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Ask HN: Have you seen a mediocre, stagnant developer become a “rockstar”?

5 points by ccajas ↗ HN
If it's a programmer that started out okay but then stagnated for a long while, and then through some visible changes has recovered from stagnation and built a good reputation whose experience meet the expectations.

Whether it's a co-worker you've had over the years or a peer that you've talked to and seen grown pretty well in experience, jobs, and reputation. What was your experience with them like? How did they improve?

4 comments

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smt88
I’ve seen many mediocre, stagnant devs become rockstars. They switched fields to something they enjoyed more and was better suited to them.

Having a background in programming is helpful in lots of non-programming career tracks.

ccajas
Oh I see, so they switch fields but not improve in the field they were mediocre at. You haven't seen any programmers improve themselves without leaving the field behind?
smt88
No, and what’s the point? Why struggle at something that isn’t a good fit?
PhilWright
There are relatively few 'rockstars' that perform at that level in every position throughout their whole career. I have seen people struggle at a company because they do not seem to fit into the culture/dev processes/hierarchy that are excellent performers at another company when everything gels for them. And also visa versa.

I think half of your performance is not your technical ability but the environment you are in and how it suites you. Some like a free wheeling, high pressure small company feel. Others prefer a structured large company where they have a well defined set of tasks. Some developer take a few years to figure out which is best for them.