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Comment by iratewizard | Hacker News Reader

I've got a strong suspicion that there would be more productivity if the bottom half of developer (or more) left the industry. Control for seniority, of course. The majority of 1Xers produce outright bad code, contribute disproportionately to tech debt, don't read user stories thoroughly, don't test their code properly, and generally get in everyone else's way.

The most productive thing our industry could do is create an anonymous blacklist of devs to avoid and code samples of their shit work.

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Really? I think the most productive thing the industry could do is get rid of developers who drastically overvalue their own work, methods, and ideas, haughtily dismiss the value of others’ contributions out of hand, and blame everyone else for a project’s shortcomings. You can usually ID them by their persistently rolled eyes, big fish in small pond mentality, and 1.9 septillion reputation on Stack Overflow.

It sounds like I struck a nerve. Does it hurt you knowing there are a lot of developers out there that contribute more in a week than you do in several months?

And yet we both get paid the same!

Software engineering has huge ranges of salary. Not only do I doubt you get paid the same, but I also doubt you get paid as much as my best performing lead engineers.

"It sounds like I struck a nerve" is the world's laziest and most immature rhetorical non-response to someone pointing out your obnoxious behavior.

you're both wrong. the most productive thing would be to grow up and help bring the better out in each other. create an environment thats about the skill. set aside ego and focus on building something wonderful. but doesn't seem that's gonna happen soon. (i dont really like bigtech, but the "blameless" culture seems like it could be very productive and save many a dramatic exits)

I wouldn't be so fast to dismiss the previous answers, although I think they're a bit snarky. There is indeed a larger number of developers that is necessary on lots of projects from influential companies lately, and this heavily affects the architecture and the outcome of those projects.

The goal isn't to "build X" anymore, it's to "build X but with N engineers", with N being multiple times the minimum amount needed. This affects how tools are built. They're built "to scale", and this trickles down to smaller companies too. This also affects how software ends up looking, meaning custom GUIs and widgets all the way, even when it's not necessary.

After working in a couple Unicorns where the investors asked for larger headcount, and a short stint in a FAANG, that's my experience.

Maybe there are a ton of unqualified developers in SV playing Wordle instead of coding? I have no idea. The vast majority of software projects aren't managed by FAANG or Unicorn companies. The financial landscape in those companies is completely detached from reality and not a good basis for comparison.

> Maybe there are a ton of unqualified developers in SV playing Wordle instead of coding?

Maybe there are, I also have no idea. But in my experience most engineers are qualified and hard workers, even when there is team bloat. Companies are hiring well. It's just that they're hiring too much.

> The vast majority of software projects aren't managed by FAANG or Unicorn companies. The financial landscape in those companies is completely detached from reality and not a good basis for comparison.

But this happens on several industries, not only FAANG. Most companies that get off the ground with a skeleton crew will start hiring more as soon as they get more cash, doesn't have to be from investors. That's because they want more things faster. The reality is grimmer, though: 9 women can't make a baby in 1 month. And 9 women can't also make an adult-sized baby in 9 months.

Not really sure what you're advocating for that's materially different than what I posted.

Agreed, I'd argue the even higher meta problem is that we're afraid to hurt feelings.

Because there is such a big drive for growth and more bodies, we have to tip toe around crap work and crap work ethics. Nothing wrong with being a bad dev perse if you accept it and learn to improve. But instead we ego stroke juniors and poor quality developers, inflate their contributions, inflate their title and then wonder when everything is shit at the end of the day. Those poorly trained juniors and boot camp devs are now eng managers, CTOs and loud evangelists that are driving our industry into the gutter with billions of funding.

> anonymous blacklist of devs to avoid and code samples of their shit work.

Sounds like Github Copilot.

Hmm, just need to fork it and call it "Nopilot" (though personally I find Copilot to be sometimes handy, it makes plausible guesses when I am doing something repetitive, I'm sure that's because my code isn't DRY enough etc. but it saves me a little time)

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