they don't work on pet projects after work.
  - newfoundglory 9y ago
    Huh, I would probably include "the ability to stop at good enough" in my criteria for greatness. I've worked with people who couldn't resist looking for a better solution instead of checking in the one they had - even for time critical bug fixes.
- save_ferris 9y ago
  It's a two-way street though. Some engineers work really well in management environments that others despise, some companies only want to hire engineers that don't need much training in their particular domain while others don't care as much, etc. In order to establish criteria for universally assessing software development talent, we first have to decide what the perfect engineer looks like, and a lot of companies disagree on what that is.
- WalterBright 9y ago
  > A good {worker} works hard [...] Trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent!
chrisweekly 9y ago
People skills. Empathy is hugely underrated and profoundly important. Whoever said "software is meant for other people to read, and only incidentally to be executed by machines" was on to something. All meaningful projects require cooperation and collaboration with other people. Most of the time, a solid coder with exceptional EQ will have more impact and effectiveness than an exceptional coder with indifferent (let alone subpar) people skills.
- jorgec 9y ago
  In small companies, a software engineer is a social job, it requires to talks with lot of people, specially with the customer (may be not all customers) but also, with others colleagues, with the people of infrastructure, sometime even with the people of finances (such as asking for a new server), with marketing or sales (if any), with design and so on. In a big business, a software engineer is only a cogs that follows specific orders. I remember a blog of a former engineer of Microsoft that talked about it, he said that, in the past, Microsoft was direct, and having a technical meeting with Bill Gates was something usual. However, the company grow and those perks are long gone, now MS has a lot of bureaucracy and level and sub levels of complexity (so many executives and managers).
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tkyjonathan 9y ago
I'm gonna go on a limb here, but I would say a great software engineer is someone that can block out email, slack, meetings, the huge noise of open offices and get some 'deep' work done.
- deleted 9y ago
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- surrey-fringe 9y ago
  I'm offended!
virgilp 9y ago
"Great" is in the eye of the beholder - to a large extent. An engineer that is great in a startup ("hacker", "moves fast and breaks things") may be pretty bad in a well-established product that just needs maintenance. And the opposite is also true - a very thoughtful engineer that takes time to create thoughtful, simple & extensible designs may just move too slow when the idea was bad to begin with, and just needed to be invalidated. Also - who is "great", a generalist or a specialist? Depends a lot on what you need... It is true that some engineers are simply better than others (I'll take Peter Norvig any day over someone who fails at fizzbuzz, regardless of the context/problem that needs being solved) - but it is also equally true that people need the right context to really shine. E.g. I bet Peter Norvig would't have done his best work working for, say, Accenture.
- B4TMAN 9y ago
  Should one be a generalist or an specialist in the current time frame?
atmosx 9y ago
Homer doesn't spent time describing Helen in the Iliad. He knew one thing or two about describing an ideal I guess. Of course beauty is orders of magnitude harder to define. The baseline principle is the same though: The moment you restrain what a good engineer is/looks like your argument starts loosing ground.
nikkwong 9y ago
I'm surprised to not hear an engineer's memory as an important correlator to skill. I find that working memory especially (or the lack thereof) really can hinder my performance when dealing with a complex problem. Sometimes I think it is THE defining factor!
- alexashka 9y ago
  Good thing one of the first principles you learn is to break complex problems into smaller chunks, and then they become manageable pieces you are on your way to solving. Beyond a basic ability to think logically and enjoying doing so, programming is 99% perspiration aka patience.
- MsMowz 9y ago
  I've been able to mitigate pretty much all the issues I've had with remembering details about complex problems by using effective note-taking and diagramming.
- tazard 9y ago
  Although this could certainly be true, I would argue that one's critical thinking ability, in general, outweighs ones memory especially when it comes to solving new problems.
- barrkel 9y ago
  Notetaking makes working memory much less of a issue. I recommend you find a way that works for you, if you're interested in career longevity as an engineer. Personally I alternate between todo lists for completion and coverage, and dialectics of theory and test for design and troubleshooting.
  - nikkwong 9y ago
    Yeah, I've never really understood the note taking thing. I'll be working on simple algorithm problems that require me to hold 3-4 elements in my mind and constantly have to mentally reference them over and over. "what was the value of x again?" — which distracts from solving the actual problem! Maybe the experience that others have is different.
vmarsy 9y ago
I don't get the "9 to 5 wouldn't make you a great engineer" about not being passionate, some people are passionate but have other life obligations like kids or other activities. Being personable: "Can I have a beer with this guy?" is the worse in my opinion. I care about your professional skills and if you're communicating well, but you definitely don't have to be a beer buddy, we might have 15 years difference, a very different background and share very few topics in common over a beer (assuming you even drink beer) but you could still be a great engineer to work with. Also you don't have to be a guy! The authors recognize that they only interview 5% women in the end... So overall some good advice, but it has a huge sampling bias. therefore the definition of a "great software engineer" is only valid in certain circumstances. For instance the authors recognize creativity is important, but one could argue some of the most creative engineers that can be found are the people who do another, very creative activity on the side (arts etc). These people would tend to be "9 to 5" because their "6 to 8" are already booked, so even if they appear less "passionate" they can be a huge asset to the team.
- jasonjei 9y ago
  > I don't get the "9 to 5 wouldn't make you a great engineer" about not being passionate, some people are passionate but have other life obligations like kids or other activities. I think what the engineer is trying to convey is that a great software engineer thinks about code beyond just the job. I don't think the engineer literally means being a workaholic or the literal 9am-5pm shift, but the engineer has pet projects of his or her own that aren't necessarily related to work, as well as thinks of programming beyond just a paycheck as a personal interest (just as a photographer or any other craftsman would). I've hired many programmers. The most disappointing ones were ones that only did exactly what their work told them to do. They would never read technical stuff or things like Hacker News on their days off. The best programmers were the ones that built pet projects for their own needs. I remember one guy would write a script to download new wallpapers for his laptop to cycle through the hours of the day. If I recall correctly, Gmail was an engineer's pet project (when 20% time existed). Some contribute to Stack Overflow; others to open-source and to blog posts. It's a lot like being a good restaurant cook or musician. You enjoy cooking, not just for the pay, but for how the craft empowers you. A good cook will think about what sides will pair with that steak, while an average cook will probably robotically sling together a dish. A good engineer will show passion.
RandomInteger4 9y ago
The ability to take a diverse sample from their interviewee pool and not just take the top 10 perfect looking resumes from recruiters for people they choose to spend time interviewing. So many diamond-in-the-rough developers out there that would make good team members, but simply lack prestigious resumes or failed to put skill points in "Job Search" or attribute points in Charisma.
jorgec 9y ago
A good engineer solves problems in the most feasible and working way possible. If its fast, cheap and usable then its fine. A good software engineer solves problems by generating software. Its amazing the amount of self called software engineers that are unable to design from start to end a simple software. So, a good software engineer is mainly a PROGRAMMER.
robocat 9y ago
This article seems to limit itself to the "enterprise" definition of a great software engineer. The greatest software engineers in small businesses (or personal projects) don't do much development work. Instead they are working as true engineers: making good compromises and solving problems outside of the software which usually leads them into roles that don't have "software" or "engineer" in the title.
- snarf21 9y ago
  So true. It is about solving problems with software, adding value to the project and just generally giving a crap about the work they do. The last is one of the hardest as so many people are what I refer to as "hack 'n slash" devs, with an attitude of "I just did what I was told....".
bjourne 9y ago
Ny mom did!
austincheney 9y ago
You make a great software engineer by practicing solving hard problems. There isn't any secret formula or mystique. It is thousands of hours spent solving problems of ever greater difficulty. If you confine your practice to the 9 to 5 job then you are investing fewer hours than somebody who writes open source at night, and will likely be a weaker programmer. If you aren't independently finding new problems to solve then you will be a weaker programmer than somebody who is constantly stepping up their game. If you lack confidence and need frameworks, abstractions, and other bullshit to write a couple lines of code you will be a weaker programmer. Simple. No magic.
- reese_john 9y ago
  I think it might true that the guy "who writes open source at night" will generally be the better programmer, although it is not a necessary condition for being a good SE
- yeukhon 9y ago
  > If you lack confidence and need frameworks, abstractions, and other bullshit to write a couple lines of code you will be a weaker programmer So you like to reinvent everything? Do you reinvent HTML & CSS because they are FRAMEWORKS, one of the foundational frameworks of today's web. If your job only ask you to fix a bug, there here is how to make yourself valuable AND technically challenging: * go through the bugs and analyze if you can extract any correlations * propose better process with other fellow engineers and product owners * implement changes For example, someone might be duplicating some code to write tests, how about you write a test harness or adopt some open-source harness? How about work with your fellow engineers to begin start collecting some metrics. Otherwise, time to look for a new opportunity. The absolute worst kind of programmers are the ones who don't don't take care of their health.
  - austincheney 9y ago
    Perhaps if you wrote software in addition to doing that which is strictly assigned to you your question would answer itself. This isn't rocket science.
BetterThanSlave 9y ago
You are like a little baby. Being routinely banned by HackerNews us what makes a great programmer.
msmith10101 9y ago
youth, gullibility, and the desire to please
yeukhon 9y ago
Here is why working on your programming pet projects shouldn't become a metric. The Japanese bullet train was redesigned by observing how nature works: https://www.vox.com/videos/2017/11/9/16628106/biomimicry-design-nature https://www.vox.com/videos/2017/11/9/16628106/biomimicry-des... "A moment of inspiration from engineer and birdwatcher Eiji Nakatsu changed all that." Nakatsu did not become a birdwatcher to become a great engineer. So if you want to become a great engineer you follow what you want to do with your free time. Also, I think people put too much emphasis on the degree of technicality over humanism. A unethical technical genius is not a great software engineer because there is no art in the engineering work. Great architects, chefs, and musicians view their work as arts with thoughts.
- bordercases 9y ago
  I can see both of these statements being misinterpreted, and in opposite directions, so I will offer my commentary. (1) Metrics. Metrics tend to destroy the sort of motivation that allows a "task to be done for its own sake", where you are capable of immersing yourself fully in the details of a situation without excluding any "secondary" information (with respect to the metric or super-goal). Mastery of a task comes in part from being familiar with the fullest extent of phenomena within a domain. Pleasure proxies mastery by creating immersion, and is common for a hobby. A master physicist knows all of physics. A civil engineer knows enough to build bridges. Only one of these people I would trust to make be able to create a new method of building bridges that wasn't incremental, or was based on a novel theoretical insight. [building bridges might not be the best example because it's an older domain with a lot of time to be refined] (2) I don't see technicality as being the culprit so much as an overfocus on technology. The "art" comes from either the amount of /craft/ that is put into the use of the technology or the amount of /humanity/, that is, consideration and care for how the users will perceive and receive the technology in an interpersonal manner. You mention three domains where aesthetics count but I don't think a focus on the study of aesthetics is necessary for us to apply the concept of art. These things can be done on engineering's terms.
Manglano 9y ago
This study seems to be asking, "What makes a great Microsoft software engineer," given their sample cohort.
- miranda_rights 9y ago
  Agreed. The paper treated having a Microsoft-only sample as being good since it's a "large sample size", but the skill set of an engineer can be perceived as good or bad at different sizes of companies, and not addressing that seems like a huge oversight.
stratigos 9y ago
I stopped reading at "59 engineers...at microsoft"
andrewstuart 9y ago
I wrote a post a few years ago "50 characteristics of a great software developer" http://www.supercoders.com.au/blog/50characteristicsofagreatsoftwaredeveloper.shtml http://www.supercoders.com.au/blog/50characteristicsofagreat... Having said that, and having written it, I still believe the absolute core issue in all technical recruiting is that no-one knows exactly what a great software developer is. In fact, it is entirely subjective, and simply a matter of opinion. I put it to you that most recruiting processes aren't worth a bent cent because the initial question cannot be adequately answered "OK, you're looking for 'the best' software developers..... PRECISELY what is that" And if an interviewer can't define precisely what they are looking for then how the heck do they know they found it with sufficient confidence to say "here is the right person for the job". Most recruiting is simply Voodoo Recruiting, a collection of myths, legends, whispers, misplaced beliefs and pure nonsense. Does this person get the job or not? Shake the bones, look at the tealeaves, throw a rabbit over your shoulder and choose the person who gave the interviewer the best feeling.
purplezooey 9y ago
Sorry folks, it's pretty much like high school out there. It doesn't matter what or who you know, it's the kind of person you are.
PoarNeemn 9y ago
I would like to have a pet project but i am just not creative enough to think of one.
darepublic 9y ago
At the end of the day this seems to me to be still anecdotal and not very testable. Would it be possible, given the code history of n number of developers + quality of the output code, to create a predictive model of a software engineer's 'greatness'? Seems daunting and fraught with potential problems but of a lot more value than just the typical platitudes; 'honesty, creativity, passion' (take three virtues, earthporn background etc)
w_t_payne 9y ago
How can you even ask this question? Different teams have such different dynamics, such different ways of working: different tools; different practices: I would be exceedingly surprised to find any commonality whatsoever. The discipline of software engineering is no undifferentiated mass: but a cultural kaleidoscope of different textures and colors; and a person who excels in one environment can easily tank in another. For safety critical embedded code: a meticulous personality is essential; only someone who is a stickler for rules and processes will survive, let alone thrive. In a fast paced and creative environment, this person would be absolutely terrible! The size of the organization is also a critical in determining who thrives and who does not. In a small team, being an independent self-starter and problem-solver is critical; whereas in a large team, that sort of independence will quickly get you into real trouble. Different organizations have different values and assign different priorities to the various qualities and attributes of the product and the people who design it. My advice: be as humble and as flexible as possible; do your best to fit into your team and your organization; but do not be afraid to recognize when you are bending yourself out of your comfort zone: Be prepared to move around a few times to find the organization and the team that fits you, too. There is no shame in this, and you will be happier in the long run.
ndh2 9y ago
I believe this should have (2015) in the title.
erickj 9y ago
Well obviously compiling a 10 page PDF, replete with references to 37 other sources, in order to establish the core 53 traits to identify the next great SWE is the simplest way to identify great engineers. Just hand this doc over the HR and ask all hiring managers to memorize it.
vectorEQ 9y ago
if you enjoy what you can do, only then you can master it. that would of been much simpler explenation ;D.... goes for all things too! And to be honest, 9 to 5 would make you a nice engineer. a lot of people like code, all day and night, but really, 8 hours of productive learning and coding each day is plenty to become very good at it... I always reccomend anyone to learn whatever is below their current interest in the 'stack'. for example if you like to learn java code, learn what assembly code and perhaps even C code is, learn to implement oop systems in C or assembly and you will have a much finer understanding of why certain decisions are made in your platform, and what motivates these decisions oposed to others. for a web developer, learning what your browser is doing is very important, and to understand why certain things work that way in the end, you might want to learn about cpus, network hardware, assembly code and all that jazz. dig deeper and deeper for greater understanding. it might seem like a lot of work, but if you enjoy what you do, it's never to much and never to deep ;D
paulus_magnus2 9y ago
Articles like this one never look from the side of the engineer and / or never consider his opportunity cost. Why would anyone work for you on an engineer salary if they are "great" and have all the CEO skills. They shouldn't. Selecting for passion is selecting for people, usually young who have no life outside work, don't know their real market value and have easy to abuse personality, will tolerate agile micromanagement etc etc. Women usually have more social skills, enough to know not to become software engineers in bigco.

304 points by vshan 9y ago

Seems to boil down to the same old tropes that apply to every kind of work, and every kind of person. A good {worker} works hard, works well in a team, is self-reliant(!) blah blah. A good person is honest, forthright, etc. Outside of very specific fields I haven't seen anyone come up with specific qualities that identify great workers. And the useful attributes will be specific to a field. For height for basketball players, chances created for soccer players, on-base percentage for baseball, etc. We don't like to say it, but maybe there's something similar in Software Engineering, like "Can code FizzBuzz in under 5 minutes". At the same time I recognise that coding quizzes are not the latest word on what makes a guy good at coding.

luckydata 9y ago
It is definitely "ability to stay on task". The difference between a great engineer and a mediocre one is the latter will just get distracted, stop working the problem and decide to go for good enough. The great ones will work the problem, try multiple angles until something doesn't just work but offers the right balance of simplicity, elegance, future proofing and does the job well. You can't get there if every 5 minutes you take a facebook break, or can't grind through technical documentation and make experiments.
- deleted 9y ago
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- yeukhon 9y ago
  This is one of the most objective views on "what makes a great software engineer" so far here. People who can focus generally deliver better work, even when they don't work on pet projects after work.
- newfoundglory 9y ago
  Huh, I would probably include "the ability to stop at good enough" in my criteria for greatness. I've worked with people who couldn't resist looking for a better solution instead of checking in the one they had - even for time critical bug fixes.
save_ferris 9y ago
It's a two-way street though. Some engineers work really well in management environments that others despise, some companies only want to hire engineers that don't need much training in their particular domain while others don't care as much, etc. In order to establish criteria for universally assessing software development talent, we first have to decide what the perfect engineer looks like, and a lot of companies disagree on what that is.
WalterBright 9y ago
> A good {worker} works hard [...] Trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent!

chrisweekly 9y ago

People skills. Empathy is hugely underrated and profoundly important. Whoever said "software is meant for other people to read, and only incidentally to be executed by machines" was on to something. All meaningful projects require cooperation and collaboration with other people. Most of the time, a solid coder with exceptional EQ will have more impact and effectiveness than an exceptional coder with indifferent (let alone subpar) people skills.

jorgec 9y ago
In small companies, a software engineer is a social job, it requires to talks with lot of people, specially with the customer (may be not all customers) but also, with others colleagues, with the people of infrastructure, sometime even with the people of finances (such as asking for a new server), with marketing or sales (if any), with design and so on. In a big business, a software engineer is only a cogs that follows specific orders. I remember a blog of a former engineer of Microsoft that talked about it, he said that, in the past, Microsoft was direct, and having a technical meeting with Bill Gates was something usual. However, the company grow and those perks are long gone, now MS has a lot of bureaucracy and level and sub levels of complexity (so many executives and managers).

deleted 9y ago

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tkyjonathan 9y ago

I'm gonna go on a limb here, but I would say a great software engineer is someone that can block out email, slack, meetings, the huge noise of open offices and get some 'deep' work done.

deleted 9y ago
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surrey-fringe 9y ago
I'm offended!

virgilp 9y ago

"Great" is in the eye of the beholder - to a large extent. An engineer that is great in a startup ("hacker", "moves fast and breaks things") may be pretty bad in a well-established product that just needs maintenance. And the opposite is also true - a very thoughtful engineer that takes time to create thoughtful, simple & extensible designs may just move too slow when the idea was bad to begin with, and just needed to be invalidated. Also - who is "great", a generalist or a specialist? Depends a lot on what you need... It is true that some engineers are simply better than others (I'll take Peter Norvig any day over someone who fails at fizzbuzz, regardless of the context/problem that needs being solved) - but it is also equally true that people need the right context to really shine. E.g. I bet Peter Norvig would't have done his best work working for, say, Accenture.

B4TMAN 9y ago
Should one be a generalist or an specialist in the current time frame?

atmosx 9y ago

Homer doesn't spent time describing Helen in the Iliad. He knew one thing or two about describing an ideal I guess. Of course beauty is orders of magnitude harder to define. The baseline principle is the same though: The moment you restrain what a good engineer is/looks like your argument starts loosing ground.

nikkwong 9y ago

I'm surprised to not hear an engineer's memory as an important correlator to skill. I find that working memory especially (or the lack thereof) really can hinder my performance when dealing with a complex problem. Sometimes I think it is THE defining factor!

alexashka 9y ago
Good thing one of the first principles you learn is to break complex problems into smaller chunks, and then they become manageable pieces you are on your way to solving. Beyond a basic ability to think logically and enjoying doing so, programming is 99% perspiration aka patience.
MsMowz 9y ago
I've been able to mitigate pretty much all the issues I've had with remembering details about complex problems by using effective note-taking and diagramming.
tazard 9y ago
Although this could certainly be true, I would argue that one's critical thinking ability, in general, outweighs ones memory especially when it comes to solving new problems.
barrkel 9y ago
Notetaking makes working memory much less of a issue. I recommend you find a way that works for you, if you're interested in career longevity as an engineer. Personally I alternate between todo lists for completion and coverage, and dialectics of theory and test for design and troubleshooting.
- nikkwong 9y ago
  Yeah, I've never really understood the note taking thing. I'll be working on simple algorithm problems that require me to hold 3-4 elements in my mind and constantly have to mentally reference them over and over. "what was the value of x again?" — which distracts from solving the actual problem! Maybe the experience that others have is different.

vmarsy 9y ago

I don't get the "9 to 5 wouldn't make you a great engineer" about not being passionate, some people are passionate but have other life obligations like kids or other activities. Being personable: "Can I have a beer with this guy?" is the worse in my opinion. I care about your professional skills and if you're communicating well, but you definitely don't have to be a beer buddy, we might have 15 years difference, a very different background and share very few topics in common over a beer (assuming you even drink beer) but you could still be a great engineer to work with. Also you don't have to be a guy! The authors recognize that they only interview 5% women in the end... So overall some good advice, but it has a huge sampling bias. therefore the definition of a "great software engineer" is only valid in certain circumstances. For instance the authors recognize creativity is important, but one could argue some of the most creative engineers that can be found are the people who do another, very creative activity on the side (arts etc). These people would tend to be "9 to 5" because their "6 to 8" are already booked, so even if they appear less "passionate" they can be a huge asset to the team.

jasonjei 9y ago
> I don't get the "9 to 5 wouldn't make you a great engineer" about not being passionate, some people are passionate but have other life obligations like kids or other activities. I think what the engineer is trying to convey is that a great software engineer thinks about code beyond just the job. I don't think the engineer literally means being a workaholic or the literal 9am-5pm shift, but the engineer has pet projects of his or her own that aren't necessarily related to work, as well as thinks of programming beyond just a paycheck as a personal interest (just as a photographer or any other craftsman would). I've hired many programmers. The most disappointing ones were ones that only did exactly what their work told them to do. They would never read technical stuff or things like Hacker News on their days off. The best programmers were the ones that built pet projects for their own needs. I remember one guy would write a script to download new wallpapers for his laptop to cycle through the hours of the day. If I recall correctly, Gmail was an engineer's pet project (when 20% time existed). Some contribute to Stack Overflow; others to open-source and to blog posts. It's a lot like being a good restaurant cook or musician. You enjoy cooking, not just for the pay, but for how the craft empowers you. A good cook will think about what sides will pair with that steak, while an average cook will probably robotically sling together a dish. A good engineer will show passion.

RandomInteger4 9y ago

The ability to take a diverse sample from their interviewee pool and not just take the top 10 perfect looking resumes from recruiters for people they choose to spend time interviewing. So many diamond-in-the-rough developers out there that would make good team members, but simply lack prestigious resumes or failed to put skill points in "Job Search" or attribute points in Charisma.

jorgec 9y ago

A good engineer solves problems in the most feasible and working way possible. If its fast, cheap and usable then its fine. A good software engineer solves problems by generating software. Its amazing the amount of self called software engineers that are unable to design from start to end a simple software. So, a good software engineer is mainly a PROGRAMMER.

robocat 9y ago

This article seems to limit itself to the "enterprise" definition of a great software engineer. The greatest software engineers in small businesses (or personal projects) don't do much development work. Instead they are working as true engineers: making good compromises and solving problems outside of the software which usually leads them into roles that don't have "software" or "engineer" in the title.

snarf21 9y ago
So true. It is about solving problems with software, adding value to the project and just generally giving a crap about the work they do. The last is one of the hardest as so many people are what I refer to as "hack 'n slash" devs, with an attitude of "I just did what I was told....".

bjourne 9y ago

Ny mom did!

austincheney 9y ago

You make a great software engineer by practicing solving hard problems. There isn't any secret formula or mystique. It is thousands of hours spent solving problems of ever greater difficulty. If you confine your practice to the 9 to 5 job then you are investing fewer hours than somebody who writes open source at night, and will likely be a weaker programmer. If you aren't independently finding new problems to solve then you will be a weaker programmer than somebody who is constantly stepping up their game. If you lack confidence and need frameworks, abstractions, and other bullshit to write a couple lines of code you will be a weaker programmer. Simple. No magic.

reese_john 9y ago
I think it might true that the guy "who writes open source at night" will generally be the better programmer, although it is not a necessary condition for being a good SE
yeukhon 9y ago
> If you lack confidence and need frameworks, abstractions, and other bullshit to write a couple lines of code you will be a weaker programmer So you like to reinvent everything? Do you reinvent HTML & CSS because they are FRAMEWORKS, one of the foundational frameworks of today's web. If your job only ask you to fix a bug, there here is how to make yourself valuable AND technically challenging: * go through the bugs and analyze if you can extract any correlations * propose better process with other fellow engineers and product owners * implement changes For example, someone might be duplicating some code to write tests, how about you write a test harness or adopt some open-source harness? How about work with your fellow engineers to begin start collecting some metrics. Otherwise, time to look for a new opportunity. The absolute worst kind of programmers are the ones who don't don't take care of their health.
- austincheney 9y ago
  Perhaps if you wrote software in addition to doing that which is strictly assigned to you your question would answer itself. This isn't rocket science.

BetterThanSlave 9y ago

You are like a little baby. Being routinely banned by HackerNews us what makes a great programmer.

msmith10101 9y ago

youth, gullibility, and the desire to please

yeukhon 9y ago

Here is why working on your programming pet projects shouldn't become a metric. The Japanese bullet train was redesigned by observing how nature works: https://www.vox.com/videos/2017/11/9/16628106/biomimicry-design-nature https://www.vox.com/videos/2017/11/9/16628106/biomimicry-des... "A moment of inspiration from engineer and birdwatcher Eiji Nakatsu changed all that." Nakatsu did not become a birdwatcher to become a great engineer. So if you want to become a great engineer you follow what you want to do with your free time. Also, I think people put too much emphasis on the degree of technicality over humanism. A unethical technical genius is not a great software engineer because there is no art in the engineering work. Great architects, chefs, and musicians view their work as arts with thoughts.

bordercases 9y ago
I can see both of these statements being misinterpreted, and in opposite directions, so I will offer my commentary. (1) Metrics. Metrics tend to destroy the sort of motivation that allows a "task to be done for its own sake", where you are capable of immersing yourself fully in the details of a situation without excluding any "secondary" information (with respect to the metric or super-goal). Mastery of a task comes in part from being familiar with the fullest extent of phenomena within a domain. Pleasure proxies mastery by creating immersion, and is common for a hobby. A master physicist knows all of physics. A civil engineer knows enough to build bridges. Only one of these people I would trust to make be able to create a new method of building bridges that wasn't incremental, or was based on a novel theoretical insight. [building bridges might not be the best example because it's an older domain with a lot of time to be refined] (2) I don't see technicality as being the culprit so much as an overfocus on technology. The "art" comes from either the amount of /craft/ that is put into the use of the technology or the amount of /humanity/, that is, consideration and care for how the users will perceive and receive the technology in an interpersonal manner. You mention three domains where aesthetics count but I don't think a focus on the study of aesthetics is necessary for us to apply the concept of art. These things can be done on engineering's terms.

Manglano 9y ago

This study seems to be asking, "What makes a great Microsoft software engineer," given their sample cohort.

miranda_rights 9y ago
Agreed. The paper treated having a Microsoft-only sample as being good since it's a "large sample size", but the skill set of an engineer can be perceived as good or bad at different sizes of companies, and not addressing that seems like a huge oversight.

stratigos 9y ago

I stopped reading at "59 engineers...at microsoft"

andrewstuart 9y ago

I wrote a post a few years ago "50 characteristics of a great software developer" http://www.supercoders.com.au/blog/50characteristicsofagreatsoftwaredeveloper.shtml http://www.supercoders.com.au/blog/50characteristicsofagreat... Having said that, and having written it, I still believe the absolute core issue in all technical recruiting is that no-one knows exactly what a great software developer is. In fact, it is entirely subjective, and simply a matter of opinion. I put it to you that most recruiting processes aren't worth a bent cent because the initial question cannot be adequately answered "OK, you're looking for 'the best' software developers..... PRECISELY what is that" And if an interviewer can't define precisely what they are looking for then how the heck do they know they found it with sufficient confidence to say "here is the right person for the job". Most recruiting is simply Voodoo Recruiting, a collection of myths, legends, whispers, misplaced beliefs and pure nonsense. Does this person get the job or not? Shake the bones, look at the tealeaves, throw a rabbit over your shoulder and choose the person who gave the interviewer the best feeling.

purplezooey 9y ago

Sorry folks, it's pretty much like high school out there. It doesn't matter what or who you know, it's the kind of person you are.

PoarNeemn 9y ago

I would like to have a pet project but i am just not creative enough to think of one.

darepublic 9y ago

At the end of the day this seems to me to be still anecdotal and not very testable. Would it be possible, given the code history of n number of developers + quality of the output code, to create a predictive model of a software engineer's 'greatness'? Seems daunting and fraught with potential problems but of a lot more value than just the typical platitudes; 'honesty, creativity, passion' (take three virtues, earthporn background etc)

w_t_payne 9y ago

How can you even ask this question? Different teams have such different dynamics, such different ways of working: different tools; different practices: I would be exceedingly surprised to find any commonality whatsoever. The discipline of software engineering is no undifferentiated mass: but a cultural kaleidoscope of different textures and colors; and a person who excels in one environment can easily tank in another. For safety critical embedded code: a meticulous personality is essential; only someone who is a stickler for rules and processes will survive, let alone thrive. In a fast paced and creative environment, this person would be absolutely terrible! The size of the organization is also a critical in determining who thrives and who does not. In a small team, being an independent self-starter and problem-solver is critical; whereas in a large team, that sort of independence will quickly get you into real trouble. Different organizations have different values and assign different priorities to the various qualities and attributes of the product and the people who design it. My advice: be as humble and as flexible as possible; do your best to fit into your team and your organization; but do not be afraid to recognize when you are bending yourself out of your comfort zone: Be prepared to move around a few times to find the organization and the team that fits you, too. There is no shame in this, and you will be happier in the long run.

ndh2 9y ago

I believe this should have (2015) in the title.

erickj 9y ago

Well obviously compiling a 10 page PDF, replete with references to 37 other sources, in order to establish the core 53 traits to identify the next great SWE is the simplest way to identify great engineers. Just hand this doc over the HR and ask all hiring managers to memorize it.

vectorEQ 9y ago

if you enjoy what you can do, only then you can master it. that would of been much simpler explenation ;D.... goes for all things too! And to be honest, 9 to 5 would make you a nice engineer. a lot of people like code, all day and night, but really, 8 hours of productive learning and coding each day is plenty to become very good at it... I always reccomend anyone to learn whatever is below their current interest in the 'stack'. for example if you like to learn java code, learn what assembly code and perhaps even C code is, learn to implement oop systems in C or assembly and you will have a much finer understanding of why certain decisions are made in your platform, and what motivates these decisions oposed to others. for a web developer, learning what your browser is doing is very important, and to understand why certain things work that way in the end, you might want to learn about cpus, network hardware, assembly code and all that jazz. dig deeper and deeper for greater understanding. it might seem like a lot of work, but if you enjoy what you do, it's never to much and never to deep ;D

paulus_magnus2 9y ago

Articles like this one never look from the side of the engineer and / or never consider his opportunity cost. Why would anyone work for you on an engineer salary if they are "great" and have all the CEO skills. They shouldn't. Selecting for passion is selecting for people, usually young who have no life outside work, don't know their real market value and have easy to abuse personality, will tolerate agile micromanagement etc etc. Women usually have more social skills, enough to know not to become software engineers in bigco.