Ask HN: How to deal with 0.1X programmer colleagues?
I worked at tech-team-of-one startups for years. Now I'm working at a big organisation.
In the last sprint, I chalked up 41 story points. The rest of the team (3 other devs and a mostly hands-off tech lead) collectively achieved 9 story points. That's 1 medium-sized ticket each over the space of a fortnight. Everyone has a good excuse, but they ALWAYS have a good excuse.
It's driving me nuts. I'm a good coder, but this isn't about me being good, this is about them all being, on paper, completely ineffective. No one inside or outside the team seems to be batting an eyelid about this. I feel resentful and... confused.
It's hard to stay motivated when the bar is so low, but I would feel guilty slacking off all day. What do I do?
107 comments
[ 98.4 ms ] story [ 390 ms ] threadMaybe some other startup-to-large-company folks will have interesting insights. I feel your pain, though. I'm also used to a fast environment, I can't imagine slowing down like that.
I'm sure everyone is thinking "agile" now. Yes, I was in to that back when XP was the thing. But it only works for some sorts of project, typically where there is only a single company developing a project, and the customer is internal. If you have a big contract with specific deliverables, a contractual time line, multiple organisations, and perhaps large non-sw parts, you often find that you have to start planning even before the developers are engaged, then accept that some of your assumptions will be wrong.
In this case the problem could be just miscommunication, it's worth asking some help from the team
It probably isn’t number of JIRA tickets.
They don't seem to be bothered about promotion. More that they think they're doing a lot more work than everyone else.
Assuming tasks are unlimited, to OP's perspective, the entire team should be doing 41 points. It isn't that he is doing 'their' work.
I think OP is upset that he delivers more work, but is still paid the same. Companies reward the extra work via promotions and bonuses.
At no point in your career is holding your peers to account part of the role of a developer. Get that through your skull quickly.
Either find a job where you're under the hammer more and the comp is what you want or learn to live with this. Or work on your own projects on the side. Do anything but what you are doing.
The best employees don't get promoted or celebrated for working super hard. I've never yet met one who was.
This is the time to work on yourself. Do not let your team change you or slow you down. Do the work required, improve your skills, and go find a better team.
Under this loser/clueless/sociopath framework, the skilled engineers at many organizations (including yours, it seems) simply are highly paid "losers" with cushy benefits (I do not mean this as a personal insult!). Your colleagues may have an experience-driven grasp of this and are acting rationally, in a way.
If nothing else helps and you don't want to be the best guy, go work in another place with better people.
Your colleagues have the right attitude. They are doing the absolute bare minimum to collect a paycheck and go home. I suggest you do the same.
Caring about your job is only acceptable if your labor is sufficiently rewarded, you own the company, or if it's some kind of non-profit or public service job that actually benefits society. If you're working for a for-profit organization, the goal is not to work hard, but to be exploited as little as possible.
Spending your passion on your own projects or OSS will yield you better returns 9 times out of 10.
I spend most of my free time with housework, socializing and hobbies but there just isn't enough meaningful stuff I care to do outside of working hours to overcome the 8 hours a day of meaningless work I do for my employer.
It’s clear other people are able to manage but I have been trying for years and all I ever manage to get out of it is depression.
I just can't do meaningless work for 8 hours a day.
I've also worked with many colleagues who were great at their jobs, but that's all it was for them - a job. Their passions (which was sometimes just their family) lied elsewhere. They were just working to support that and were perfectly happy with their lives. I wouldn't try to take that from them.
This suggests that it's unacceptable to care about doing your job well because you enjoy it or simply because your morals compel you to work hard at what you do. I don't think there's anything wrong with someone choosing to work hard for these reasons if that's their choice.
But you're right though, when I am in flow, those 8 hours go by a lot quicker :)
Is it nicer to work in a product/organisation you are passionate about? Of course, it doesn't mean this passion will last, or that it will be rewarded, or that it will even be healthy for you (one of the jobs I burned out from was exactly the one I was the most passionate about).
Building products follows the same patterns, even if the underlying technologies are different, or if you work on a product in a very different market/industry. It becomes all more of the same: store data somewhere, pull data from somewhere, transform some data to some other format, write some business logic, develop an interface, develop an application (web, desktop, mobile, embedded), deploy your systems at some server, monitor your systems (or implement telemetry if working embedded). You don't need to be passionate to work like that, you just need to be professional.
By doing that you also avoid the common pitfall of being exploited because of your passion.
If you're only working places you're passionate about, you're really winnowing the field of possible employers. I say this as someone who's working at a company I generally respect and am passionate about the product of - I think more than most of my friends who work in the field are about their work. If I wanted another job, there's not a huge pool of companies I would even want to apply to.
If I lose my job, or quit, then I'm often going to need to apply and work somewhere that's not a good fit. I can hold out for a bit without a job, but there's no promise that another company I'm also passionate about is hiring for any position I'm qualified for. At the end of the day, I'd generally rather be programming somewhere I don't love than working as a bartender or delivery driver.
We don't know that. That's one stereotype theory that comes to mind when we hear "big company", but that's not the only plausible explanation.
Also, some people told to do the bare minimum at their jobs will think "Alrighty!" But the same advice could be very counterproductive for people who take pride in their craft or professionalism, or who want to see the mission happen. Those people should be nudged towards improving their situation (either at the current place, or somewhere else), not destroying their strengths.
Ended up horribly burnt out, to the point that I'm still struggling with the idea of working 2 years later.
If you do, then that should be a sufficient motivator. If not, then prepare your exit.
Other questions to consider: Do you need the paycheck? Is this position beneficial to your long term career growth?
You're not working with 0.1X colleagues, you're working at a 0.1X company. If that's too slow for you but acceptable for your manager, talk with them about it; in the best case, consider yourself free to spend the henceforth-saved time doing something else.
The members of your team are not reporting to you, so it isn’t your problem, or maybe isn’t a problem at all and the “big” company has enough money and people to get done what needs to get done at whatever pace is normal to them.
It's a job, if the execs are happy with the output that's enough, not everyone gets a hard on from typing code all day long.