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But what if they aren't worth more (as a dev, financially) than they think they are? They could be awful, but naively put in a ton of hours. Why do we assume pe

• colanderman 4y ago
  I'm basing this off four observations -- 1) They, as the sole developer, are managing to hold their startup together software-wise. That is a useful skill -- raw coding talent or not. 2) Since having recently found my way to a FAANG, I've found a surprising number of new hires are fresh college grads with about that much coding experience, and make more than I (with 30 years experience) ever had made before joining. 3) OP is self-described terrible at networking. I've personally found this my biggest barrier to finding well-paying jobs also. 4) Startups pay shit.
  • chii 4y ago
    > are managing to hold their startup together software-wise. you dont know that. They could be failing the startup software-wise, and yet never know it! The only way to find out, objectively, if you're good or not, is via multiple sources of independent verification in different companies.
    • BatteryMountain 4y ago
      It would be evident after a few months or a year if he is failing them, he has been there for 4 years. So unless the startup has non-functioning software and everyone involved is okay with that, incl the people who pays the bills, he probably is doing just fine and just mentally deep in a hole.
    • rowanajmarshall 4y ago
      If you've been the sole developer at a startup (and that startup depends on it's tech) for 4 years, there's no way OP is failing at that.
• reflexe 4y ago
  Someone who has been working in a small team for 4 years in a startup has to be "good enough". Which is far better than the average candidate who can't keep a position for more than a year and needs constant help from the manager in order to accomplish anything. Maybe my standards are low, but unfortunately, I have seen so many of these cases.
  • dfcowell 4y ago
    OP didn’t state where they are from, but there are plenty of places where it is extremely hard to fire, even if an employee is consistently underperforming. Not saying that this is the case in this circumstance (I don’t know OP,) but the “you must be good because you lasted 4 years” heuristic doesn’t work that well outside of the US, or similar markets with at-will employment.
    • rrix2 4y ago
      if they were sole dev in a startup for four years and couldn't ship software the startup probably wouldn't have lasted the last four years... Or they very quickly wouldn't be the sole full stack dev any more and relegated to some shit job
      • andi999 4y ago
        exactly. 'Shipping' is a very valuable skill not everybody has (and people who do have it undervalue it).
      • dfcowell 4y ago
        Yeah, I missed that they were the sole engineer. That changes things dramatically.
    • ctxc 4y ago
      "sole dev in a startup" is key here.
      • dfcowell 4y ago
• geodel 4y ago
  > and there are just and many horrible devs as their are great ones. I will say horrible devs are far more than great ones. In my 15 years of experience I have seen far more mediocre or downright horrible than great ones.
  • mrmattyboy 4y ago
    Quick question, if I may... Of the horrible devs that you can think of, how many of them would reach out and say that they're horrible (or make a post like this) vs how many of them think they're great/superstars? :) Certainly makes me think of the Dunning-Kruger effect!
    • mcv 4y ago
      I think many "great" programmers also have plenty of flaws. Nobody is perfect. As long as you can make stuff that works, that's good. Some people will be better at some things, some will be worse. Focus on the stuff you're good at. Work on the stuff you want to be better at. But stop trying to be a superstar. We're all stuck between Dunning-Kruger and the Impostor Syndrome, but we make it work.
      • deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      • mrmattyboy 4y ago
        Completely agree :)
• coastflow 4y ago
  Assuming the developer can get paid a 40-hour salary for working 40 hours a week elsewhere instead of 70-90 hour weeks plus 24/7 on-call, the developer is clearly capable of earning more dollars per hour of work.
• comvidyarthi 4y ago
  I want to point out that a person’s is not a static thing. You are not born with whatever you are “worth”. You either build your worthiness over time, or lose it. I think instead of propagating that most people are horrible devs, we should try to tell people that it’s always an acquired skill. So everyone (and I really mean everyone) can work to acquire the skills, and become a “worthy” dev.
  • shswkna 4y ago
    This. I have seen eager but untalented persons build their skills and their portfolio over a couple years. To the point that had I been told this at the beginning, I would not have believed it. In a particular case, the person - at the time a low qualified technician - embarked at 26 to become an engineer, and by 38 is one of the most sought after engineers in his field. Self confidence and willpower are factors that can overcome innate talent to a very large degree.
• sheinsheish 4y ago
  nice argument there dude. your self esteem must be skyrocketing. Op is crying for help, you talk like an AI. cheers!
• bawolff 4y ago
  > But what if they aren't worth more (as a dev, financially) than they think they are? Honestly i think most devs err on the side of underestimating their value not overestimating it, particularly in the current market. Of course, ymmv, but last time i switched jobs i ended up being pretty shocked how much more employers thought i was worth compared to what my (at the time) current job was paying me.
• safety1st 4y ago
  It would still make sense to encourage their self esteem, because poor self-esteem is a self reinforcing condition. It negatively affects your mental health, and by extension your job performance and "worth" on the job market. If a little bit of self delusion is what's required to break that cycle, then it's totally worth it. Not that I think that's what's going on here. If you read between the lines of the OP it's my opinion that the main issues afflicting them are a poor self-image and bad networking skills. They're likely good enough technically but if they don't address the self talk they may never realize that.
• DyslexicAtheist 4y ago
  what if they would be great doing something entirely different. OP hasn't said if they ever had a point in their life when they really enjoyed what they did. in my case brain fog from burn-out lasted not months but 6-8 years with varying severity. depending on how long you stay burned out or ignore the burn-out that might be less. E.g if you're without a support network during burn-out it may not be as straight forward to pull yourself out. Burn out might be not because they worked so much and are now financially stable but because they had to work so much because they could never make ends meet until now. If they can afford it they should take time off radically - get rid of everything that ties them down, be in nature for min 6 months (example: a long hike -> heading from A to B so there is a purpose in the simplicity). Or cover yourself in books (not compsci or tech literature but something radically different) and spend the other free time physically exercising. There are pretty clear signs of depression in these sentences (why I would focus on lot of exercise or routines that also demand a healthy diet). Alternative is to see a quack and pop pills for the next few months and risk some addiction as a result, or at least deal with weaning yourself off them again. Doing radically different things than $dayjob means totally forgetting about technology for a while and opening yourself up to other things. Person is 28 ffs which is hardly an age where you can't start on a radically different career path and end up excelling in it. Worst thing would be to carry on as a dev and turn yourself from a bad dev to a mediocre one and pay for this poor "gain" with burn-out, brain-fog, depression for several years.
• eyelidlessness 4y ago
  What if this kind of cruel snotty attitude is a telltale sign of people who are as afraid they’re mediocre as they view the people they judge? What if there’s no value to anyone in this kind of response?
  • scaramanga 4y ago
    This is literally the logic of capitalism. Your value is simply whatever value you are able to negotiate for yourself on the job market. OP is more valuable than a toilet cleaner, or a starbucks barista, less valuable than a corporate lawyer or a CEO. People naturally "compare up" rather than "compare down". Sure OP is probably in the 1% wealthiest people in the world, or top 99.9999% of those who ever lived, but rather than be happy with that, he will compare himself to other computer programmers who are doing fantastically, and feel bad about himself. Another factor here is probably the fact that OP's working conditions are highly exploitative, it appears that he is putting in far more work than necessary. He probably genuinely believes that hard work is rewarded and doesn't understand why he feels used up and spent. And it's probably because he is being used up and spent by his exploitative employer. So fair enough if you look around and see other developers who are not being used up, you might decide you want to live life with a measure of dignity, too. Any rational actor in this circumstance would do the minimum work they could get away with, and do whatever they can to negotiate for better conditions. A first step might be to develop enough self esteem to be able to say "no" when asked to work unhealthy and unproductively long hours. But without knowing more of the specifics of how much leverage he has, it's hard to know if that is going to be met with instant reprisal or whether he will be able to gain the respect he deserves. Of course, I am starting from the basic assumption that all human beings are worthy of some basic amount of respect, dignity, and freedom from exploitation.
    • wildmanx 4y ago
      > OP is more valuable than a toilet cleaner, or a starbucks barista Not to kill your point, but those two are dramatically under-valued and under-appreciated jobs in most societies around the world. Every time you use a toilet (other than the one in your home) which is hopefully clean, somebody had cleaned it recently. Imagine they hadn't. You'd have a terrible day. Every time you go grab a good Starbucks coffee. Maybe even sit down in a comfy sofa to be able to enjoy it. Imagine the barista had screwed it up. Both experiences make a huge difference in people's lives. Hundreds if not thousands a day. Every day. But they are paid crap and talked about in the way you just did. Compare that to a coder churning away meaningless features in some meaningless app. Would I care if the coder wouldn't show up to work for the next 4 weeks with nobody stepping in their place? No. That answer is decisively different for the toilet cleaner and the barista.
• atoav 4y ago
  Even more reason for them to get a decent work life balance. Who do you think makes more trouble for their collegues: a hypothetical mediocre developer who is overworked, or a mediocre developer who works normal hours and has two hobbies which fulfil them? I'd bet my money on the first producing more trouble. The latter one is not centered around coding alone, so they are more flexible.
• Firmwarrior 4y ago
  [flagged]
• t_mann 4y ago
  Wow, this is a textbook example of trying to solve a deeply personal/emotional problem with logics and data instead of compassion. To anyone who activates their empathy sensors it's evidently clear that the OP is having a mild burnout crisis (not surprising after 70h weeks), and needs a bit of support first and foremost. What's really doing damage is your language, not a biased estimate of which percentile of a bell curve we're looking at here. It's simply. not. the. problem. If they are on the wrong track they'll figure it out on their own, but they need support and compassion. Sorry for being so direct, but this culture of trying to substitute logic for compassion really pervades the IT scene in a rather toxic way.
  • Tenoke 4y ago
    >What's really doing damage is your language, not a biased estimate of which percentile of a bell curve we're looking at here. I don't know, maybe setting unrealistic expectations and telling everyone they are worth more which implies they are doing something wrong to not get that worth out isn't doing them favours either in the long run.
    • t_mann 4y ago
      Yes, apparently you don't know how language affects emotions, expectations and personal relationships, and what the long-term effects on mental health, productivity, longevity and quality-years-of-life are. Don't confuse your pseudo-empiricism with objectivity (we don't even have enough data here! how can you talk about unrealistic expectations without data?). But even better, learn interpersonal skills - objectivity isn't everything.
      • Tenoke 4y ago
        >we don't even have enough data here! how can you talk about unrealistic expectations without data? You don't need data on every single developer in the world to know that not all of them are 'worth more'. >learn interpersonal skills - objectivity isn't everything. The whole thinking that objectivity precludes interpersonal skills and that if you attempt to be objective you are what? a cold robot? is absurd.
• 1337biz 4y ago
  He is a developer not an assembly line worker. Office work is subjective to the environment and can not be objectively measured. It largely depends on how he presents and positions himself in his specific work environment and there is always room to level up this situation.
• Aeolun 4y ago
  Possible, but the balance of probablility is that they’re fairly good. This based solely on the fact they’re aware of and posting on HN. All the mediocre people I know aren’t interested enough to keep reading -much less comment on- this website.
  • bdavis__ 4y ago
    i like your logic. someone should ask a few HN questions instead of leetcode. "who is dang"? "did you read the latest from the lego sorter guy ?"
• tl_donson 4y ago
  “Most people are supremely mediocre and there are just and many horrible devs as their are great ones.” if this is true (not arguing either way), then he is almost surely undervaluing himself since most of those mediocre or horrible devs don’t work 80 hour weeks or are regularly on call.