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I've worked to two programmers who could not code. I mean literally not code. You cannot imagine how frustrating this became before the managers finally got r

I've worked to two programmers who could not code. I mean literally not code. You cannot imagine how frustrating this became before the managers finally got rid of them.

viscanti 14y ago
While terrifying, I think the real danger is hiring someone who can code, but can't do it in a maintainable way. I'd much rather have someone not write a single line of code, rather than have them write 6 months of unmaintainable spaghetti code. Zero contribution is bad, but it's much worse if they have a negative multiplier on the future of the team (if what should take a day to do takes a week to do because of unmaintainable code).
reinhardt 14y ago
How can this even happen? I mean, isn't it obvious in the first week or two, month tops? If not how can they hide their cluelessness for months until they are laid off?
- csixty4 14y ago
  I've seen it happen a couple times. They get everybody else to help them, so their assignments get done. They invite the CIO out to lunch every couple weeks so they're insulated there (helps if they already know the CIO). Out of desperation, their immediate supervisor assigns them some non-programming task like kicking off a special report every morning. The manager resigns and now they're the only one with institutional knowledge about how to do that task. So the new manager isn't going to fire them. Besides, the CIO speaks highly of them, so they can't be all that bad… tl;dr: politics
- codeonfire 14y ago
  Month one and two they are 'ramping up' Month three and four they pick something inane like what kind of font the web site should use and schedule lots of one on one face-time meetings with higher ups. The higher the better. Month five and six they are now telling everyone their life goal is to be a project manager or that they are training to be a project/program/product manager. Their work is sort of like a project manager. They did the font project. Remember the font project? Simple game theory prevents managers from acknowledging the truth that they are loafing because that might make all management look like all they do is loaf. The guy's direct manager is overjoyed that all the higher ups are paying attention to the font project.

I've worked to two programmers who could not code. I mean literally not code. You cannot imagine how frustrating this became before the managers finally got rid of them.

viscanti 14y ago

While terrifying, I think the real danger is hiring someone who can code, but can't do it in a maintainable way. I'd much rather have someone not write a single line of code, rather than have them write 6 months of unmaintainable spaghetti code. Zero contribution is bad, but it's much worse if they have a negative multiplier on the future of the team (if what should take a day to do takes a week to do because of unmaintainable code).

reinhardt 14y ago

How can this even happen? I mean, isn't it obvious in the first week or two, month tops? If not how can they hide their cluelessness for months until they are laid off?

csixty4 14y ago
I've seen it happen a couple times. They get everybody else to help them, so their assignments get done. They invite the CIO out to lunch every couple weeks so they're insulated there (helps if they already know the CIO). Out of desperation, their immediate supervisor assigns them some non-programming task like kicking off a special report every morning. The manager resigns and now they're the only one with institutional knowledge about how to do that task. So the new manager isn't going to fire them. Besides, the CIO speaks highly of them, so they can't be all that bad… tl;dr: politics
codeonfire 14y ago
Month one and two they are 'ramping up' Month three and four they pick something inane like what kind of font the web site should use and schedule lots of one on one face-time meetings with higher ups. The higher the better. Month five and six they are now telling everyone their life goal is to be a project manager or that they are training to be a project/program/product manager. Their work is sort of like a project manager. They did the font project. Remember the font project? Simple game theory prevents managers from acknowledging the truth that they are loafing because that might make all management look like all they do is loaf. The guy's direct manager is overjoyed that all the higher ups are paying attention to the font project.