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#1 sign of a developer who does not work out? They do not ask enough questions. Or do not admit to not understanding something. In some cases its a cultural i

#1 sign of a developer who does not work out? They do not ask enough questions. Or do not admit to not understanding something. In some cases its a cultural issue. For example working with some (not all) developers in Asia, its culturally negative to admit you don't know something. I've found ways to work around this and bring some really talented people into good heights. But for western/anglosphere developers, it's the kiss of death. I've found that Eastern European developers generally believe they are the best (even when they aren't). For instance, a young developer I eventually hired asked me if I knew something about a topic (I have for decades) in a very condescending way. This happened multiple times from different Eastern European developers. Once you understand that cultural imperative, you can have really great coding relationships with those developers. #2 sign of a bad developer? They don't do enough reading. I mean they don't keep up with the industry, don't follow HN, don't keep up with the latest news on the tech stack they use, etc.

kaashif 4y ago
> I've found that Eastern European developers generally believe they are the best (even when they aren't). A few years ago, I worked with a developer from Eastern Europe who told me he believed the developers in the European part of the company were better than those in the US part of the company. I found this to be a bizarre statement (and not true) and I don't even know why anyone would think in those terms. I don't know if that fits into what you're talking about, but is it really an Eastern Europe thing to think you're the best? I've seen it a few times, I don't know where it comes from, and I don't want to stereotype based on confirmation bias.
Misdicorl 4y ago
I'd push back pretty hard on #2 bring a strong signal, depending o on what you mean by successful I guess. Making it to a staff/whatever role where your making best practices decisions org wide? Yeah I can see it. Being a successful senior slinging mostly bug free code? Meh. Gimmie someone with domain expertise any day
- eric4smith 4y ago
  Well, assume you are using PHP. It’s great to work with someone who knows the ins and outs of the version they are using. What’s new and what’s deprecated. That comes from reading about the tools. Domain experience is a given. You need that to do the job regardless. Pattern reuse is also critical - or you end up reinventing the wheel for every little thing.
  - Misdicorl 4y ago
    Domain expertise is absolutely not a given. For example: I'd wager very few devs working on healthcare apps have any experience working in healthcare. Very few ad tech devs have ever run an ad campaign. In regards to staying up to date on php. Surely best practices aren't changing very often? For myself, I look forward to some niceties coming in my tech stack, but I honestly care very little if literally anyone at my org is aware of them. We won't be retrofitting old code and using it in new code will come with all the little gritty interfacing with old code issues that always surface. So why should I judge them on something that will have little or no impact on their day to day and when it does come around the people who do keep up are more than happy to show it off and evangelize?
timbeccue 4y ago
What are some of the successful methods you mentioned in your first point re: different cultural values?
- eric4smith 4y ago
  It’s just understand the cultural part of it. Once you do, you don’t see it as a negative and you can kind of observe the signs. Example, I will follow up on the developer and a task a few hours in. This will let me know if they are on point. It’s better than waiting days and realizing the task is completely different than what you wanted. Also - this is a big deal, you need to be self aware and ask yourself if you are explaining what you want in a clear way. I’ve become better at explaining myself because of working with developers from different cultures to mine.
firstbabylonian 4y ago
> I've found that Eastern European developers generally believe they are the best (even when they aren't) I've been this Eastern European developer and seen others. A 100% accurate assessment. I'd go as far as to say that this animalistic bravado must not be encouraged. Ultimately, it comes from a place of poor self-awareness. There's something about EE cultural/historic context that breeds a lot of brilliant zombies. So as with all un-self-aware team members ([1]), EE developers with these traits can have a serious detrimental effect on the culture, unless kept in check. My suggestions: * Call them out on toxic behaviour, so that it doesn't become normalised. * Make them directly accountable for their work. EE devs relish the idea of being a shadowy IC of outsized but unacknowledged importance. Don't let them mythologise their own status. [1]: https://hbr.org/2018/10/working-with-people-who-arent-self-aware https://hbr.org/2018/10/working-with-people-who-arent-self-a...
jmchuster 4y ago
> For example working with some (not all) developers in Asia, its culturally negative to admit you don't know something. If this is true, and junior devs in Asia are all wandering around unwilling to ask questions to understand things, then they must have come up with a different approach culturally to learn and grow quickly. Are there any Asia-based developers here that could speak to the main approach by which junior developers become senior?
- fakecrusade 4y ago
  I myself do not subscribe to this stereotype, I have seen both extremes in junior dev. Some ask nothing but figure it out themselves, some ask too much and figure out nothing, some did both, some didn't and failed miserably. Some exhibit a mixture of these 4 quadrants. For me, I'm resourceful and have ways to learn how things work myself, either by googling or asking peers. If I'm asked a question that I don't know about at point blank, I usually follow this template 1. Silent thinking for 2-3 seconds 2. Talk about something closely relevant that I actually know about 3. Concludes with "that being said, let me do some digging and get back to you" This demonstrates that I understand the question, I know something relevant, and that I'm willing find out things that idk about. Especially if you're higher up the ladder, saying you don't know requires tact, I believe this is not specific to Asia. There's a fine line between this and a bullshitter; a bs-er simply drifts away from the topic and never comes back nor willing to find things out. That being said, I adjust my strategy according to the culture of the company that I'm working in.
  - eric4smith 4y ago
    Sure that’s why I said “not all”. But in general, for the most part, it’s a “thing”. Let me repeat, it’s not a negative at all since it’s mostly cultural. The negative only happens when you don’t understand and observe it.
- lawgimenez 4y ago
  I’m from Southeast Asia and I have been a team lead before. There’s no issues for junior devs asking questions, the challenge is that they will hesitate to ask or clarify questions with foreigners.
csydas 4y ago
I guess I can't really agree it's a cultural/regional thing as the ideas you describe I see in _every regional team I have in my company_. - Some people come in with full bravado, "I was the best at my last job so I'm the best here", "I can never be wrong attitudes" - Some people are afraid to look stupid or think they'll get looked down upon or even fired for asking dumb questions - Others just want to focus exclusively on the one task they're dedicated to and not a single bit more and will flee from anything outside of their area of knowledge and forever are locked into "I do X and nothing else" - Finally, there are those that realized none of the above is a requirement, and it's fine to ask questions and even better, to be curious The final group are my most successful engineers/devs because they are insatiably curious. They ask questions in a good way, explain their understanding of a situation first and how they arrive at conclusions, and then want to understand how you got to yours and if they maybe have missed a better way. My US teams, Latin American teams, Eastern European teams, Asian teams, they all have their persons who just get above the usual tropes of work and just want to learn and make cool things, but this is a rare individual person regardless of their cultural background. I've even seen some who started with such attitudes of bravado and arrogance and once they realized "well damn, I'm not the brightest star in the sky by a long shot", they humble up pretty fast and realize they have an opportunity to get even better and they go for it. It happens plenty, though not as much as I would prefer. I don't think it's about culture, I think it's just individual personalities which transcend borders.
- pixelrevision 4y ago
  This syncs with my experience. The ones that think they are better than everyone else and don’t have any humility are the hardest. They tend to break things, write 5x more code than needed then stay defensive and finger point instead of fixing things. I have worked with a few juniors who actually were better than everyone. In all cases they were approachable, humble, asked questions and then were swooped up by a company like google.
pythonbase 4y ago
Having worked with devs from Asia, Europe and the US, I can relate to this. And yes, devs from Eastern European countries are really hard to work with due this attitude.
lawgimenez 4y ago
As someone from Southeast Asia I agree with your first point. Being “shy” with foreigners is still a thing here. You can really tell an experience dev here if he’s very comfortable speaking with foreigners. In my 12 yoe it still surprises me that majority of the devs I know doesn’t communicate outside with other developers internationally like in SO chat, Reddit or here.
kubanczyk 4y ago
> I've found that Eastern European developers generally believe they are the best (even when they aren't). Eastern Europe is an extremely ambiguous category, unless from where you sit the cultures of Estonia, Poland, Russia, and Armenia seem to produce similar junior developers. I suspect for US it translates to "post-Soviet countries", which is quite an outdated viewpoint. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Europe
dang 4y ago
I'm late to this, but you can't post national/ethnic/regional/racial slurs like this to HN, regardless of which group you've had a problem with. I noticed that you've done this at least once before about a different part of the world ("a bit of an asshole"). Can you please not post like this to HN? We all have these sorts of prejudices because we all overgeneralize from limited experience–but when we broadcast them to thousands of people, which is what you're doing when posting to HN, it tends to produce flamewars, which we don't want here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

kaashif 4y ago

> I've found that Eastern European developers generally believe they are the best (even when they aren't). A few years ago, I worked with a developer from Eastern Europe who told me he believed the developers in the European part of the company were better than those in the US part of the company. I found this to be a bizarre statement (and not true) and I don't even know why anyone would think in those terms. I don't know if that fits into what you're talking about, but is it really an Eastern Europe thing to think you're the best? I've seen it a few times, I don't know where it comes from, and I don't want to stereotype based on confirmation bias.

Misdicorl 4y ago

I'd push back pretty hard on #2 bring a strong signal, depending o on what you mean by successful I guess. Making it to a staff/whatever role where your making best practices decisions org wide? Yeah I can see it. Being a successful senior slinging mostly bug free code? Meh. Gimmie someone with domain expertise any day

eric4smith 4y ago
Well, assume you are using PHP. It’s great to work with someone who knows the ins and outs of the version they are using. What’s new and what’s deprecated. That comes from reading about the tools. Domain experience is a given. You need that to do the job regardless. Pattern reuse is also critical - or you end up reinventing the wheel for every little thing.
- Misdicorl 4y ago
  Domain expertise is absolutely not a given. For example: I'd wager very few devs working on healthcare apps have any experience working in healthcare. Very few ad tech devs have ever run an ad campaign. In regards to staying up to date on php. Surely best practices aren't changing very often? For myself, I look forward to some niceties coming in my tech stack, but I honestly care very little if literally anyone at my org is aware of them. We won't be retrofitting old code and using it in new code will come with all the little gritty interfacing with old code issues that always surface. So why should I judge them on something that will have little or no impact on their day to day and when it does come around the people who do keep up are more than happy to show it off and evangelize?

timbeccue 4y ago

What are some of the successful methods you mentioned in your first point re: different cultural values?

eric4smith 4y ago
It’s just understand the cultural part of it. Once you do, you don’t see it as a negative and you can kind of observe the signs. Example, I will follow up on the developer and a task a few hours in. This will let me know if they are on point. It’s better than waiting days and realizing the task is completely different than what you wanted. Also - this is a big deal, you need to be self aware and ask yourself if you are explaining what you want in a clear way. I’ve become better at explaining myself because of working with developers from different cultures to mine.

firstbabylonian 4y ago

> I've found that Eastern European developers generally believe they are the best (even when they aren't) I've been this Eastern European developer and seen others. A 100% accurate assessment. I'd go as far as to say that this animalistic bravado must not be encouraged. Ultimately, it comes from a place of poor self-awareness. There's something about EE cultural/historic context that breeds a lot of brilliant zombies. So as with all un-self-aware team members ([1]), EE developers with these traits can have a serious detrimental effect on the culture, unless kept in check. My suggestions: * Call them out on toxic behaviour, so that it doesn't become normalised. * Make them directly accountable for their work. EE devs relish the idea of being a shadowy IC of outsized but unacknowledged importance. Don't let them mythologise their own status. [1]: https://hbr.org/2018/10/working-with-people-who-arent-self-aware https://hbr.org/2018/10/working-with-people-who-arent-self-a...

jmchuster 4y ago

> For example working with some (not all) developers in Asia, its culturally negative to admit you don't know something. If this is true, and junior devs in Asia are all wandering around unwilling to ask questions to understand things, then they must have come up with a different approach culturally to learn and grow quickly. Are there any Asia-based developers here that could speak to the main approach by which junior developers become senior?

fakecrusade 4y ago
I myself do not subscribe to this stereotype, I have seen both extremes in junior dev. Some ask nothing but figure it out themselves, some ask too much and figure out nothing, some did both, some didn't and failed miserably. Some exhibit a mixture of these 4 quadrants. For me, I'm resourceful and have ways to learn how things work myself, either by googling or asking peers. If I'm asked a question that I don't know about at point blank, I usually follow this template 1. Silent thinking for 2-3 seconds 2. Talk about something closely relevant that I actually know about 3. Concludes with "that being said, let me do some digging and get back to you" This demonstrates that I understand the question, I know something relevant, and that I'm willing find out things that idk about. Especially if you're higher up the ladder, saying you don't know requires tact, I believe this is not specific to Asia. There's a fine line between this and a bullshitter; a bs-er simply drifts away from the topic and never comes back nor willing to find things out. That being said, I adjust my strategy according to the culture of the company that I'm working in.
- eric4smith 4y ago
  Sure that’s why I said “not all”. But in general, for the most part, it’s a “thing”. Let me repeat, it’s not a negative at all since it’s mostly cultural. The negative only happens when you don’t understand and observe it.
lawgimenez 4y ago
I’m from Southeast Asia and I have been a team lead before. There’s no issues for junior devs asking questions, the challenge is that they will hesitate to ask or clarify questions with foreigners.

csydas 4y ago

I guess I can't really agree it's a cultural/regional thing as the ideas you describe I see in _every regional team I have in my company_. - Some people come in with full bravado, "I was the best at my last job so I'm the best here", "I can never be wrong attitudes" - Some people are afraid to look stupid or think they'll get looked down upon or even fired for asking dumb questions - Others just want to focus exclusively on the one task they're dedicated to and not a single bit more and will flee from anything outside of their area of knowledge and forever are locked into "I do X and nothing else" - Finally, there are those that realized none of the above is a requirement, and it's fine to ask questions and even better, to be curious The final group are my most successful engineers/devs because they are insatiably curious. They ask questions in a good way, explain their understanding of a situation first and how they arrive at conclusions, and then want to understand how you got to yours and if they maybe have missed a better way. My US teams, Latin American teams, Eastern European teams, Asian teams, they all have their persons who just get above the usual tropes of work and just want to learn and make cool things, but this is a rare individual person regardless of their cultural background. I've even seen some who started with such attitudes of bravado and arrogance and once they realized "well damn, I'm not the brightest star in the sky by a long shot", they humble up pretty fast and realize they have an opportunity to get even better and they go for it. It happens plenty, though not as much as I would prefer. I don't think it's about culture, I think it's just individual personalities which transcend borders.

pixelrevision 4y ago
This syncs with my experience. The ones that think they are better than everyone else and don’t have any humility are the hardest. They tend to break things, write 5x more code than needed then stay defensive and finger point instead of fixing things. I have worked with a few juniors who actually were better than everyone. In all cases they were approachable, humble, asked questions and then were swooped up by a company like google.

pythonbase 4y ago

Having worked with devs from Asia, Europe and the US, I can relate to this. And yes, devs from Eastern European countries are really hard to work with due this attitude.

lawgimenez 4y ago

As someone from Southeast Asia I agree with your first point. Being “shy” with foreigners is still a thing here. You can really tell an experience dev here if he’s very comfortable speaking with foreigners. In my 12 yoe it still surprises me that majority of the devs I know doesn’t communicate outside with other developers internationally like in SO chat, Reddit or here.

kubanczyk 4y ago

> I've found that Eastern European developers generally believe they are the best (even when they aren't). Eastern Europe is an extremely ambiguous category, unless from where you sit the cultures of Estonia, Poland, Russia, and Armenia seem to produce similar junior developers. I suspect for US it translates to "post-Soviet countries", which is quite an outdated viewpoint. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Europe

dang 4y ago

I'm late to this, but you can't post national/ethnic/regional/racial slurs like this to HN, regardless of which group you've had a problem with. I noticed that you've done this at least once before about a different part of the world ("a bit of an asshole"). Can you please not post like this to HN? We all have these sorts of prejudices because we all overgeneralize from limited experience–but when we broadcast them to thousands of people, which is what you're doing when posting to HN, it tends to produce flamewars, which we don't want here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html