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> Over time the risk of them leaving builds and others are reluctant to take on their mantle (complex code, assumed overtime, whatever). I've never been able to
by worstspotgain 2y ago
> Over time the risk of them leaving builds and others are reluctant to take on their mantle (complex code, assumed overtime, whatever). I've never been able to hire a high performer with the remit of 'please take over this complex and custom system your predecessor built and walked away from' - such people want to build that stuff themselves and someone else has already had the fun.
Let me read between the lines here and assume the worst, then please correct me and tell me it doesn't apply to you.
A left. High performer candidate B didn't want to pick up A's stuff. Let's say it was over-engineered or over-complex or whatever. You ended up hiring C, and C was not a high performer. In fact, a wild guess: you hired two C's at the price of one A.
Perhaps your preference was to hire two "everyone is replaceable" C's all along? That's not to say that some projects are not more suited to low performers. But the engineering management style can tip the scales no matter what.
- ozim 2y agoDepends on how you define “high performer”. Someone who doesn’t want to take over someone else’s code deep dive and understand it first is not high performer in my understanding. Efficient debugging and understanding systems other wrote or created is basic requirement for high performing dev in my opinion.
- JonChesterfield 2y agoLife is too short to want to spend it grovelling around in the shit left behind by other people. There's a fundamental difference between being able to rip apart a ball of mud and rebuild something sane out of it and being excited to do that for a pittance.
- ozim 2y agoThere is a world of difference to rip something apart and rebuild just for one person ego and actually serving other people’s needs.
- worstspotgain 2y agoIsn't pittance the key word here?
- JonChesterfield 2y agoYep. I think there's a correlation between expecting people to joyfully do very boring things and believing they should do it cheaply.
- anotherhue 2y agoI think we're conflating skill with performance. The hiring system should be assumed to filter for a baseline skill, when I say performance I really mean output. A high output team player is gold and we want as many as possible. A high output singleton will likely have sacrificed some element of quality or maintainability or thoroughness or likely even their own personal lives to reach that output, for the projects they enjoy doing. That output is unlikely to translate into a new, less interesting project and if the work or system is now structured to require that level of output then few would want to take up the position. The over used canoe metaphor is useful, you want people to pull at the same speed. I also enjoy the 'always be leaving your job' approach that guides people away from building themselves into the system.
- worstspotgain 2y agoLet me rephrase. Let's say you're writing textbooks instead of code. You need Ivy League PhD's to write grad school textbooks, but not grammar school ones. Here are two crappy scenarios I was thinking about: - You choose to write grammar school textbooks just so you can hire cheaper writers. - Or worse, you're required to write grad school textbooks but you still hire cheaper replaceable writers. We are conflating skill with performance, but the 10x theory (IIRC) is that they are correlated, or at least can be given the proper motivation. Team players are always better than singletons, so let's assume there's no correlation there (which may be a stretch, sure.)