I might agree with you if all you quoted was the low quality part. My experience in software is that it’s typical to only get ~4 good hours out of someone per d

I might agree with you if all you quoted was the low quality part. My experience in software is that it’s typical to only get ~4 good hours out of someone per day. That’s 2or3 1.5-2hr streches. So the 4 hours worth of breaks, just means it takes 8 hours to get those 4 hours in. I’ve worked with devs who can maybe squeeze in another period into an 8 hour day (and if you’re reading HN you are probably more likely to be one), but I don’t think that’s something you can force someone to do, and probably shouldn’t assume you can hire for. As for the low quality output, I’ve seen teams improve significantly by implementing good biweekly retros (note that bad retros can make things worse). Fostering the right atmosphere can do wonders to bring out latent talent. Also things like tooling can really help. CI with linting, and a no-judgement ‘you broke the build you fix the build’ rule can also really help.