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I've come to the conclusion that this is easily explained. Managers are extroverts or they wouldn't have become managers. Extroverts think that working with oth

I've come to the conclusion that this is easily explained. Managers are extroverts or they wouldn't have become managers. Extroverts think that working with others is best and can't understand introverts who would rather work alone. To an extrovert that is anti-social and a sign of deeper issues. On the other hand, a lot of great software I've run across has been written by introverts, but I can't think of any that has been written by extroverts. Where do they find the time to devote the focus required when they are busy socializing? I'm confident about my first paragraph above, not as much about the second.

superchroma 4y ago
On your first point, I agree, I've seen extroverted employees enter the management track and get promoted to such positions over others. On the topic of great software, I would offer that maybe this is beside the point. I'm not convinced that in most organizations of sufficient size that you can even get great software, because they fall down a road of lowest common denominator development to tackle issues of huge scale, complexity and managing varying levels of talent. In my experience there tends to be so much intertia and process created to corrall people that usually inspired people are left shackled at the hand and foot and prevented from effecting meaningful change. Once this happens, it comes down to the capacity for individuals to bring people on board (usually not an advertised developer skill) and sell ideas to others to effect change, which I think informs at least part of the thinking in hiring "team players" - which really is management engineering around the problems that they've created.
- labrador 4y ago
  There are too many examples to list of one programmer inventing software that the rest of take for granted now. The best example of more than one is probably Jeff Dean and Sanjay Ghemawat at Google, but that's just two people. It's possible the companies who want team players are acknowledging that their programmers aren't the best so everyone needs to work together to make something that works.
  - superchroma 4y ago
    I've revised my comment a little. Yes, it's definitely possible. The example that comes to my mind now is the guy who runs Krita, which is a project with huge scope, but I think that to do this effectively requires a high level of discipline and patience that many people don't have and that is difficult to test for when hiring, which is why companies are forced to turn to bureaucracy instead.
    - labrador 4y ago
      I recently watched a documentary on Henry Ford. One of his innovations was to move manufacture from a craftsmen model that required high skills to an assembly line model that used more people with less skill to get the same result. The managing engineer is the one holding it together. With this in mind it makes sense to hire team players who are good enough over highly skilled workers who work in isolation. The trick then becomes finding highly skilled workers who are able to engineer and manage solutions for the lower skilled workers to implement.
      - Silhouette 4y ago
        Does that analogy really hold when you're making software and not a physical product? In software development you don't need a production line staffed by minimally skilled workers to implement the plan of the expert. Automation is what we do. Of course you still often need those experts to have decent soft skills because many commercial projects will still need multiple developers even if everyone involved is very good. But the communication and management overheads scale far more than linearly with the size of the team so a relatively small team of very skilled developers can easily outperform a much larger team of mediocre developers in practice.
        superchroma 4y ago
        Well, maybe? For every hard problem which requires smart people to actually innovate, there's 100 which involve writing boilerplate to get information from a form to a database and back again.
NoPicklez 4y ago
That is a very overblown assumption of what an extrovert is assuming that extroverts can't focus because they're busy socialising. I know plenty of supposed introverts that cannot focus. Being an introvert doesn't necessarily mean you aren't necessarily social or sociable.
- HellDunkel 4y ago
  Still, extroverts can‘t go deep focus for very long. Probably is a fact by definition, not sure…
  - NoPicklez 4y ago
    Given that our perception of introversion & extroversion is on a scale, what is your definition of "very long". There are plenty of lazy, unmotivated introverts.
    - CRConrad 4y ago
      > Given that our perception of introversion & extroversion is on a scale, what is your definition of "very long". That's also on a scale.
    - HellDunkel 4y ago
      By no way am i an expert on the topic. My take is that i see extroverts as generally more extrinsically motivated. So in terms of archieving things i regard them as sprinters, beeing more dependent on feedback by other people, as opposed to marathon runners.
      - NoPicklez 4y ago
        I suppose the argument falls down when there are both introverted and extroverted marathon runners.
brnt 4y ago
It's important to be aware that one isn't either an introvert or extravert; it's a scale. And you can move around it. I use software everyday built by (large) teams which no doubt required some extroverts to get done. In fact, I don't think I use any software written by a single person? Some people must not have worked in very good teams when I see the subject come up. Having my first proper training (it involved Belbin, but there are other models like it) openee my eyes to understanding interpersonal dynamics and what separates funtioning dynamics to non functioning ones (some diversity in attitudes and skills!). Writing great code means nothing if nobody knows about it, is able to use it, or needs it, etc. I recently organized a training like this for my current team (of highly skeptical software engineers) and it was a great succes. It would be a good start if people wouldn't reduce themselves to a single stereotype. People can be and are multiple things at once, and I'd say it's extremely healthy and useful to be skilled in more than a single way.
- picsao 4y ago
loldk 4y ago

superchroma 4y ago

On your first point, I agree, I've seen extroverted employees enter the management track and get promoted to such positions over others. On the topic of great software, I would offer that maybe this is beside the point. I'm not convinced that in most organizations of sufficient size that you can even get great software, because they fall down a road of lowest common denominator development to tackle issues of huge scale, complexity and managing varying levels of talent. In my experience there tends to be so much intertia and process created to corrall people that usually inspired people are left shackled at the hand and foot and prevented from effecting meaningful change. Once this happens, it comes down to the capacity for individuals to bring people on board (usually not an advertised developer skill) and sell ideas to others to effect change, which I think informs at least part of the thinking in hiring "team players" - which really is management engineering around the problems that they've created.

labrador 4y ago
There are too many examples to list of one programmer inventing software that the rest of take for granted now. The best example of more than one is probably Jeff Dean and Sanjay Ghemawat at Google, but that's just two people. It's possible the companies who want team players are acknowledging that their programmers aren't the best so everyone needs to work together to make something that works.
- superchroma 4y ago
  I've revised my comment a little. Yes, it's definitely possible. The example that comes to my mind now is the guy who runs Krita, which is a project with huge scope, but I think that to do this effectively requires a high level of discipline and patience that many people don't have and that is difficult to test for when hiring, which is why companies are forced to turn to bureaucracy instead.
  - labrador 4y ago
    I recently watched a documentary on Henry Ford. One of his innovations was to move manufacture from a craftsmen model that required high skills to an assembly line model that used more people with less skill to get the same result. The managing engineer is the one holding it together. With this in mind it makes sense to hire team players who are good enough over highly skilled workers who work in isolation. The trick then becomes finding highly skilled workers who are able to engineer and manage solutions for the lower skilled workers to implement.
    - Silhouette 4y ago
      Does that analogy really hold when you're making software and not a physical product? In software development you don't need a production line staffed by minimally skilled workers to implement the plan of the expert. Automation is what we do. Of course you still often need those experts to have decent soft skills because many commercial projects will still need multiple developers even if everyone involved is very good. But the communication and management overheads scale far more than linearly with the size of the team so a relatively small team of very skilled developers can easily outperform a much larger team of mediocre developers in practice.
      - superchroma 4y ago
        Well, maybe? For every hard problem which requires smart people to actually innovate, there's 100 which involve writing boilerplate to get information from a form to a database and back again.

NoPicklez 4y ago

That is a very overblown assumption of what an extrovert is assuming that extroverts can't focus because they're busy socialising. I know plenty of supposed introverts that cannot focus. Being an introvert doesn't necessarily mean you aren't necessarily social or sociable.

HellDunkel 4y ago
Still, extroverts can‘t go deep focus for very long. Probably is a fact by definition, not sure…
- NoPicklez 4y ago
  Given that our perception of introversion & extroversion is on a scale, what is your definition of "very long". There are plenty of lazy, unmotivated introverts.
  - CRConrad 4y ago
    > Given that our perception of introversion & extroversion is on a scale, what is your definition of "very long". That's also on a scale.
  - HellDunkel 4y ago
    By no way am i an expert on the topic. My take is that i see extroverts as generally more extrinsically motivated. So in terms of archieving things i regard them as sprinters, beeing more dependent on feedback by other people, as opposed to marathon runners.
    - NoPicklez 4y ago
      I suppose the argument falls down when there are both introverted and extroverted marathon runners.

brnt 4y ago

It's important to be aware that one isn't either an introvert or extravert; it's a scale. And you can move around it. I use software everyday built by (large) teams which no doubt required some extroverts to get done. In fact, I don't think I use any software written by a single person? Some people must not have worked in very good teams when I see the subject come up. Having my first proper training (it involved Belbin, but there are other models like it) openee my eyes to understanding interpersonal dynamics and what separates funtioning dynamics to non functioning ones (some diversity in attitudes and skills!). Writing great code means nothing if nobody knows about it, is able to use it, or needs it, etc. I recently organized a training like this for my current team (of highly skeptical software engineers) and it was a great succes. It would be a good start if people wouldn't reduce themselves to a single stereotype. People can be and are multiple things at once, and I'd say it's extremely healthy and useful to be skilled in more than a single way.

picsao 4y ago

loldk 4y ago