3 ms·

Another day, another listicle about senior/staff/principal developer labelling disguised as a blog. Only insecure devs care about this crap. Devs who know their

Another day, another listicle about senior/staff/principal developer labelling disguised as a blog. Only insecure devs care about this crap. Devs who know their shit aren't coming up with definitions distinguishing themselves from devs who don't. They have better things to do (e.g. actual work).

arp242 2y ago
Or, you know, people interested in building a team of Good Software Engineers are interested in thinking about this sort of thing. Also: Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- ownagefool 2y ago
  Depends. At least some of these lists will be created to define the scope of the good engineer so it applies to them, or habits they like, but there's nothing that actually clarifies the benefit here. Is there a measurable increase in revenue, feature releases, uptime? I've worked as a contractor for a decade. I'm brought in to deliver specific outcomes by specific timelines. There are polarizing views on what I do. Some will view me as the 10x engineer; others a bit of a cowboy. However, there's no lack of "good engineers" that aren't able to deliver working software in a timely manner, which is why I'm even at those orgs in the first place.
  - arp242 2y ago
    You can disagree with any of this list, of course, but that's not what the previous poster was doing: it's just a shallow dismissal, and a claim that it was written for what are essentially bad faith reasons. That's quite a different thing than "I disagree with this because X" (which is what you're doing).
- tgv 2y ago
  Then look at articles that are a bit better than this one, which manages to come up with the blandest of ... definitions? > A good engineer is one whom I, as a manager or peer, can trust to progress a project, knowing that they will deliver a solution by working with the team and producing good quality, again and again. What a vacuous statement. The phrase "as a manager or peer" is so 2014 "user story". And it doesn't get more linkedin than "to progress a project." The whole sentence just says "A good engineer is someone who will do his/her job." It's meaningless drivel.
techcode 2y ago
Meanwhile there's not that much posted/discussed about good (so not 10x, just 1x instead of 0.5x or negative) engineering/product managers. In my experience where I've worn both IC and TL/manager hats -even just going from "adequate" to "OK" team/engineering/product manager leads to impact/output that's bigger than having the best (so that mythical 10x) engineer.

arp242 2y ago

Or, you know, people interested in building a team of Good Software Engineers are interested in thinking about this sort of thing. Also: Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

ownagefool 2y ago
Depends. At least some of these lists will be created to define the scope of the good engineer so it applies to them, or habits they like, but there's nothing that actually clarifies the benefit here. Is there a measurable increase in revenue, feature releases, uptime? I've worked as a contractor for a decade. I'm brought in to deliver specific outcomes by specific timelines. There are polarizing views on what I do. Some will view me as the 10x engineer; others a bit of a cowboy. However, there's no lack of "good engineers" that aren't able to deliver working software in a timely manner, which is why I'm even at those orgs in the first place.
- arp242 2y ago
  You can disagree with any of this list, of course, but that's not what the previous poster was doing: it's just a shallow dismissal, and a claim that it was written for what are essentially bad faith reasons. That's quite a different thing than "I disagree with this because X" (which is what you're doing).
tgv 2y ago
Then look at articles that are a bit better than this one, which manages to come up with the blandest of ... definitions? > A good engineer is one whom I, as a manager or peer, can trust to progress a project, knowing that they will deliver a solution by working with the team and producing good quality, again and again. What a vacuous statement. The phrase "as a manager or peer" is so 2014 "user story". And it doesn't get more linkedin than "to progress a project." The whole sentence just says "A good engineer is someone who will do his/her job." It's meaningless drivel.

techcode 2y ago

Meanwhile there's not that much posted/discussed about good (so not 10x, just 1x instead of 0.5x or negative) engineering/product managers. In my experience where I've worn both IC and TL/manager hats -even just going from "adequate" to "OK" team/engineering/product manager leads to impact/output that's bigger than having the best (so that mythical 10x) engineer.