15 ms·

How should we handle an over-productive employee?

134 points by zikohh 4y ago

Chris2048 4y ago
> We put him on charge of finding out how to package stuff for publishing using a new installer tool. He got it done in two days - the previous developer was stuck on it for a month and couldn't get it done. Hmm, a month? I wonder if the other devs are also a problem?
- pyb 4y ago
  Looks like they accidentally hired a high performer.
setgree 4y ago
Growing up, when I got good at something, I was able to channel the gains in productivity into more free time. This gave me ample incentive to get good at things. In the workplace, if you get good at something, you are generally expected to work the same fixed amount, which means the company reaps most of the rewards of your gains in productivity. On the SE thread, people recommend rewarding Bob by giving him more work, a promotion, or more money. One person suggests allowing him more free time. Were I Bob, I’d want more money and a promotion, but most of all I’d want more time. But that just isn’t how things are done in most workplaces. I think most people in Bob’s shoes would just pretend that they are busier than they are.
- shash 4y ago
  I think the SE thread mentions that he’s paid by the hour. Which for someone like Bob is quite a poor way to manage them!
throwawaymaths 4y ago
Tell him to fill the rest of his time clearing tasks and bugs for open source projects the company depends on.
- avn2109 4y ago
  Best answer here, unleash Bob to fix openSSL or Linux kernel performance improvements or something.
  - throwawaymaths 4y ago
    More prosaically (and judging from the description of the org), it's likely to be something like this: https://github.com/RicoSuter/NSwag https://github.com/RicoSuter/NSwag Which has 1.7k issues, some of which are open for years.
reportgunner 4y ago
I think training others or leading others is the way to go here. Giving him more work leaves you with the risk of Bob not being available one day for a period of time leaving the rest of the company struggling to fill the hole in productivity that was left after him.
ThrowawayTestr 4y ago
What a great problem to have.
- satysin 4y ago
  Generally yes having a very high performing member on the team is a good thing. However there are situations where it can cause problems with the team morale and dynamic. As well as sometimes very serious/catastrophic issues. Say you have a team with several good performers and one very high performer that just blasts through their work. This can (and usually does) lead to other members of the team feeling they're not as good. This can lead to them backing away from tasks they are good at, feel they're 'not good enough' and looking for another job (a loss for the team as they were good). It can also cause friction as the very high performer will often snap up many tasks. Tasks which other members of the team may find interesting to work on. Again leading to morale issues. Another point is that you should ask yourself how is this person performing so much faster than everyone else? Are they cutting corners? Are they not planning things and introducing awful technical debt you will have to deal with in a year or two when they have left from boredom? Do they have some undiagnosed/unmanaged neurodivergent trait such as ADHD that may lead them to burnout? Are they 'throwing themselves into work' because of personal issues that may lead to a house of card style collapse if they reach breaking point? Are they abusing drugs? Over the years I have worked with a few very high performers because of some of the above reasons. I am not saying all very high performers have something from the above list, there are just some people that are like machines on overdrive and always have been. But many times there is a reason behind it and a good manager will identify that for everyones benefit. In my personal experience the very high performers I have worked with had a mixture of personal and drug issues. One of which lead to a terrible outcome that destroyed their career and family. For a couple of years they were the "rockstar 10x programmer unicorn" people dream of having. But over time problems become more common, internal team issues were almost all this persons fault, etc. They went from being a rockstar to a tremendous liability and resulted in several team members leaving due to the hostile environment they created.
  - kayodelycaon 4y ago
    My productivity can be crazy high when I'm manic, but the code tends to be a bit beyond my own comprehension when I look back on it months later. I also tend to skip tests because they are a "waste of time". I'm medicated now but I still have pretty strong swings in productivity. Fortunately, I found a job that can work with that. No one has a problem with me taking days off without notice (and sometimes without pay). Being able to take time to deal with episodes has avoided the stress and burnout that has cost me several jobs in the past. I've also learned to use depressed cycles to re-read my code to make sure I can still understand it. If I don't, I've got an engaging puzzle to unravel and document.
itsboring 4y ago
Bob shouldn’t be working at a place where he’s only allowed to work on tasks that are assigned to him by a manager, and twiddle his thumbs when he has none. He should be able to create his own tasks, do some experiments, R&D, self-directed training, open source work, whatever he finds compelling.
- faizshah 4y ago
  Yea, this is where I like the amazon model of ownership. It’s something like: SDE I - can work on clearly defined components of a project assigned to them SDE II - can work on an ambiguous project with multiple components lead by a technical strategy SDE III - lead influence and define strategy for ambiguous projects across multiple teams This person is operating at an SDE II level but is being managed at an SDE I level...it’s time for a promotion. What’s worse is the manager is micromanaging the engineers. Instead the employee needs to be given more ambiguous project level work that aligns with the team/product strategy where they can define their own tasks. Also the manager should consider falling back from managing at the task level, instead helping facilitate at the project (or “story”) level. The fact that the manager is managing at a task level and is unable to find work for this engineer tells me that the team doesn’t have a strong tech lead who is familiar with the team/product strategy and can help mentor/lead other engineers. In terms of retaining the engineer and making them less insecure about their role, when the manager gives the team member more insight into the team’s strategy and the way that the manager is evaluating their work it helps team members feel more secure in their role. A lot of the anxiety comes from guessing what your manager is thinking and how you are being evaluated and shows a lack of communication between manager and team on strategy, values and performance evaluation. The manager should consider holding weekly 1:1s focusing on these topics.
  - closeparen 4y ago
    Absolutely, but this is a particular feature of product-oriented tech companies. Enterprise could maybe work like that but usually doesn't. Consultancy absolutely can't. This is why it's so important to work in Silicon Valley and not just any software development role.
  - 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
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sys_64738 4y ago
Sounds like he needs more meetings to attend. That should help equalize his productivity.
- unity1001 4y ago
  Quick!! Schedule a few syncs on his/her calendar. That'll show him how to be productive!
BoxFour 4y ago
I’m going to be contrary and cynical say that something funny is going on here. Going from desktop to mobile development, for example, isn’t a monumental task necessarily but if you’re spinning up on an entirely new framework, language, and even way of thinking (old devices, low connectivity, etc) I’m extremely skeptical that you could learn it to any appreciable degree in a week of real time, let alone work time. Sure, it’s possible there are factors making this transition easier, and yes some of those mobile concerns apply to desktop as well, but to me this reeks of a few possible situations, none of which are good: 1) Bob is doing things without really understanding what he’s doing, perhaps literally following a guide to the letter without a shred of critical thought about what he’s doing. 2) Bob is working far beyond what he’s billing 3) You’ve over-hired by a fair amount and your technology is so simple that people can solve your business needs even in disparate contexts extremely easily. If your Android app is just a web view connecting to your site, for example, sure i can see that being simple enough to fix in a week.
- rubidium 4y ago
  To (3)'s point, the manager doesn't realize what's possible and the current devs are actually working 4 hours a week. Bob is exception, and _actually_ working 40 hours a week and getting 10x done.
  - jeremyjh 4y ago
    The question wasn't posted by the manager though, but by someone on the team.
    - Coneylake 4y ago
      I don't think that was explicitly stated
      - texaslonghorn5 4y ago
        The poster was the tech lead, per one of their comments.
2b3a51 4y ago
Given the setting described in the linked Stack Exchange question, could they not send the other two developers on training courses/ skill building courses? That way, Bob gets a nice full queue and the team as a whole enhances their skill level. Disclaimer: I don't work in IT and am not a programmer.
monkeynotes 4y ago
If it were at all possible I'd give Bob a 4 day week, let him work on personal R&D stuff, or promote him to a level where he can use his competence to solve bigger problems. If there are no more challenging problems to work on it's time for Bob to look for a new job as his career will be suffering.
yung_steezy 4y ago
One of the replies mentions it but I think letting him do open-source contributions on company time is the best solution here. Getting a voice in the community for libraries that the company are using is very valuable.
Fiahil 4y ago
The solution is pretty simple and given out in the answers below : > It's a good idea for everyone (including Bob) to have a well defined side or pet project. Something that's useful for the business, fun to do, but doesn't have a hard deadline or deliverable yet. Could be technical or scientific research, tools, process improvement, experimental features, documentation, user research, competitive analysis, etc. This is "stuff to work on" if your hair isn't on fire and your tasks are mostly done. These can be defined in collaboration between the employees and the business stakeholders. > Have bob start filling up his own task queue
redleggedfrog 4y ago
Reading the bullets for a minute I thought I was Bob, but I've never done Android for real, so no, but the rest mostly fits. I'm maybe not quite that productive, either, but close. I have the advantage of being old and curious, and working with the same codebase for the last 10 years. What helps me is a really good manager - of which I have had two out of ??? in 25 years. When I'm out of tasks they allowed me to refactor and fix longstanding difficult bugs. It has the added advantage of getting me deeper into the code and allowing me to build better foundations for future work which makes me more productive for a nice feedback loop. They also have allowed me to train up other developers and write up official coding standards with down time and that has been great, too. It's nice when all your code looks mostly the same. Also being able to repeatedly decline a promotion to management but still get paid well has been good for company loyalty. There is a downside in that most days feel like, well, kind of like a Games Workshop orc going "Waaaaaaaah!" where I'm just hurtling through the work and my brain is just spinning max RPM and then I go home and it's hard to stop the momentum. I have to excercise to clear my head or I won't sleep.
- comfypotato 4y ago
  This is the lifestyle to which I aspire. Can you provide your “most helpful tip” that got you to this place?
  - redleggedfrog 4y ago
    comfypotato, sorry for the delay in replying, I only read Hacker News morning and evening. Hmm, a single "most helpful tip" - that's tricky. Okay, how about, "read a lot of code and write a lot of code". Thing is, I really like programming, and would do it even if I wasn't paid. Early on, way back in the DOS days, I wrote most of the programs I used - contact manager, calendar, compy automation and so on, in C, then C++. Then when Windows came along I wrote the same things in Borland Delphi. When I want to learn something, I spent a fair amount of time studying up front, but I learn way faster just starting to write something. Walking through with a debugger tells you a lot more than docs. Professionally it has been much the same. I work on a lot of legacy systems. I learn the code, usually by debugging, and then when asked to do something, I usually refactor to be more modern and reusable, and then do that reuse when possible. I'm not really a neophile so if I have a bunch of services I've used for 5 years that work great I'll just keep using them. Everything gets done with an eye for re-usability. I love solid code I can depend on. Also, I keep really, really, stringent coding standards for myself, and the Dev team is mostly the same. We've agreed to these as a group, so we code review everything for SOLID, KISS, and conformity to our code review guidelines. It makes reading code a lot easier. I hope that helps.
nathas 4y ago
Management is about extracting value, which is what most of those on replies on StackExchange are doing. Leadership is about training new leaders. Bob is a kick-ass employee. Why not make him into a leader and have him figure out ways to make the other employees just as productive? He has to learn to multiply his effort. He doesn't need to be a manager to do that; he just needs to be made into a stronger leader and be given progressively larger scope.
- itsboring 4y ago
  Leadership is a worthwhile activity for sure, but if “Bob” doesn’t get enjoyment/satisfaction out of it, then it could be perceived by him as more of a punishment.
richliss 4y ago
Someone needs to check that he's not creating shit at a million LOC per hour. Run some code analysis metrics over his code. Let's say he isn't. Give him these challenges: 1. Increase unit test coverage. When it's at about 85% he can stop. 2. Increase automated acceptance test coverage. And so on. That should buy you time. Then tell him to learn to master refactoring and patterns and let him knock himself out improving code problem areas. That's an endless challenge and he'll get old and tired soon enough.
motohagiography 4y ago
One thing I might suggest is find out what open source products your customers are using and get Bob to contriubte to those products from his corporate account on behalf of your company. If the projects are related to the company's line of business it will increase the firms profile hugely, and make you the go-to company for those customers as they can't afford not to choose your expertise that they already depend on. Your company's revenue is part new business and part renweals. The open source product will be a funnel for converting the FOSS users to new customers, while locking down renewals in those customers who use projects he contributes to. Figure out your customers' stacks, and then pitch Bob on contributing to key libraries and technologies that underpin them.
raarts 4y ago
My message to Bob: if you're the smartest in the room, you're in the wrong room.
- kyleee 4y ago
  well that certainly depends on compensation and a bunch of other factors
dtx1 4y ago
This reminds me of the WWI and WWII flying Aces. Germany had a lot more flying aces and lot higher "highscores" for their pilots than the allied or entente forces. The reasons was simple: Germany send their high value pilots out a lot more to get these results, risking losing their best pilots, while the british deliberatly made sure their best pilots immediately became instructors teaching their skills to other pilots. Bob should stop doing any work himself and instead focus on teaching other developers. Most programming time is spend being stuck on problems and debugging, the mere task of coding is often trivial for most devs. A high achiever like bob could propably help people solve issues they are stuck on really fast. That in turn would 10x return the performance he can achieve himself.
- unregistereddev 4y ago
  This is a very good challenge for Bob. It is very much a "practice teaching and see how it goes" thing. It may not be something Bob is good at, though it may be something he can improve. Part of the value of a technical career path is to let high flyers teach experienced developers. While some people are good at training, it is its own skill. Some advanced IC's forget how to teach the basics, but are good at teaching advanced skills. To be clear, I'm agreeing with you. I just wanted to add the caveat that Bob might fit best as a staff developer who trains senior engineers. He may or may not also be good at training juniors.
sbf501 4y ago
The entire piece is catering to Bob's anxiety. As one of the replies mentions, it is about communication. But if Bob is really getting bored, then it he isn't a fit with your company, and that's a decision he needs to make. If you don't have an HR department to ease Bob's pain, I hate to say it, he's an adult and doesn't need to be coddled. Let him make his own choice to stay or leave. OP has been completely clear.
- papageek 4y ago
  They don’t want to lose Bob. They need to promote him to ease the workload of the overloaded manager and mentor the other developers. Bob can be a force multiplier. They could take on more business or expand their product. The manager is the problem not Bob.
yieldcrv 4y ago
Multiple problems here that give insight into the organization itself: 1) Normal Agile development and scrum cycle empowers engineers to take their own tasks from the queue at the beginning of the cycle, and focus on those. There is no top-down management unless at the beginning of the cycle some tasks are prioritized. This simply conveys to managers what is going on, for them to relay and forecast to other stakeholders. Bob doesn't have this, the manager doesn't have this. So, what are they doing at that organization? 2) "Promotion to a managerial role" is an antiquated concept, many tech companies are very familiar with this quagmire that developers don't want to not be developers, and so there are higher compensation tracks on the developer side in parallel to the managerial side, instead of one or the other for "advancement". The observation that this organization does not have this kind of leveling also says a lot about how it is managed. Until these bottlenecks are filled, it is going to be difficult to address Bob's understimulation.
nsxwolf 4y ago
The post is so well written and stylized it sounds fake. "Bob" is just far too perfect to believe. Is this a genre - a kind of hypothetical fiction designed to spur interesting conversation (and SO upvotes?)
- papageek 4y ago
  Bob sounds autistic. Not exactly perfect. The anything I cam do to help response isn’t great. He doesn’t sound capable of identifying opportunities without direct guidance.
rufius 4y ago
Bob has either outgrown that company or needs a vast increase of scope. If scope increase, figure out how to coach him because it won’t click initially. That said, if I were his manager I’d be trying to help him find an opportunity outside the company that appropriately matches his ambition and skill.
RobRivera 4y ago
I keep a constant queue of things I need to be better at and read up on. I think every engineer should as a matter of professionalism. If an organization has a shortfall on human resource management, why should Bob incure the cost and spin grey cycles? You can be proactive by investing time into understanding strategic okrs and make strategic bets on what work COULD be high reward and pull something off the back log, but then youre gambling with your tome, and to be quite frank, its disrespect from leadership in the sense that they are given large sums of money to do THAT work and are either abdicating it or mismanaging.
pnf 4y ago
Bob should be fired. He clearly shows no independent initiative and burdens his colleagues with his insatiable need to be given "tasks" like a robot. Is he a robot? Is it really BOB the Multivac we are talking about here and not a human being at all? If not fired, his time should be padded out with Turing tests to determine whether he is indeed an AI. If he is human, the most compassionate thing his management could do is to assign him tasks that deepen his humanity and prepare him for a life that isn't just being told what to do next. "Read this novel by Friday", "Watch this film and write a report on its meaning and relation to your own experience", "Take a walk along the river and report all the things you saw". If that's not the sort of place you work, assign him random tickets from random open source projects sponsored by your company. The first task could be to write a random task generator in a randomly selected language. Then, open an office pool and take bets on Bob's tasks. Make it interesting. The person who wins the pool gets to fire Bob.
itsboring 4y ago
Bob should master Crusader Kings III.
blueyes 4y ago
They should pay Bob to acquire new skills in his free time, and/or they should pair him with an overambitious product manager or demanding client.
runeblaze 4y ago
> This is done partly because it is incredibly hard to recruit software developers nowadays Cries in new grad not being able to find work and being ghosted by companies after finishing their OA passing every test tears.
spprashant 4y ago
As someone who had seemingly unlimited energy when I started working, I am glad one of his team members recognizes his productivity and wants to do something to help him. It is clear that Bob has a lot of potential, but it crucial someone take the responsibility to mentor him and channel his zeal. This could be open source projects, building new side projects at work, and making him responsible for more than just a steady flow of client tickets. People like Bob often spend all of their energy on mundane tasks, and burn out or just lose interest by 30. As someone who just passed 30, and feels a tad bit bitter about wasting some of my potential, I wish I had someone to tell me what to spend time on, and what not to.
mpalczewski 4y ago
The comments. The idea of someone doing things really well triggers tons of insecurities. "Until that guy burns out and crashes." "Are they abusing drugs?" "Bob is doing things without really understanding what he’s doing" "Bob is working far beyond what he’s billing" "To me, this sounds like the “smart guy” who if left unchecked will leave a trail of destruction."
- rawgabbit 4y ago
  I agree. Bob is smart but in a mediocre/bad job situation. Eventually, Bob realizes it is time to leave.
- buescher 4y ago
  Everybody hates a tourist.
  - permalac 4y ago
    Care to explain?
    - buescher 4y ago
      Listen to the song “Common People” and get back.
- rgoulter 4y ago
  My impression reading the question is it's a low-tier outsourcing company. (Work is billed by the hour, only for approved tasks, code has to be auditing/approved by an external party). But e.g. considering "setup a packaging solution in days, when it wasn't done in a month" or "stuck for three weeks reviewing code which took two weeks to write" suggests either the star performer MUCH better than the others, or that he's more careless. "working without really understanding what you're doing" is a good technique in many cases, though, rather than a criticism as-such.
- spaghettiToy 4y ago
  I think the drugs thing is more common than anyone wants to admit. Of course caffeine is huge, but we had a 10x type programmer who suddenly went full 180 degrees. Turns out he stopped taking his Adderall. My company tried to hide it by saying "mental illness". That's still the official message, despite everyone next to him knowing full well what happened. >Until that guy burns out and crashes I see this most with new grads. The company knows their enthusiasm and ignorance to red tape and how disposable they are. They use these new grads on the worst jobs, long hours, terrible work experience, or thankless. The new grads do a decent job, but become disenchanted because their hard work wasn't rewarded either professionally with a promotion, or never made an impact on the company. --- I genuinely don't know what to do with over productive people. They are going to be disappointed. Although I'll take one at my current company, we have a backlog!
antisthenes 4y ago
Absolutely mind-blowing that their first response was to give Bob busywork instead of sitting down with him and reassuring him that everything is fine and it's ok to slow down a bit and maybe give him 1-2 days where he's able to do free-form research that could lead to company-wide improvements.
freedude 4y ago
If this is really a problem good business rules are being ignored. Where is the long list of items that have been shoved to the backburner? What lean projects could be implemented that Bob can work on? i.e. Bob makes everyone more efficient. What is the toughest project that exists for the team? Assign to Bob. What ancillary projects exist in the business that Bob can tackle. Perhaps these aren't just Dev projects. Good business is about best utilizing the resources you have. Bob in this case. You are wasting his time.
PeterStuer 4y ago
Hey Bob. You go independant so you can fill your own queue to your hearts content. You are wasting your life fullfilling some other's get rich quick dream instead of your own. Getting gigs will not be a problem.
JoeAltmaier 4y ago
This is a process problem. Folks create a kanban-board environment which is sort-of good at helping new hires get oriented and become useful, while keeping managers informed of where everything is at. But it gets ossified into "these folks are in charge of creating stories...tasks and no one else" and "these folks are queue-picking migrant farm workers just picking up tasks and doing them and nothing else". You put an Engineering effort through this wire screen and it ends up mush. The Engineering gets lost in the dissection. Let Bob read all the code, create his own tickets and get back to work. This whole question isn't "How to keep Bob busy" but is instead "How to rationalize our system that Bob is so clearly illustrating is broken"
ofirg 4y ago
I will pay money to talk to bob and might solve your problem by taking him off your hands.
mtippett 4y ago
So he can't work on the product for the full week as per the article. What about looking internally about tools, techniques and approaches that can help him accelerate the team. It is outside of the product. From what I have seen of hyper productive employees, there are two types: The self aware junkie - they know why, how and what to do. You can ask them, and they will tell you. People won't necessarily agree or understand why it works, but they know. This ability to externalize and communicate allows for step function improvements in the org. IF the team is willing to try new things. The naive "I dunno" - this is much harder, they do what they do, but they don't know how they do it. in this case you just need to fill up the hopper with more work. Of course there are risks here, the velocity my end up making the system "their system" capturing their ideas, conceptualization, etc. If they have a great bar in communication (documents, diagrams, etc) then that can work quite well. But the risk is that people may not understand what it is they are working on in the end (see Tao of Rodney in Stargate Atlantis). But ultimately this is between the engineer and their manager. They need to work it out. The engineer needs to work out what they really want, and the manager needs to work out how to provide.
_tom_ 4y ago
Reddit has been overrun with cleverly constructed fictional posts. Let's not let this happen with hacker news.
- mmastrac 4y ago
  I have a theory that 80% of the top posts in the off-my-chest and AITA are basically just made up by very good creative writers, but it's impossible to prove.
onetokeoverthe 4y ago
icedchai 4y ago
Bob needs to pace himself and realize he doesn't have to be working all the time.
solotronics 4y ago
Over 90% of the projects at work I would categorize as "very successful and high business impact" I did on my own and just showed management once I had a minimum proof of concept. This is over my whole career and not specific to an employer. I have thought about this a lot as it relates to prioritization of work.
breadbreadbread 4y ago
This isnt a problem. The tasks your business needs are being completed in exchange for a salary. If your weekly tasks are done you should be able to go home.
nurettin 4y ago
Why doesn't he have tasks? I always have something on queue. If I don't, I make something up like refactoring, fixing technical debt, writing a tool, a script, something to ease my chores. Or I go yak shaving.
Cryptonic 4y ago
Ok make him technical lead and sole developer of a new moonshot project. If you are a one product company, this is your chance to diversify.
danjc 4y ago
Please send me Bob’s number.
fab13n 4y ago
there's a problem between Bob and the bureaucracy. whether it's a Bob problem or a bureaucratic problem is left as an exercise to the reader. However, I'd be thoroughly unsurprised if Bob happened to be on the autism spectrum. And autistic people are counter-intuitive but very easy to handle: force yourself to be extremely explicit, and to stick to first-degree in your exchanges to a point that seems ridiculous (to you). That's it, really.
pedalpete 4y ago
What does Bob want to learn? Can what he wants to learn be useful to the company? My interpretation on the comment, sounds very similar to my co-founder, who is an absolute learning machine. For Bob, he clearly picks things up quickly, but from the sounds of things, they aren't extremely challenging tasks, and Bob sounds like the kind of guy who could benefit from going deep on something challenging, if that is what they want. I guess my question is, if your company isn't able to provide the type of environment where Bob can thrive, why do you want him there? Wouldn't it be better to help Bob find a job where he is adequately challenged, where he can grow into someone truly exceptional? Yes, it's difficult letting good people go, but if you as an employer can't provide enough challenging work, then you need to do the right thing. Think of it like a sports coach. If you've got the best player in the college league, and you know if you can just keep this player, you'd win the championship for the next 10 years, would you keep the player? Hell no! You'd figure out how you can help them get to the majors. What do they need to do to get there. Either be or find a mentor for Bob to help him find his place in this world. The worst thing would be for Bob to look up from his screen in 20 years, and think he could have been so much more. If you were to have a conversation with Bob in 20 years, and you're looking back at what he had accomplished, did he continue working with you through that time? And if he did, was he happy with that? Or were you able to help him move onto something bigger, and what amazing things did he move on to?
mbrodersen 4y ago
Give Bob something to work on that might become a great new product in the future. He can work on it when there are no other tasks in his queue.
phendrenad2 4y ago
Spoiler: Bob will get burned out and/or bored and quit. There's nothing you can do about this. Your job is to minimize the damage Bob does on the way out. Bob may try to rewrite the codebase, or embark on wild experimental projects and somehow tie them into business needs. That's just the lifecycle of a burned-out 10x programmers. You need to enforce homogeneity and make sure the other employees (the ones you'll be left with when Bob goes leaves in a blaze of glory) are up to speed on his projects.
rognjen 4y ago
Haven't seen mentoring mentioned. Or pair programming as the navigator.

134 points by zikohh 4y ago

Chris2048 4y ago

> We put him on charge of finding out how to package stuff for publishing using a new installer tool. He got it done in two days - the previous developer was stuck on it for a month and couldn't get it done. Hmm, a month? I wonder if the other devs are also a problem?

pyb 4y ago
Looks like they accidentally hired a high performer.

setgree 4y ago

Growing up, when I got good at something, I was able to channel the gains in productivity into more free time. This gave me ample incentive to get good at things. In the workplace, if you get good at something, you are generally expected to work the same fixed amount, which means the company reaps most of the rewards of your gains in productivity. On the SE thread, people recommend rewarding Bob by giving him more work, a promotion, or more money. One person suggests allowing him more free time. Were I Bob, I’d want more money and a promotion, but most of all I’d want more time. But that just isn’t how things are done in most workplaces. I think most people in Bob’s shoes would just pretend that they are busier than they are.

shash 4y ago
I think the SE thread mentions that he’s paid by the hour. Which for someone like Bob is quite a poor way to manage them!

throwawaymaths 4y ago

Tell him to fill the rest of his time clearing tasks and bugs for open source projects the company depends on.

avn2109 4y ago
Best answer here, unleash Bob to fix openSSL or Linux kernel performance improvements or something.
- throwawaymaths 4y ago
  More prosaically (and judging from the description of the org), it's likely to be something like this: https://github.com/RicoSuter/NSwag https://github.com/RicoSuter/NSwag Which has 1.7k issues, some of which are open for years.

reportgunner 4y ago

I think training others or leading others is the way to go here. Giving him more work leaves you with the risk of Bob not being available one day for a period of time leaving the rest of the company struggling to fill the hole in productivity that was left after him.

ThrowawayTestr 4y ago

What a great problem to have.

satysin 4y ago
Generally yes having a very high performing member on the team is a good thing. However there are situations where it can cause problems with the team morale and dynamic. As well as sometimes very serious/catastrophic issues. Say you have a team with several good performers and one very high performer that just blasts through their work. This can (and usually does) lead to other members of the team feeling they're not as good. This can lead to them backing away from tasks they are good at, feel they're 'not good enough' and looking for another job (a loss for the team as they were good). It can also cause friction as the very high performer will often snap up many tasks. Tasks which other members of the team may find interesting to work on. Again leading to morale issues. Another point is that you should ask yourself how is this person performing so much faster than everyone else? Are they cutting corners? Are they not planning things and introducing awful technical debt you will have to deal with in a year or two when they have left from boredom? Do they have some undiagnosed/unmanaged neurodivergent trait such as ADHD that may lead them to burnout? Are they 'throwing themselves into work' because of personal issues that may lead to a house of card style collapse if they reach breaking point? Are they abusing drugs? Over the years I have worked with a few very high performers because of some of the above reasons. I am not saying all very high performers have something from the above list, there are just some people that are like machines on overdrive and always have been. But many times there is a reason behind it and a good manager will identify that for everyones benefit. In my personal experience the very high performers I have worked with had a mixture of personal and drug issues. One of which lead to a terrible outcome that destroyed their career and family. For a couple of years they were the "rockstar 10x programmer unicorn" people dream of having. But over time problems become more common, internal team issues were almost all this persons fault, etc. They went from being a rockstar to a tremendous liability and resulted in several team members leaving due to the hostile environment they created.
- kayodelycaon 4y ago
  My productivity can be crazy high when I'm manic, but the code tends to be a bit beyond my own comprehension when I look back on it months later. I also tend to skip tests because they are a "waste of time". I'm medicated now but I still have pretty strong swings in productivity. Fortunately, I found a job that can work with that. No one has a problem with me taking days off without notice (and sometimes without pay). Being able to take time to deal with episodes has avoided the stress and burnout that has cost me several jobs in the past. I've also learned to use depressed cycles to re-read my code to make sure I can still understand it. If I don't, I've got an engaging puzzle to unravel and document.

itsboring 4y ago

Bob shouldn’t be working at a place where he’s only allowed to work on tasks that are assigned to him by a manager, and twiddle his thumbs when he has none. He should be able to create his own tasks, do some experiments, R&D, self-directed training, open source work, whatever he finds compelling.

faizshah 4y ago
Yea, this is where I like the amazon model of ownership. It’s something like: SDE I - can work on clearly defined components of a project assigned to them SDE II - can work on an ambiguous project with multiple components lead by a technical strategy SDE III - lead influence and define strategy for ambiguous projects across multiple teams This person is operating at an SDE II level but is being managed at an SDE I level...it’s time for a promotion. What’s worse is the manager is micromanaging the engineers. Instead the employee needs to be given more ambiguous project level work that aligns with the team/product strategy where they can define their own tasks. Also the manager should consider falling back from managing at the task level, instead helping facilitate at the project (or “story”) level. The fact that the manager is managing at a task level and is unable to find work for this engineer tells me that the team doesn’t have a strong tech lead who is familiar with the team/product strategy and can help mentor/lead other engineers. In terms of retaining the engineer and making them less insecure about their role, when the manager gives the team member more insight into the team’s strategy and the way that the manager is evaluating their work it helps team members feel more secure in their role. A lot of the anxiety comes from guessing what your manager is thinking and how you are being evaluated and shows a lack of communication between manager and team on strategy, values and performance evaluation. The manager should consider holding weekly 1:1s focusing on these topics.
- closeparen 4y ago
  Absolutely, but this is a particular feature of product-oriented tech companies. Enterprise could maybe work like that but usually doesn't. Consultancy absolutely can't. This is why it's so important to work in Silicon Valley and not just any software development role.
- 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

sys_64738 4y ago

Sounds like he needs more meetings to attend. That should help equalize his productivity.

unity1001 4y ago
Quick!! Schedule a few syncs on his/her calendar. That'll show him how to be productive!

BoxFour 4y ago

I’m going to be contrary and cynical say that something funny is going on here. Going from desktop to mobile development, for example, isn’t a monumental task necessarily but if you’re spinning up on an entirely new framework, language, and even way of thinking (old devices, low connectivity, etc) I’m extremely skeptical that you could learn it to any appreciable degree in a week of real time, let alone work time. Sure, it’s possible there are factors making this transition easier, and yes some of those mobile concerns apply to desktop as well, but to me this reeks of a few possible situations, none of which are good: 1) Bob is doing things without really understanding what he’s doing, perhaps literally following a guide to the letter without a shred of critical thought about what he’s doing. 2) Bob is working far beyond what he’s billing 3) You’ve over-hired by a fair amount and your technology is so simple that people can solve your business needs even in disparate contexts extremely easily. If your Android app is just a web view connecting to your site, for example, sure i can see that being simple enough to fix in a week.

rubidium 4y ago
To (3)'s point, the manager doesn't realize what's possible and the current devs are actually working 4 hours a week. Bob is exception, and _actually_ working 40 hours a week and getting 10x done.
- jeremyjh 4y ago
  The question wasn't posted by the manager though, but by someone on the team.
  - Coneylake 4y ago
    I don't think that was explicitly stated
    - texaslonghorn5 4y ago
      The poster was the tech lead, per one of their comments.

2b3a51 4y ago

Given the setting described in the linked Stack Exchange question, could they not send the other two developers on training courses/ skill building courses? That way, Bob gets a nice full queue and the team as a whole enhances their skill level. Disclaimer: I don't work in IT and am not a programmer.

monkeynotes 4y ago

If it were at all possible I'd give Bob a 4 day week, let him work on personal R&D stuff, or promote him to a level where he can use his competence to solve bigger problems. If there are no more challenging problems to work on it's time for Bob to look for a new job as his career will be suffering.

yung_steezy 4y ago

One of the replies mentions it but I think letting him do open-source contributions on company time is the best solution here. Getting a voice in the community for libraries that the company are using is very valuable.

Fiahil 4y ago

The solution is pretty simple and given out in the answers below : > It's a good idea for everyone (including Bob) to have a well defined side or pet project. Something that's useful for the business, fun to do, but doesn't have a hard deadline or deliverable yet. Could be technical or scientific research, tools, process improvement, experimental features, documentation, user research, competitive analysis, etc. This is "stuff to work on" if your hair isn't on fire and your tasks are mostly done. These can be defined in collaboration between the employees and the business stakeholders. > Have bob start filling up his own task queue

redleggedfrog 4y ago

Reading the bullets for a minute I thought I was Bob, but I've never done Android for real, so no, but the rest mostly fits. I'm maybe not quite that productive, either, but close. I have the advantage of being old and curious, and working with the same codebase for the last 10 years. What helps me is a really good manager - of which I have had two out of ??? in 25 years. When I'm out of tasks they allowed me to refactor and fix longstanding difficult bugs. It has the added advantage of getting me deeper into the code and allowing me to build better foundations for future work which makes me more productive for a nice feedback loop. They also have allowed me to train up other developers and write up official coding standards with down time and that has been great, too. It's nice when all your code looks mostly the same. Also being able to repeatedly decline a promotion to management but still get paid well has been good for company loyalty. There is a downside in that most days feel like, well, kind of like a Games Workshop orc going "Waaaaaaaah!" where I'm just hurtling through the work and my brain is just spinning max RPM and then I go home and it's hard to stop the momentum. I have to excercise to clear my head or I won't sleep.

comfypotato 4y ago
This is the lifestyle to which I aspire. Can you provide your “most helpful tip” that got you to this place?
- redleggedfrog 4y ago
  comfypotato, sorry for the delay in replying, I only read Hacker News morning and evening. Hmm, a single "most helpful tip" - that's tricky. Okay, how about, "read a lot of code and write a lot of code". Thing is, I really like programming, and would do it even if I wasn't paid. Early on, way back in the DOS days, I wrote most of the programs I used - contact manager, calendar, compy automation and so on, in C, then C++. Then when Windows came along I wrote the same things in Borland Delphi. When I want to learn something, I spent a fair amount of time studying up front, but I learn way faster just starting to write something. Walking through with a debugger tells you a lot more than docs. Professionally it has been much the same. I work on a lot of legacy systems. I learn the code, usually by debugging, and then when asked to do something, I usually refactor to be more modern and reusable, and then do that reuse when possible. I'm not really a neophile so if I have a bunch of services I've used for 5 years that work great I'll just keep using them. Everything gets done with an eye for re-usability. I love solid code I can depend on. Also, I keep really, really, stringent coding standards for myself, and the Dev team is mostly the same. We've agreed to these as a group, so we code review everything for SOLID, KISS, and conformity to our code review guidelines. It makes reading code a lot easier. I hope that helps.

nathas 4y ago

Management is about extracting value, which is what most of those on replies on StackExchange are doing. Leadership is about training new leaders. Bob is a kick-ass employee. Why not make him into a leader and have him figure out ways to make the other employees just as productive? He has to learn to multiply his effort. He doesn't need to be a manager to do that; he just needs to be made into a stronger leader and be given progressively larger scope.

itsboring 4y ago
Leadership is a worthwhile activity for sure, but if “Bob” doesn’t get enjoyment/satisfaction out of it, then it could be perceived by him as more of a punishment.

richliss 4y ago

Someone needs to check that he's not creating shit at a million LOC per hour. Run some code analysis metrics over his code. Let's say he isn't. Give him these challenges: 1. Increase unit test coverage. When it's at about 85% he can stop. 2. Increase automated acceptance test coverage. And so on. That should buy you time. Then tell him to learn to master refactoring and patterns and let him knock himself out improving code problem areas. That's an endless challenge and he'll get old and tired soon enough.

motohagiography 4y ago

One thing I might suggest is find out what open source products your customers are using and get Bob to contriubte to those products from his corporate account on behalf of your company. If the projects are related to the company's line of business it will increase the firms profile hugely, and make you the go-to company for those customers as they can't afford not to choose your expertise that they already depend on. Your company's revenue is part new business and part renweals. The open source product will be a funnel for converting the FOSS users to new customers, while locking down renewals in those customers who use projects he contributes to. Figure out your customers' stacks, and then pitch Bob on contributing to key libraries and technologies that underpin them.

raarts 4y ago

My message to Bob: if you're the smartest in the room, you're in the wrong room.

kyleee 4y ago
well that certainly depends on compensation and a bunch of other factors

dtx1 4y ago

This reminds me of the WWI and WWII flying Aces. Germany had a lot more flying aces and lot higher "highscores" for their pilots than the allied or entente forces. The reasons was simple: Germany send their high value pilots out a lot more to get these results, risking losing their best pilots, while the british deliberatly made sure their best pilots immediately became instructors teaching their skills to other pilots. Bob should stop doing any work himself and instead focus on teaching other developers. Most programming time is spend being stuck on problems and debugging, the mere task of coding is often trivial for most devs. A high achiever like bob could propably help people solve issues they are stuck on really fast. That in turn would 10x return the performance he can achieve himself.

unregistereddev 4y ago
This is a very good challenge for Bob. It is very much a "practice teaching and see how it goes" thing. It may not be something Bob is good at, though it may be something he can improve. Part of the value of a technical career path is to let high flyers teach experienced developers. While some people are good at training, it is its own skill. Some advanced IC's forget how to teach the basics, but are good at teaching advanced skills. To be clear, I'm agreeing with you. I just wanted to add the caveat that Bob might fit best as a staff developer who trains senior engineers. He may or may not also be good at training juniors.

sbf501 4y ago

The entire piece is catering to Bob's anxiety. As one of the replies mentions, it is about communication. But if Bob is really getting bored, then it he isn't a fit with your company, and that's a decision he needs to make. If you don't have an HR department to ease Bob's pain, I hate to say it, he's an adult and doesn't need to be coddled. Let him make his own choice to stay or leave. OP has been completely clear.

papageek 4y ago
They don’t want to lose Bob. They need to promote him to ease the workload of the overloaded manager and mentor the other developers. Bob can be a force multiplier. They could take on more business or expand their product. The manager is the problem not Bob.

yieldcrv 4y ago

Multiple problems here that give insight into the organization itself: 1) Normal Agile development and scrum cycle empowers engineers to take their own tasks from the queue at the beginning of the cycle, and focus on those. There is no top-down management unless at the beginning of the cycle some tasks are prioritized. This simply conveys to managers what is going on, for them to relay and forecast to other stakeholders. Bob doesn't have this, the manager doesn't have this. So, what are they doing at that organization? 2) "Promotion to a managerial role" is an antiquated concept, many tech companies are very familiar with this quagmire that developers don't want to not be developers, and so there are higher compensation tracks on the developer side in parallel to the managerial side, instead of one or the other for "advancement". The observation that this organization does not have this kind of leveling also says a lot about how it is managed. Until these bottlenecks are filled, it is going to be difficult to address Bob's understimulation.

nsxwolf 4y ago

The post is so well written and stylized it sounds fake. "Bob" is just far too perfect to believe. Is this a genre - a kind of hypothetical fiction designed to spur interesting conversation (and SO upvotes?)

papageek 4y ago
Bob sounds autistic. Not exactly perfect. The anything I cam do to help response isn’t great. He doesn’t sound capable of identifying opportunities without direct guidance.

rufius 4y ago

Bob has either outgrown that company or needs a vast increase of scope. If scope increase, figure out how to coach him because it won’t click initially. That said, if I were his manager I’d be trying to help him find an opportunity outside the company that appropriately matches his ambition and skill.

RobRivera 4y ago

I keep a constant queue of things I need to be better at and read up on. I think every engineer should as a matter of professionalism. If an organization has a shortfall on human resource management, why should Bob incure the cost and spin grey cycles? You can be proactive by investing time into understanding strategic okrs and make strategic bets on what work COULD be high reward and pull something off the back log, but then youre gambling with your tome, and to be quite frank, its disrespect from leadership in the sense that they are given large sums of money to do THAT work and are either abdicating it or mismanaging.

pnf 4y ago

Bob should be fired. He clearly shows no independent initiative and burdens his colleagues with his insatiable need to be given "tasks" like a robot. Is he a robot? Is it really BOB the Multivac we are talking about here and not a human being at all? If not fired, his time should be padded out with Turing tests to determine whether he is indeed an AI. If he is human, the most compassionate thing his management could do is to assign him tasks that deepen his humanity and prepare him for a life that isn't just being told what to do next. "Read this novel by Friday", "Watch this film and write a report on its meaning and relation to your own experience", "Take a walk along the river and report all the things you saw". If that's not the sort of place you work, assign him random tickets from random open source projects sponsored by your company. The first task could be to write a random task generator in a randomly selected language. Then, open an office pool and take bets on Bob's tasks. Make it interesting. The person who wins the pool gets to fire Bob.

itsboring 4y ago

Bob should master Crusader Kings III.

blueyes 4y ago

They should pay Bob to acquire new skills in his free time, and/or they should pair him with an overambitious product manager or demanding client.

runeblaze 4y ago

> This is done partly because it is incredibly hard to recruit software developers nowadays Cries in new grad not being able to find work and being ghosted by companies after finishing their OA passing every test tears.

spprashant 4y ago

As someone who had seemingly unlimited energy when I started working, I am glad one of his team members recognizes his productivity and wants to do something to help him. It is clear that Bob has a lot of potential, but it crucial someone take the responsibility to mentor him and channel his zeal. This could be open source projects, building new side projects at work, and making him responsible for more than just a steady flow of client tickets. People like Bob often spend all of their energy on mundane tasks, and burn out or just lose interest by 30. As someone who just passed 30, and feels a tad bit bitter about wasting some of my potential, I wish I had someone to tell me what to spend time on, and what not to.

mpalczewski 4y ago

The comments. The idea of someone doing things really well triggers tons of insecurities. "Until that guy burns out and crashes." "Are they abusing drugs?" "Bob is doing things without really understanding what he’s doing" "Bob is working far beyond what he’s billing" "To me, this sounds like the “smart guy” who if left unchecked will leave a trail of destruction."

rawgabbit 4y ago
I agree. Bob is smart but in a mediocre/bad job situation. Eventually, Bob realizes it is time to leave.
buescher 4y ago
Everybody hates a tourist.
- permalac 4y ago
  Care to explain?
  - buescher 4y ago
    Listen to the song “Common People” and get back.
rgoulter 4y ago
My impression reading the question is it's a low-tier outsourcing company. (Work is billed by the hour, only for approved tasks, code has to be auditing/approved by an external party). But e.g. considering "setup a packaging solution in days, when it wasn't done in a month" or "stuck for three weeks reviewing code which took two weeks to write" suggests either the star performer MUCH better than the others, or that he's more careless. "working without really understanding what you're doing" is a good technique in many cases, though, rather than a criticism as-such.
spaghettiToy 4y ago
I think the drugs thing is more common than anyone wants to admit. Of course caffeine is huge, but we had a 10x type programmer who suddenly went full 180 degrees. Turns out he stopped taking his Adderall. My company tried to hide it by saying "mental illness". That's still the official message, despite everyone next to him knowing full well what happened. >Until that guy burns out and crashes I see this most with new grads. The company knows their enthusiasm and ignorance to red tape and how disposable they are. They use these new grads on the worst jobs, long hours, terrible work experience, or thankless. The new grads do a decent job, but become disenchanted because their hard work wasn't rewarded either professionally with a promotion, or never made an impact on the company. --- I genuinely don't know what to do with over productive people. They are going to be disappointed. Although I'll take one at my current company, we have a backlog!

antisthenes 4y ago

Absolutely mind-blowing that their first response was to give Bob busywork instead of sitting down with him and reassuring him that everything is fine and it's ok to slow down a bit and maybe give him 1-2 days where he's able to do free-form research that could lead to company-wide improvements.

freedude 4y ago

If this is really a problem good business rules are being ignored. Where is the long list of items that have been shoved to the backburner? What lean projects could be implemented that Bob can work on? i.e. Bob makes everyone more efficient. What is the toughest project that exists for the team? Assign to Bob. What ancillary projects exist in the business that Bob can tackle. Perhaps these aren't just Dev projects. Good business is about best utilizing the resources you have. Bob in this case. You are wasting his time.

PeterStuer 4y ago

Hey Bob. You go independant so you can fill your own queue to your hearts content. You are wasting your life fullfilling some other's get rich quick dream instead of your own. Getting gigs will not be a problem.

JoeAltmaier 4y ago

This is a process problem. Folks create a kanban-board environment which is sort-of good at helping new hires get oriented and become useful, while keeping managers informed of where everything is at. But it gets ossified into "these folks are in charge of creating stories...tasks and no one else" and "these folks are queue-picking migrant farm workers just picking up tasks and doing them and nothing else". You put an Engineering effort through this wire screen and it ends up mush. The Engineering gets lost in the dissection. Let Bob read all the code, create his own tickets and get back to work. This whole question isn't "How to keep Bob busy" but is instead "How to rationalize our system that Bob is so clearly illustrating is broken"

ofirg 4y ago

I will pay money to talk to bob and might solve your problem by taking him off your hands.

mtippett 4y ago

So he can't work on the product for the full week as per the article. What about looking internally about tools, techniques and approaches that can help him accelerate the team. It is outside of the product. From what I have seen of hyper productive employees, there are two types: The self aware junkie - they know why, how and what to do. You can ask them, and they will tell you. People won't necessarily agree or understand why it works, but they know. This ability to externalize and communicate allows for step function improvements in the org. IF the team is willing to try new things. The naive "I dunno" - this is much harder, they do what they do, but they don't know how they do it. in this case you just need to fill up the hopper with more work. Of course there are risks here, the velocity my end up making the system "their system" capturing their ideas, conceptualization, etc. If they have a great bar in communication (documents, diagrams, etc) then that can work quite well. But the risk is that people may not understand what it is they are working on in the end (see Tao of Rodney in Stargate Atlantis). But ultimately this is between the engineer and their manager. They need to work it out. The engineer needs to work out what they really want, and the manager needs to work out how to provide.

_tom_ 4y ago

Reddit has been overrun with cleverly constructed fictional posts. Let's not let this happen with hacker news.

mmastrac 4y ago
I have a theory that 80% of the top posts in the off-my-chest and AITA are basically just made up by very good creative writers, but it's impossible to prove.

onetokeoverthe 4y ago

icedchai 4y ago

Bob needs to pace himself and realize he doesn't have to be working all the time.

solotronics 4y ago

Over 90% of the projects at work I would categorize as "very successful and high business impact" I did on my own and just showed management once I had a minimum proof of concept. This is over my whole career and not specific to an employer. I have thought about this a lot as it relates to prioritization of work.

breadbreadbread 4y ago

This isnt a problem. The tasks your business needs are being completed in exchange for a salary. If your weekly tasks are done you should be able to go home.

nurettin 4y ago

Why doesn't he have tasks? I always have something on queue. If I don't, I make something up like refactoring, fixing technical debt, writing a tool, a script, something to ease my chores. Or I go yak shaving.

Cryptonic 4y ago

Ok make him technical lead and sole developer of a new moonshot project. If you are a one product company, this is your chance to diversify.

danjc 4y ago

Please send me Bob’s number.

fab13n 4y ago

there's a problem between Bob and the bureaucracy. whether it's a Bob problem or a bureaucratic problem is left as an exercise to the reader. However, I'd be thoroughly unsurprised if Bob happened to be on the autism spectrum. And autistic people are counter-intuitive but very easy to handle: force yourself to be extremely explicit, and to stick to first-degree in your exchanges to a point that seems ridiculous (to you). That's it, really.

pedalpete 4y ago

What does Bob want to learn? Can what he wants to learn be useful to the company? My interpretation on the comment, sounds very similar to my co-founder, who is an absolute learning machine. For Bob, he clearly picks things up quickly, but from the sounds of things, they aren't extremely challenging tasks, and Bob sounds like the kind of guy who could benefit from going deep on something challenging, if that is what they want. I guess my question is, if your company isn't able to provide the type of environment where Bob can thrive, why do you want him there? Wouldn't it be better to help Bob find a job where he is adequately challenged, where he can grow into someone truly exceptional? Yes, it's difficult letting good people go, but if you as an employer can't provide enough challenging work, then you need to do the right thing. Think of it like a sports coach. If you've got the best player in the college league, and you know if you can just keep this player, you'd win the championship for the next 10 years, would you keep the player? Hell no! You'd figure out how you can help them get to the majors. What do they need to do to get there. Either be or find a mentor for Bob to help him find his place in this world. The worst thing would be for Bob to look up from his screen in 20 years, and think he could have been so much more. If you were to have a conversation with Bob in 20 years, and you're looking back at what he had accomplished, did he continue working with you through that time? And if he did, was he happy with that? Or were you able to help him move onto something bigger, and what amazing things did he move on to?

mbrodersen 4y ago

Give Bob something to work on that might become a great new product in the future. He can work on it when there are no other tasks in his queue.

phendrenad2 4y ago

Spoiler: Bob will get burned out and/or bored and quit. There's nothing you can do about this. Your job is to minimize the damage Bob does on the way out. Bob may try to rewrite the codebase, or embark on wild experimental projects and somehow tie them into business needs. That's just the lifecycle of a burned-out 10x programmers. You need to enforce homogeneity and make sure the other employees (the ones you'll be left with when Bob goes leaves in a blaze of glory) are up to speed on his projects.

rognjen 4y ago

Haven't seen mentoring mentioned. Or pair programming as the navigator.