9 ms·

Back when I was a developer, I tended towards the competent jerk. I was pretty good, but not 10x and I was a bit short with people not a raging asshole, though

Back when I was a developer, I tended towards the competent jerk. I was pretty good, but not 10x and I was a bit short with people not a raging asshole, though looking back I am ashamed of my behavior. The good thing is that it makes it really easy for me to recognize now. On my teams, I don’t accept incompetence, so even the nice folks get managed out quickly. I do have a strategy for handling the 10x assholes, though. We have a difficult problem domain (lots of math and physics) so I need those smart folks. I’m also lucky to have 2 hyper-competent nice devs too. I use them like jiu jitsu gyms use their enforcers. When an extra aggressive 20 something shows up to a gym and starts making it unsafe to train, the gym will pair them up with a black belt who will humiliate them but be super nice about it and put them in their place. I do the same. If I see asshole behavior surfacing, I’ll pair them up with my one of my super competent devs and have a them do a in depth code review or something like that. Most of the time it works and the bad behavior goes away. If that doesn’t work (very rarely), we’ll manage them out. Sometimes the 10x jerk is a jerk because he’s used to dealing with incompetence. But if you can show them competent-nice behavior, they’ll often pattern match to that.

vorpalhex 4y ago
Both competence and social skills are trainable. A specific shop may not be able to train both, but there are shops that can train at least one of the above. My last job I could take the most incompetent beginner and make them productive. In my current one, I really can only train that social skill side. Obviously tail behavior on either end may make training not worth it.
- carlmr 4y ago
  >My last job I could take the most incompetent beginner and make them productive. In my current one, I really can only train that social skill side. The problem is not the incompetent beginner. The incompetent beginner has potential for future competence. Incompetent seniors are a bigger issue, since their future potential is usually limited, and they might still have sway due to their seniority. This is especially bad in big bureaucratic companies.
nabnob 4y ago
Those hyper-competent nice devs can turn incompetent engineers into competent ones, though, and have such a huge impact on work culture that they bring everyone else up with them too. A lot of incompetence can just be inexperience, not understanding what the priorities are and getting overwhelmed.
- uoaei 4y ago
  > A lot of incompetence can just be inexperience, not understanding what the priorities are and getting overwhelmed. This is the job of the manager to resolve. If that person really is incompetent rather than merely unfamiliar with the work, the manager has access to assets such as hyper-competent nice people for mentoring the less-competent, and should coordinate between the mentor and mentee to lift people out of incompetency.
- neeleshs 4y ago
  As long as it's the latter - inexperience - yes. But a lot of the time it's just the aptitude and that cannot be taught (easily). I've seen my fair share of experienced, nice people with less that good aptitude for the job. A year later being nice and teaching, I see marginal improvement at a huge cost. It's not worth it at least in startups. I've also seen many young devs with the right aptitude but no knowledge/experience and they've turned out to be assets within a short period of time.
- manicennui 4y ago
  I have never found this to be the case. It is almost always a combination of low ability to learn anything, needing to be told exactly what to do frequently, and eating up lots of other people's time, and none of this improves over time. The other situation I've seen is people who basically do little to no work and make no attempt to really hide it. I've never seen either of these situations resolved successfully, no matter how many times they are moved around, or coached, or allowed to eat up the time of those who get things done.
  - throwaway2037 4y ago
    You are hinting about an important third trait: persistence (effort). I am not the nicest person, nor the smartest, but I am very persistent. This can make-up for other shortfalls. When hiring, if I cannot find highly competent, then I will sacrifice some niceness for more persistence. Never hire people who are low effort / not persistent. Some much of office work is "following up" to make sure that things are completed -- non-managers included. People with low effort will frequently complete tasks to 80-90%, then need to be managed across the finish line. Edit About: <<needing to be told exactly what to do frequently, and eating up lots of other people's time>> I recommend that you Google: youtube casino blueberry muffin Watch that two minute clip. It ends with this quote: <<Like everything else in this place, if you don't do it yourself, it never gets done.>> I often mutter "blueberry muffins" to myself when it is easier to do it myself than ask someone (multiple times) to do it, and the results will be incomplete or low quality.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
thegrimmest 4y ago
I'm not sure why a direct communication style is inappropriate. We all learn as developers not to write extra lines of code, to be economical with wire/communication protocols, and to avoid duplicating sources of truth. It's only natural that we extend these principles into our professional communication. When I use direct language, I am trying to economize the time and energy of everyone listening to me by speaking as clearly and concisely as possible. It's also a style practiced in military communication, where it's taught as the ABCs - accuracy, brevity and clarity. I don't think we as an industry should concede that this style is reserved for jerks.
- anonymouskimmer 4y ago
  "You made a mistake here. Correct it." "You made a mistake here and need to correct it." "Please correct this mistake." "There's a mistake here that needs correcting." "Can you correct this mistake?" I'd say the top two are direct and definitely impolite. Number two may seem polite to a direct sort of person, but the blame makes it impolite. Of the latter three I'd say the top one is not only the most concise and direct, but also fairly polite. These last two are more polite, but lack directness.
  - ye-olde-sysrq 4y ago
    IMO all of this is too brusque. "Hey - <problem> is causing <symptom>. I think you have context on this - can you drive <solution>?" We're people. The nuance, tone, and empathy of what we say matters. I know some people will scoff at "coddling" or "beating around the bush". I think these people don't correctly prioritize the outcomes of their communication. When I talk to someone, my goals are, in this order: 1. That the other person like me and want to continue working happily with me in the future and feel emotionally safe talking to me. 2. Whatever "primary"/immediate outcome I'm shooting for Paying attention to 1 pays off in the long term. People are happy to work with you and it accelerates how effective you can be because people feel safe with you.
    - lisasays 4y ago
      "Hey - <problem> is causing <symptom>. I think you have context on this - can you drive <solution>?" Please don't go around blowing corporate-speak up people's asses like this. Seriously this a huge waste of time. If I made a typo in some important document or piece of code, just tell me what it was, and I'll fix it. We're team members after all. Plus we've been spent years at hard technical schools and are used to having our work evaluated and corrected by others. We're not babies. Granted, your approach is much more applicable (and is arguably necessary) when things are fuzzier, when it's not clear what the root cause is or who (if anyone) is at fault. Most of the time it isn't though - it's very straightforward, and has nothing to do with ego or blame at all. In these (the vast majority of cases) -- just give me the information so I get through the day, please.
jpg1 4y ago
That sounds like a really good place to work, I'm not a jerk, but I want to be a team with "hyper-competent" devs and a good management, are you hiring? if so please ping me root#at#jpg.computer.

vorpalhex 4y ago

Both competence and social skills are trainable. A specific shop may not be able to train both, but there are shops that can train at least one of the above. My last job I could take the most incompetent beginner and make them productive. In my current one, I really can only train that social skill side. Obviously tail behavior on either end may make training not worth it.

carlmr 4y ago
>My last job I could take the most incompetent beginner and make them productive. In my current one, I really can only train that social skill side. The problem is not the incompetent beginner. The incompetent beginner has potential for future competence. Incompetent seniors are a bigger issue, since their future potential is usually limited, and they might still have sway due to their seniority. This is especially bad in big bureaucratic companies.

nabnob 4y ago

Those hyper-competent nice devs can turn incompetent engineers into competent ones, though, and have such a huge impact on work culture that they bring everyone else up with them too. A lot of incompetence can just be inexperience, not understanding what the priorities are and getting overwhelmed.

uoaei 4y ago
> A lot of incompetence can just be inexperience, not understanding what the priorities are and getting overwhelmed. This is the job of the manager to resolve. If that person really is incompetent rather than merely unfamiliar with the work, the manager has access to assets such as hyper-competent nice people for mentoring the less-competent, and should coordinate between the mentor and mentee to lift people out of incompetency.
neeleshs 4y ago
As long as it's the latter - inexperience - yes. But a lot of the time it's just the aptitude and that cannot be taught (easily). I've seen my fair share of experienced, nice people with less that good aptitude for the job. A year later being nice and teaching, I see marginal improvement at a huge cost. It's not worth it at least in startups. I've also seen many young devs with the right aptitude but no knowledge/experience and they've turned out to be assets within a short period of time.
manicennui 4y ago
I have never found this to be the case. It is almost always a combination of low ability to learn anything, needing to be told exactly what to do frequently, and eating up lots of other people's time, and none of this improves over time. The other situation I've seen is people who basically do little to no work and make no attempt to really hide it. I've never seen either of these situations resolved successfully, no matter how many times they are moved around, or coached, or allowed to eat up the time of those who get things done.
- throwaway2037 4y ago
  You are hinting about an important third trait: persistence (effort). I am not the nicest person, nor the smartest, but I am very persistent. This can make-up for other shortfalls. When hiring, if I cannot find highly competent, then I will sacrifice some niceness for more persistence. Never hire people who are low effort / not persistent. Some much of office work is "following up" to make sure that things are completed -- non-managers included. People with low effort will frequently complete tasks to 80-90%, then need to be managed across the finish line. Edit About: <<needing to be told exactly what to do frequently, and eating up lots of other people's time>> I recommend that you Google: youtube casino blueberry muffin Watch that two minute clip. It ends with this quote: <<Like everything else in this place, if you don't do it yourself, it never gets done.>> I often mutter "blueberry muffins" to myself when it is easier to do it myself than ask someone (multiple times) to do it, and the results will be incomplete or low quality.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

thegrimmest 4y ago

I'm not sure why a direct communication style is inappropriate. We all learn as developers not to write extra lines of code, to be economical with wire/communication protocols, and to avoid duplicating sources of truth. It's only natural that we extend these principles into our professional communication. When I use direct language, I am trying to economize the time and energy of everyone listening to me by speaking as clearly and concisely as possible. It's also a style practiced in military communication, where it's taught as the ABCs - accuracy, brevity and clarity. I don't think we as an industry should concede that this style is reserved for jerks.

anonymouskimmer 4y ago
"You made a mistake here. Correct it." "You made a mistake here and need to correct it." "Please correct this mistake." "There's a mistake here that needs correcting." "Can you correct this mistake?" I'd say the top two are direct and definitely impolite. Number two may seem polite to a direct sort of person, but the blame makes it impolite. Of the latter three I'd say the top one is not only the most concise and direct, but also fairly polite. These last two are more polite, but lack directness.
- ye-olde-sysrq 4y ago
  IMO all of this is too brusque. "Hey - <problem> is causing <symptom>. I think you have context on this - can you drive <solution>?" We're people. The nuance, tone, and empathy of what we say matters. I know some people will scoff at "coddling" or "beating around the bush". I think these people don't correctly prioritize the outcomes of their communication. When I talk to someone, my goals are, in this order: 1. That the other person like me and want to continue working happily with me in the future and feel emotionally safe talking to me. 2. Whatever "primary"/immediate outcome I'm shooting for Paying attention to 1 pays off in the long term. People are happy to work with you and it accelerates how effective you can be because people feel safe with you.
  - lisasays 4y ago
    "Hey - <problem> is causing <symptom>. I think you have context on this - can you drive <solution>?" Please don't go around blowing corporate-speak up people's asses like this. Seriously this a huge waste of time. If I made a typo in some important document or piece of code, just tell me what it was, and I'll fix it. We're team members after all. Plus we've been spent years at hard technical schools and are used to having our work evaluated and corrected by others. We're not babies. Granted, your approach is much more applicable (and is arguably necessary) when things are fuzzier, when it's not clear what the root cause is or who (if anyone) is at fault. Most of the time it isn't though - it's very straightforward, and has nothing to do with ego or blame at all. In these (the vast majority of cases) -- just give me the information so I get through the day, please.

jpg1 4y ago

That sounds like a really good place to work, I'm not a jerk, but I want to be a team with "hyper-competent" devs and a good management, are you hiring? if so please ping me root#at#jpg.computer.