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Hiring good programmers who are not too far out on Asperger/ introvert scale is an issue. So you can fix it by letting programmers only worry about the tech par

Hiring good programmers who are not too far out on Asperger/ introvert scale is an issue. So you can fix it by letting programmers only worry about the tech part and letting PM prioritise things. I think motivation will not be as high but it is a way to get things shipped and profitable.

candu 7y ago
Speaking as someone with Asperger's who considers himself both a good programmer and capable of navigating / leading cross-functional prioritization discussions, and who likes knowing the context behind his work: maybe you should re-evaluate your assumptions about neuroatypical people. (...and if you're indeed in a position where you're responsible for hiring decisions or performance reviews: strike "maybe" from the preceding sentence.)
- wpietri 7y ago
  Agreed. Non-neurotypical people may or may not need to approach understanding the context differently than neurotypicals. But it's not like we're incapable of understanding the context!
nwallin 7y ago
I work in a niche field. Not so niche that there isn't a lot of money in it, but niche enough that we need to explain to all of our new hires what we do as a company. For us, it is absolutely 100% necessary to hire domain experts to prioritize bugs and features. It's not a question of incompetent or dense developers, it's a question of things that are not obvious to someone who doesn't have tons of experience in the field. It's a problem that I imagine developers working on Chrome, Call of Duty, iTunes, or Outlook don't have. You can hire recent college grads and expect them to understand what the software does, have reasonably good instincts how to prioritize bugs and put together the right user experience even if the description in the feature request is sparse on details. By the way, I heartily recommend working for such a company. My company works very, very hard to retain people. Someone who's spent ten years getting used to the weird stuff our customers expect is far more valuable than someone with half the pay who needs someone to hold their hand through every single issue. Everyone has their own office, management is extremely permissive about the shit that doesn't matter, there's never deadlines or crunch time, everyone chooses their own work/life balance. (We're hourly, and the expectation is that you work more than forty hours a week and need manager approval if you want to work more than 60 for more than three pay periods in a row) If we want more vacation, we can bank hours and spend it on supplemental vacation. Everything's great.

candu 7y ago

Speaking as someone with Asperger's who considers himself both a good programmer and capable of navigating / leading cross-functional prioritization discussions, and who likes knowing the context behind his work: maybe you should re-evaluate your assumptions about neuroatypical people. (...and if you're indeed in a position where you're responsible for hiring decisions or performance reviews: strike "maybe" from the preceding sentence.)

wpietri 7y ago
Agreed. Non-neurotypical people may or may not need to approach understanding the context differently than neurotypicals. But it's not like we're incapable of understanding the context!

nwallin 7y ago

I work in a niche field. Not so niche that there isn't a lot of money in it, but niche enough that we need to explain to all of our new hires what we do as a company. For us, it is absolutely 100% necessary to hire domain experts to prioritize bugs and features. It's not a question of incompetent or dense developers, it's a question of things that are not obvious to someone who doesn't have tons of experience in the field. It's a problem that I imagine developers working on Chrome, Call of Duty, iTunes, or Outlook don't have. You can hire recent college grads and expect them to understand what the software does, have reasonably good instincts how to prioritize bugs and put together the right user experience even if the description in the feature request is sparse on details. By the way, I heartily recommend working for such a company. My company works very, very hard to retain people. Someone who's spent ten years getting used to the weird stuff our customers expect is far more valuable than someone with half the pay who needs someone to hold their hand through every single issue. Everyone has their own office, management is extremely permissive about the shit that doesn't matter, there's never deadlines or crunch time, everyone chooses their own work/life balance. (We're hourly, and the expectation is that you work more than forty hours a week and need manager approval if you want to work more than 60 for more than three pay periods in a row) If we want more vacation, we can bank hours and spend it on supplemental vacation. Everything's great.