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> Somebody needs to do the dirty work that the "great hacker" does not care to complete because he has already set his eyes on another idea. IMO if you are lea

> Somebody needs to do the dirty work that the "great hacker" does not care to complete because he has already set his eyes on another idea. IMO if you are leaving stuff unfinished, you're probably not great and probably don't love the work. You're just chasing a high and not caring about the consequences.

watwut 6y ago
Tho, there are quite a few pros in that category. Consider themselves great, believe that they have more passion then everyone else, but they are fast because other people have to finish their work and do all time consuming parts and do the hard parts.
- BlargMcLarg 6y ago
  I'd argue it may be the opposite. They are seen as pros because they don't spend the time finishing things, often despite the fact they are perfectly capable of finishing the job. They are getting 80% of the merit doing 20% of the job, while leaving others do the remaining 80% for 20% of the merit. They have more time to gather more merit, chase knowledge and ideas, experiment, which ends up opening doors. It isn't too far from how consultants tend to function, why job hopping is lucrative, etc.. There just isn't enough incentive to stay for the dirty work as long as others, be it the managers, the employers or the coworkers, don't hold the ones leaving the mess accountable.
  - lmilcin 6y ago
    Now, we have assumed we are talking about great developers. It is true that sometimes it is difficult to tell one from the other, if you are a manager and you squint your eyes a little bit. Sometimes mediocre developer masking himself as a great developer is able to create a distortion field when he never finishes anything and relies on help from others to achieve his perceived fantastic output. No, we are not talking about that kind of person. What I mean is a person that is truly great developer. The organizations will frequently try to make good use of this person. One strategy is to get that developer to work on green-field projects only. He will design/write the code but once it is in prod it is going to be outsourced to another team and the star developer moves to another exciting project. Another strategy is to offload as much non-critical work as possible. Junior developers to write to spec? Testers? "Devops" engineers (as much as I hate that term)? These are all possible way to keep the perceived star developer with only hardest problems. Now, I don't say it is a good practice -- it is just something I have noticed over the years. Good developers have much more say in what they are going to be working on and in what capacity and this means taking interesting tasks and leaving mundane to more junior members.
    - BlargMcLarg 6y ago
      > Now, we have assumed we are talking about great developers. I think you're the one making that assumption, not "we". I'm merely talking about the guys who are seen as pros, but might just be "good" or "above average". They gain the benefit of accumulating a lot of knowledge and experience, while someone with more talent might have made better use of it. I also believe you're assuming a little much about organizations, especially in the direction "mediocre perceived as great". Often, it is also a great developer perceived as mediocre because they don't have the skills to sell themselves well. Considering many managers don't even have a technical background, let alone a developed one, and how many environments don't allow the great developer to shine without playing office politics, I highly question the idea of "organizations will find a way". Given what you said, despite the difference in perspective, what we are saying doesn't differ a lot. I just don't believe a developer who avoids politics and tends to hang around to do the dirty work in a large enterprise app can get very far, or at least leaves a lot up to fate (despite maybe having a ton of talent). Nor do I believe "plays office politics well" should be a requirement for someone to be seen as a great developer.
      - loopz 6y ago
        I don't consider people holding orgs hostage as "great". It's a huge debt-inducing antipattern, leaving others to hold the bag.
  - watwut 6y ago
    That is what I meant.
commandlinefan 6y ago
> leaving stuff unfinished Depends on what you define as "the dirty work". Actually making it run is something the developer should be responsible for. Shepherding JIRA tickets through the different workflows, keeping builds straight, deploying to various environments and coordinating testing are also things that developers shouldn't (but are too often expected to) be wasting time with. There's a reason why lawyers hire paralegals to do things that don't require a law degree.

watwut 6y ago

Tho, there are quite a few pros in that category. Consider themselves great, believe that they have more passion then everyone else, but they are fast because other people have to finish their work and do all time consuming parts and do the hard parts.

BlargMcLarg 6y ago
I'd argue it may be the opposite. They are seen as pros because they don't spend the time finishing things, often despite the fact they are perfectly capable of finishing the job. They are getting 80% of the merit doing 20% of the job, while leaving others do the remaining 80% for 20% of the merit. They have more time to gather more merit, chase knowledge and ideas, experiment, which ends up opening doors. It isn't too far from how consultants tend to function, why job hopping is lucrative, etc.. There just isn't enough incentive to stay for the dirty work as long as others, be it the managers, the employers or the coworkers, don't hold the ones leaving the mess accountable.
- lmilcin 6y ago
  Now, we have assumed we are talking about great developers. It is true that sometimes it is difficult to tell one from the other, if you are a manager and you squint your eyes a little bit. Sometimes mediocre developer masking himself as a great developer is able to create a distortion field when he never finishes anything and relies on help from others to achieve his perceived fantastic output. No, we are not talking about that kind of person. What I mean is a person that is truly great developer. The organizations will frequently try to make good use of this person. One strategy is to get that developer to work on green-field projects only. He will design/write the code but once it is in prod it is going to be outsourced to another team and the star developer moves to another exciting project. Another strategy is to offload as much non-critical work as possible. Junior developers to write to spec? Testers? "Devops" engineers (as much as I hate that term)? These are all possible way to keep the perceived star developer with only hardest problems. Now, I don't say it is a good practice -- it is just something I have noticed over the years. Good developers have much more say in what they are going to be working on and in what capacity and this means taking interesting tasks and leaving mundane to more junior members.
  - BlargMcLarg 6y ago
    > Now, we have assumed we are talking about great developers. I think you're the one making that assumption, not "we". I'm merely talking about the guys who are seen as pros, but might just be "good" or "above average". They gain the benefit of accumulating a lot of knowledge and experience, while someone with more talent might have made better use of it. I also believe you're assuming a little much about organizations, especially in the direction "mediocre perceived as great". Often, it is also a great developer perceived as mediocre because they don't have the skills to sell themselves well. Considering many managers don't even have a technical background, let alone a developed one, and how many environments don't allow the great developer to shine without playing office politics, I highly question the idea of "organizations will find a way". Given what you said, despite the difference in perspective, what we are saying doesn't differ a lot. I just don't believe a developer who avoids politics and tends to hang around to do the dirty work in a large enterprise app can get very far, or at least leaves a lot up to fate (despite maybe having a ton of talent). Nor do I believe "plays office politics well" should be a requirement for someone to be seen as a great developer.
    - loopz 6y ago
      I don't consider people holding orgs hostage as "great". It's a huge debt-inducing antipattern, leaving others to hold the bag.
- watwut 6y ago
  That is what I meant.

commandlinefan 6y ago

> leaving stuff unfinished Depends on what you define as "the dirty work". Actually making it run is something the developer should be responsible for. Shepherding JIRA tickets through the different workflows, keeping builds straight, deploying to various environments and coordinating testing are also things that developers shouldn't (but are too often expected to) be wasting time with. There's a reason why lawyers hire paralegals to do things that don't require a law degree.