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I don't think anyone is saying that being average is bad. At least I'm not. My problem with these people is that the average is such a low quality of work and w

I don't think anyone is saying that being average is bad. At least I'm not. My problem with these people is that the average is such a low quality of work and work ethics. I want to be able to set a certain bar of quality and work ethics and I want the average developer to meet that bar, not for them to be so far below it that I have to hire way above average people just to reach the bar. I agree with you that you want people that you can work with. The star developers with the attitude you describe is not someone I want to hire. However doing the bare minimum is so way below the bar that this better not be what the average developer does. I want those people to be the exceptions - way below average.

SamuelAdams 4y ago
Do you not have internal coding standards / guidelines? Ideally this is what a PR process is for - reviewing new code and making sure it adheres to the team’s expectations. If code is not where you want it to be, reject the PR, leave specific comments about what was done well and what was done poorly, then repeat the cycle until code is where you need it to be.
- tharkun__ 4y ago
  I don't know why you mention this in reply to my comment. I don't see how this is related. Now with that said, of course we have standards. That's the bar ;) The point I was making is that it seems that the average developer is so far below the bar, that I don't want to hire average developers. Of course there are some juniors (and even some seniors) that will take to code review comments, pairing with them, mentoring them, giving feedback etc. and will improve. Many many don't. Like mentioned elsewhere in the threads here, I think at least some of that has to do with the fact that so many developers have entered the market but they actually aren't good at it. They're in it for the money. They pull the average so far down that hiring average developers is excruciatingly frustrating.
solardev 4y ago
Maybe I've just been lucky, but I've never actually seen one of these in the wild (a supposed programmer who can't code even mediocrely). Even the interns at my current job are pretty proficient (and better at some things I am!). And in the right cultural atmosphere, people support each other and help them learn and grow... they don't stay a beginner for long. These people with terrible work quality and work ethics... how do you end up with them to begin with? There can't be THAT many of them. Are you working for a huge company that hires by the hundreds and just don't have time to properly vet/interview individual hires? I don't even mean LeetCode, just casual questioning, code samples, etc. I believe you, I just have a hard time understanding how somebody so terrible gets onto your teams to begin with. None of the coworkers I've ever worked with have ever been like that, and though all we all start at different skill levels for different things when we start, that tends to equalize itself after a few months of working together.
- tharkun__ 4y ago
  One reason could be that our "bars" are different. I say that because you said: Why is it a problem that some people do the bare minimum? By and large they still contribute in some small way to the project I sense that your bar might be quite a bit lower than the bar I would apply, solely based on that comment. If you think doing the bare minimum is OK, your bar very likely is below the bar that I set. While it's hard to actually define and talk about the standards we think are to be met or not, here is one thing I value and that thus goes into the bar. You should put 100% of your effort into your work, when you work. I'm against the overwork culture that exists in a lot of Corporate America. Don't do 150%. Don't work 60 hour weeks. That doesn't impress me. What I expect from an employee is that they work however many hours their contract says they should ("nominal hours" if you will in places where this isn't well defined by contracts) and that they give 100% of what they can do during that time. After that time is done, stop working. Do other things. Be with family. Be with friends. Go on a date and start a family or whatever floats your boat but stay away from work. But if I see you on your phone, looking through Facebook or Reddit or HN every time I enter the room (and you quickly put it away) we're not going to be friends. I love WFH btw. Never want to go back into the office. But you better not "do the bare minimum", i.e. be on HN 80% of your time that you "work". EDIT: And of course that doesn't mean you can't ever check stuff on your phone or whatever during the workday. But there is a strong correlation between people with sub-par output and those behaviors, especially if they tend to quickly put their phones away as if you "caught them".
  - solardev 4y ago
    Points taken, but I also wonder how much of this is due to our dysfunctional work culture (as a society) where people are so detached from their jobs it feels like they're just an invisible cog in some big machine. I don't think people can give 100% to anything 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. That's just a recipe for burnout. Our productivity ebbs and flows like moods. I mean, we're really not that more evolved than apes, and to expect us to behave like finely tuned robots is kinda unrealistic to begin with. My quality bar is basically "does it work, is it readable, can it be modified and maintained without too much frustration". It's not going to win any awards but it's also never caused any major complaints that I know of or any major catastrophes. And to deliver that, I give 80 to 90% pretty consistently, between 30 and 50 hours a week depending on circumstances. My peers too. Sometimes my coworkers have kids who are sick, sometimes they have some personal errand to run, sometimes they're moving or having a bad breakup or just needing a mental health day. And sometimes they work late because they have nothing else to do and really want to wrap up that new feature for the next version. My managers follow similar balances too. I don't expect them to behave like machines, because they're not. And it goes both ways. I never once thought, "I'm going to try to get away with being lazy today because the boss is away". I value my contributions at work, and even if it's just mediocre code, it's stuff I still pour a lot of energy and sometimes emotion into. It's just paced so as to not cause burnout. I also don't think of my employers as temporary steps on some treadmill to riches. I work with them as much as I work for them, because I believe in the company's projects and values. Shrug. Different cultures, maybe? I don't work for assembly line code mills. They don't think of me commodity labor. With a bit of mutual respect and empathy, it seems to work out pretty well in the end. That's just my anecdotal experience though.

SamuelAdams 4y ago

Do you not have internal coding standards / guidelines? Ideally this is what a PR process is for - reviewing new code and making sure it adheres to the team’s expectations. If code is not where you want it to be, reject the PR, leave specific comments about what was done well and what was done poorly, then repeat the cycle until code is where you need it to be.

tharkun__ 4y ago
I don't know why you mention this in reply to my comment. I don't see how this is related. Now with that said, of course we have standards. That's the bar ;) The point I was making is that it seems that the average developer is so far below the bar, that I don't want to hire average developers. Of course there are some juniors (and even some seniors) that will take to code review comments, pairing with them, mentoring them, giving feedback etc. and will improve. Many many don't. Like mentioned elsewhere in the threads here, I think at least some of that has to do with the fact that so many developers have entered the market but they actually aren't good at it. They're in it for the money. They pull the average so far down that hiring average developers is excruciatingly frustrating.

solardev 4y ago

Maybe I've just been lucky, but I've never actually seen one of these in the wild (a supposed programmer who can't code even mediocrely). Even the interns at my current job are pretty proficient (and better at some things I am!). And in the right cultural atmosphere, people support each other and help them learn and grow... they don't stay a beginner for long. These people with terrible work quality and work ethics... how do you end up with them to begin with? There can't be THAT many of them. Are you working for a huge company that hires by the hundreds and just don't have time to properly vet/interview individual hires? I don't even mean LeetCode, just casual questioning, code samples, etc. I believe you, I just have a hard time understanding how somebody so terrible gets onto your teams to begin with. None of the coworkers I've ever worked with have ever been like that, and though all we all start at different skill levels for different things when we start, that tends to equalize itself after a few months of working together.

tharkun__ 4y ago
One reason could be that our "bars" are different. I say that because you said: Why is it a problem that some people do the bare minimum? By and large they still contribute in some small way to the project I sense that your bar might be quite a bit lower than the bar I would apply, solely based on that comment. If you think doing the bare minimum is OK, your bar very likely is below the bar that I set. While it's hard to actually define and talk about the standards we think are to be met or not, here is one thing I value and that thus goes into the bar. You should put 100% of your effort into your work, when you work. I'm against the overwork culture that exists in a lot of Corporate America. Don't do 150%. Don't work 60 hour weeks. That doesn't impress me. What I expect from an employee is that they work however many hours their contract says they should ("nominal hours" if you will in places where this isn't well defined by contracts) and that they give 100% of what they can do during that time. After that time is done, stop working. Do other things. Be with family. Be with friends. Go on a date and start a family or whatever floats your boat but stay away from work. But if I see you on your phone, looking through Facebook or Reddit or HN every time I enter the room (and you quickly put it away) we're not going to be friends. I love WFH btw. Never want to go back into the office. But you better not "do the bare minimum", i.e. be on HN 80% of your time that you "work". EDIT: And of course that doesn't mean you can't ever check stuff on your phone or whatever during the workday. But there is a strong correlation between people with sub-par output and those behaviors, especially if they tend to quickly put their phones away as if you "caught them".
- solardev 4y ago
  Points taken, but I also wonder how much of this is due to our dysfunctional work culture (as a society) where people are so detached from their jobs it feels like they're just an invisible cog in some big machine. I don't think people can give 100% to anything 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. That's just a recipe for burnout. Our productivity ebbs and flows like moods. I mean, we're really not that more evolved than apes, and to expect us to behave like finely tuned robots is kinda unrealistic to begin with. My quality bar is basically "does it work, is it readable, can it be modified and maintained without too much frustration". It's not going to win any awards but it's also never caused any major complaints that I know of or any major catastrophes. And to deliver that, I give 80 to 90% pretty consistently, between 30 and 50 hours a week depending on circumstances. My peers too. Sometimes my coworkers have kids who are sick, sometimes they have some personal errand to run, sometimes they're moving or having a bad breakup or just needing a mental health day. And sometimes they work late because they have nothing else to do and really want to wrap up that new feature for the next version. My managers follow similar balances too. I don't expect them to behave like machines, because they're not. And it goes both ways. I never once thought, "I'm going to try to get away with being lazy today because the boss is away". I value my contributions at work, and even if it's just mediocre code, it's stuff I still pour a lot of energy and sometimes emotion into. It's just paced so as to not cause burnout. I also don't think of my employers as temporary steps on some treadmill to riches. I work with them as much as I work for them, because I believe in the company's projects and values. Shrug. Different cultures, maybe? I don't work for assembly line code mills. They don't think of me commodity labor. With a bit of mutual respect and empathy, it seems to work out pretty well in the end. That's just my anecdotal experience though.