Lazy developers don't really bother me, if you do a couple hours of high-quality work a week I'd have no complaint. (Many weeks I do as little, some weeks I do a decent amount of real work :) The problem is developers making negative progress, usually messes that need to be cleaned up ... and it's an awkward situation, no matter your relative authority. I'm in the "we should consider them lines spent, not lines produced" camp.

An old disputed quote:

> I divide my officers into four classes as follows: The clever, the industrious, the lazy, and the stupid. Each officer always possesses two of these qualities.

> Those who are clever and industrious I appoint to the General Staff. Use can under certain circumstances be made of those who are stupid and lazy. The man who is clever and lazy qualifies for the highest leadership posts. He has the requisite nerves and the mental clarity for difficult decisions. But whoever is stupid and industrious must be got rid of, for he is too dangerous.

When I'm not 100% sure I'm paddling the right way or management wants me to paddle the wrong way, I don't really peddle, I complain and start playing around with fun tech that I think is the right way. Then when the time comes, I makes some powerful strokes again (aided by the new knowledge from playing).

This is going to sound cocky but I feel that I'm pretty good at determining what the right way is, and that is the reason I get away with it. It's like I'm slowly walking by a wall, feeling where it is weakest for months on end, then I make one big push, it falls, things change, I make noise, people appreciate it and understand this is the right way. Lead by example it's been called.

To be clear, I consider the wrong way usually the ineffective way. Ie in our org many people write many one-off scripts, I always try to focus on creating re-useable assets following global standards. I promote innersource because it's fun but also because it enabled other devs to make my CI/CD pipelines. I'm lazy but I think in a good way.

Welcome to management. ;)

Much more dangerous than someone who is merely slow.

<i>Felt like I needed to resolve that or we may never stop being sarcastic</i>

It's putting people in a box which people love to do.

The industrial idiot will cause more work, build in you into a corner, waste time, resources, people, lives, on counter productive missions and projects which distract from essential work, cause bottlenecks in any or all systems at once.

Objectively bad processes run away with more power than deserved.

An army of autonomous actors only works if you root out the problems and agents causing drift.

My current project is terrible, the people who set it up tried but have that real lack of understanding what is required (they have clean code but no tests) it is really hard to debug and takes forever to deliver anything. If they had just done nothing I could have set it up properly when I started and we could have been done months ago.

Or is it just impossible to be both clever and stupid at the same time? I've had my share of both cleverly stupid ideas and stupidly clever ideas.

So four combinations.

1. clever and stupid

2. industrious and lazy

Neither of those options make much sense. They are choosing both values of one parameter and no values are choosen for the other parameter

What are those areas? Imho: Vision, providing direction, knowing when to be productive at the exact right time, identify well in advance what won't work, identify who is doing the same as you and working together or leveraging that work. Perhaps you can do very little until you finally identify that one core important thing and be praised for those couple of hours. It's a skill as any other.

This has been my philosophy, as long as a developer is not making me do more work, I won't mind.

Sometimes I'll know I need to write some code or some function and I'll just think about it in the back of my head while doing other things, sometimes for a whole day or two. Then I'll sit down and write it in like 20-30 minutes. Did I work 20-30 minutes, or have I been working for a day or two? I would say a day or two, and the 20-30 minutes was the time needed to produce the deliverable of that work.

I would say that I do this too. There's a lot of stuff I can more or less do on autopilot and stuff that requires actual attention and finesse, for lack of a better word. I feel like management thinks that I'm good at my job for all of the autopilot stuff that I can crank out, and that makes up for the time I spend implementing one of the more interesting bits.

I think one of the ways that remote work changes this is that I can do other things while I think through a tricky problem; I can do dishes or walk my dog or something instead of trying to look busy in a room with 6-12 other people who are furiously typing because that's how the manager and project manager understand that work gets done.

I like to make parallels with sports: when I am on the court, I am so much dumber about what's going on. Suddenly, when I am on the sidelines, I can see patterns, strengths and weaknesses for each team and so forth. It's not that I was dumb while on the court, it's just that your brain is in a different mode of operation (focusing on your own performance in this particular case).

Doing the dishes is indeed a good one too.

I'd take a brisk walk around the spaceship and then hit a shower. It was a great way for me to avoid an afternoon slump and let me do a lot of background processing in relative peace.

(Amusing to see “root caused” == “diagnosed” and != “caused”.)

> He never spent a long time on a problem since he believed that the subconscious would continue working on the problem while he consciously worked on another problem.

This is definitely a thing. Intellectual labor just isn't physical labor.

Or just spending time reading about the topic

The problem is making that a regular occurrence.

Ideally you shower every two days or so.

> "I shower once a month, whether I even need it or not"

joke being that one clearly needs it after a month.

i told her that 1. i can only think in english when thinking about work and 2. saying stuff out loud helps me organize my thoughts and this is specially easy while showering because i don't really have to concentrate.

Seriously, modern work is all about knowing what to do and how to do it rather than putting in a large number of hours executing a straightforward task.

Developers are always about optimization and automation and tweaking and refinement, and their tools reflect this constant pursuit of efficiency that constantly transcends and questions how a job is expressed (UI, mental modeling) and completed.

No other industry - ironically including technical management roles (maybe even especially so?) - seems to have this sort of focus.

I even hesitantly wonder if the biggest similarity I've ever seen is with accessibility type setups with screen readers and whatnot. (Ha, that says a lot about the fundamental impedance mismatch of developer tooling!)

All the time tracking tools I've ever used (at software companies!) had a bad UI. Sometimes we even have to track the same hours into two different tools. Can't we automate time-tracking away? My explanation is that this is the result of cultural evolution. Companies that make people think twice about their time and spendings are more successful. People will copy whatever successful companies are doing.

This is so messed up - and yet so interesting as a direct result of that.

I've only ever considered the idea of "looking busy" in the sense of whether or not someone is trying to optimize for shirking actual mental engagement.

I never thought of how doing that can actually make room to think. But that's so logically obvious once you mush the two ideas together!

I say this is messed up because I can totally see this being both necessary and helpful in certain situations. Wow.

That's why I am a huge fan of free software (and I've spent years on it too).

This link shows a touchline between using api and not using api https://www.swyx.io/api-economy/

But how can we build some tool for telling product managers that they should fix there automating proces?

Starting out, if I spent a whole day thinking over a problem or writing code that I ultimately had to scrap, I would tell people I got nothing done that day and it was a waste.

Now if I do that, I see if as the necessary troubleshooting that all must go through to solve the problem.

Come on guys. Plenty of software devs are actually working during the day.

What are you guys doing if you're not working? Reading articles? Playing Halo?

When writing code you might have written 10 lines of code in the past week, but the next day you write 200 because you've been thinking about the structure of the solution. In this way you might be working even if you're going on a walk or doing the dishes.

This isn't unique to programming, of course.

You hit the nail right on the head.

This is the main thing that non-programmers (i.e. Management) need to understand about "Programmers" and the key to "Manage" them effectively.

> The greatest people are self-managing -- they don't need to be managed. Once they know what to do, they'll go figure out how to do it. What they need is a common vision. And that's what leadership is: having a vision; being able to articulate that so the people around you can understand it; and getting a consensus on a common vision.

Related quote from Scott McNealy : "Agree and commit, Disagree and commit, or get out of the way."

Too many times Management/Leadership devolves into giving orders without having a clue. It then becomes nothing more than a power trip to the detriment of everything and everybody.

All "Good" people just need Autonomy, Vision, Freedom and stellar Results will auto-magically follow.

We cannot. Some things require multiple hours of uninterrupted concentration and if my calendar looks like someone fired a shotgun filled with 30 minute meetings at it, I can't achieve that.

I mostly did small bug fixes or read articles because there was no way to do anything productive. I need the mental space to properly plan and execute.

I will backburner a ticket for days, then when what I need to do comes together I will sit down and bang it out in an hour.

It's to the point that I will deliberately review a ticket and code segment every day, even if I'm not actively working it, just to have the pieces come together in my mind and crank out the ticket.

This method is not very scrum friendly, because in truth I'm actually brain-working all of my tickets at the same time, but I haven't shifted any electrons, just neurons.

Sometimes, when I hit a sticking point, I go do something completely different - like read Hacker News - in order to push stuff into what I call "background processing" in my subconscious.

This really highlights why I hate agile so much. Intellectual work doesn't lead itself to reporting status on completed tickets every single day.

Status is WIP until completion. As for the intellectual work, that's just outright Analysis stage.

Most of dev's work is actually analysis. Sure, there's implementation, testing and such, but Analysis is almost non-stop.

Anonter way to put this is Evaluation of Alternatives, Optimization of Approaches.

If one was tasked to move a 10-ton block, 1000 yards in 10 days. You can use brute force move it 100 yards a day for 10 days or spend 5 days inventing a way to move it 1000 yards in day and get it done in 6 days.

One of the deepest thinkers ever about society and he is known for the most boring of his ideas.

Most things can be explained with this other idea of Pareto that humans are not rational but rationalizers.

Most human action/thought is kind of dumb and non-rational and then we invent rational explanations after the fact. Paint a varnish of rationality after the fact on non-rational behavior in Pareto's words.

I once collaborated with a colleague to design and implement a data sync framework. For six weeks we chatted about it during our lunch break, while walking from the office to a Japanese takeaway and back again. We'd propose ideas and find weaknesses and flaws in them, and would spend our evenings thinking hard to come up with solutions to get around these issues.

Our boss saw none of this, but it easily consumed about three weeks of person-hours (i.e. around 120 hours).

One day, walking back from lunch, neither of us could find any problems with our proposed solution. We walked into the office straight into a meeting room, spend 30 minutes drawing diagrams on a whiteboard, then returned to our desks and coded up a working proof-of-concept in a couple of hours.

From our boss's perspective, we had implemented a new technology in an afternoon. He's the kind of non-technical person who equates productivity with typing code into a computer. But I think more places need to equate productivity with sitting on a sofa staring into space, or going for long walks, or whatever it happens to be that works for the developer in question.

But then again, since thoughts are words, thinking can be translated into typing that is monitored: notes instead of code.

Those things are a form of procrastination. With your points you should be sceptical for those who just go for VS Code or whatever MS sets up for them nicely in 2 minutes, not those who configure Emacs or Vim.

This says two things about me: I usually underestimate the design details when estimating time, and the design takes me roughly the same time anyway.

This doesn’t have to be a programmer only thing IMHO. If you spend 5 hours chilling and 3 executing and everybody is happy with your performance, it may be just your way to do things. If someone next to you does the same by coding 8 hour straight - its their style, and neither is better.

Everyone else appears to be talking about time spent directly thinking about a problem - which absolutely can look exactly like you're staring into space and this magic "subconscious processing" everyone claims to do.

That is far too seductive and idea, and far too ego flattering for me to trust it. "I'm so smart I solve problems in my sleep!"

Oh really?

But the phenomenon of solving problems quickly after a break/sleep/shower/whatever is one I recognise too.

Something else I recognise is that I also jump to solutions too quickly, often wrong ones, or by something that feels quit similar, jump to the idea that I don't understand things or that I don't know how to solve a problem.

Either the "wrong idea(s)" or the "no idea" are patterns of thinking that make it that much harder to see the problem a different way, or to think up new approaches. You can absolutely overcome it, but it takes a deliberate effort of will, and possibly explicit step by step techniques to do.

Much easier to just put it down and have a nap or a walk or whatever.

But that time isn't "subconsciously working on the problem", it's time spent letting go of you original ideas, letting those neuron interconnections to loosen up ( or whatever, not a neurologist, can you tell? ) so you can generate new ideas, obviously you haven't forgotten them.. but they have that softening distance to them now, and the no longer carry as much weight.

To take in one more, completely unsubstantiated step further, maybe that what a 10x coder is: someone who can more freely move between their ideas ( naturally or via learned technique ) meaning the the need to sleep on it far less often. Or maybe they give themselves a chance to let go of there currently working on the next and the next ( which I'm sure we all do some of, or every software company would be surrounded by a cloud of Devs, walking or staring off into spec! ) But maybe to 10x engineer does that more readily? Without the the exhausting drain I know I feel jumping from deep thinking on one think to deep thinking on another?

We shouldn't discount how many of the "other things" people list are either directly rejuvenation ( sleep! ) Or at least refreshing via increased bloodflow from some level of physical movement, even if it is just getting up to do the dishes.

Personally I think "well rested me" is of about average intelligence, "well rested and in the zone me" is perhaps a little higher but "tired me"? Wow can that be a big drop!

So.. rest, rejuvenation, letting go of mental models by directing your attention else where all seem like more likely causes than "my brain solves problems without even trying"

( Sorry tsike, kinda went of on a tangent there.. ! )

Less hard problems need less-passive processing but are better solved on a bicycle or doing something completely unrelated.

And that doesn't mean you'll perform well in technical interviews. They're often about specific algorithms most people would never implement themselves. Few are about the problem solving part of programming.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f84n5oFoZBc

There have been times I spent 20-30 minutes understanding a new problem at 5pm, which at the time seemed like it was going to take up a significant amount of my working hours the next day.

Then come back the next day and I'm able to finish the task before 10am. During the evening, the problem was solved both consciously (thinking about it on the train home) and subconsciously (whilst sleeping). I just had to produce the deliverable the next day.

Also sometimes your mind needs a break. I personally cannot produce quality thoughts continuously no matter how much you force me, or I want to. I can mindlessly do physical things, but cannot code or think. I find it hard to believe there are people who can do this, if there are, they must be rare I beieve.

It's a huge waste of human potential. Background processing is vital. Getting hit by the various silly hurdles in the path to shipping- having to go from the elation of getting something done to having to switch to an entirely different set of less fun tasks to get it shipping. Yet our processes, our industrial processes, are oriented towards assurity, towards treating us "human resources" like machines, to making us complete full units of work.

It's hard for me to tell exactly where this sprung up from, how it is so deeply deeply rooted. I tell my managers outright I think it's a wasteful & outright damaging practice, but that I understand that it's the expectation, that every other company acts like fools too, not just them. I don't argue, but I am quite clear that you will get much much much less out of me when I don't have some autonomy, when I have to drag, roll, push, row, swim each rock, one at a time, from end to end. Again, I'm not sure how such a demeaning & menial form of completing single-task-at-a-time happens, especially when no one in management or upper ranks is expected to live like this. My top theory is just that it's convenient for management purposes. That company's are bad at assessing progress, that we're afraid of situations that aren't ultra-well scheduled & predictable, and that we treat programmers like cogs in a machine because we're too afraid to try for better.

Creative procrastination is amazing. Not only are programmers out doing great things, but the task they're more obligated to do goes from irrelevant & stupid to something they just don't ever want to think of again. The internal pressures builds over time, even for the irrelevant everyday crap of development, until we're finally jazzed to just get it done. By procrastinating, we bank up some motivation. And we've gotten a lot of passive processing in. Productive procrastination is one well-known example, but I feel like it's just the tip of the iceberg. Having some different tasks to switch between, having a wheelhouse of obligations, allows enormous relief, allows a much higher average output to be maintained, in my view. I'm kind of in a lull of personal projects right now, because I completed some stuff, and don't have a lot of in-flight options to pick up & work between. Everything feels so slow & getting going again has been such a chore, I feel it so much. Being able to trade off, switch around, chase what feels good is a huge huge productivity increase.

More than anything what amazes me is how conventional & dogmatic companies are. They seemingly all chase the same malgining evil controlling exploitation of human-resources, and not a once has a company seemed to even understand that there are trade-offs. The whole industry is exactly the same; controlling & top-down, one-at-a-time. The people who invented Amdahl's law, surprisingly, seem utterly unable to grasp it's application to humans & our motivations. We all have diverse & wide execution units, but we are treated like in-order single-stage processors. If this were just the predominant way of treating engineers/human-resources, I'd find it unfortunate, but that it is almost entirely the rule, that it is universally expected, that there are so few systems or experiments for doing anything else: the status quo is pathetic & cruel, and lacks even the basic legitimacy to have explored other ideas.

This is because the classical consecrated need for project management. Back in the day, you would have factory workers overseen by managers to a) establish a process for the work to be done which is easy and precise - "plan the work" and b) oversee it - "work the plan". The process is, in their view, necessary so why question it?

SW development is a creative process which doesn't really lend itself to rigid guard railing of classical project management.

Some advocates outright speak against managers because of the penalty the rigid process has on creative throughput. Quote from https://www.simplethread.com/agile-at-20-the-failed-rebellio... :

> The important piece that gets forgotten is that Agile was openly, militantly anti-management in the beginning. For example, Ken Schwaber was vocal and explicit about his goal to get rid of all project managers – not just get the people off his projects, eradicate the profession from our industry.

Industrial mass production makes physical objects with incredible efficiency, once things are up and running. Because it's so effective with atoms, people think it can be just as effective with bits, and they're wrong.

Software manufacturing is the bit after you compile the code.

Seems to invite a deep dive into the history of Gantt charts or their use.

The case in discussion is how we developers do just the bare minimum consciously (or unconsciously) and the fake away the rest. Even with this perspective I don't consider it wrong at all. Our developer brains can be in "the zone" for not more than 2-5 hours everyday. If we force ourselves to be in the zone more than that, we are just damaging our runway and heading towards a burnout.

That said, the only thing we could do is - learn how to increase our zone hours. John carmack went to the extent of measuring his bathroom breaks as a way to extend these focus zones. While that is a bit extreme. generally as developers our antidote should be to optimize our focus zones to what fits us.

This, however, should not be an excuse, but a cue to get better at that 'thinking stuff'. Improve it. Train it. Learn.

And with all that, strongly ask yourself if that 'backburner time' must be paid. A bricklayer needs 10+ hours off to rest his body, so he can lay bricks for another 8 hours tomorrow. Should we pay him 18 hours?

My answer to both is that when I efficiently ponder and backburn ideas, it is 'work'. But when I'm binging Silicon Valley Episode 5, it is not (unless I can prove that this helps me bring the problem closer).

I do think though that anyone that has written code should be able to understand that it's not as simple as sitting down and typing fast.

(Points were redeemable for schwag from the company shop. They were highly desirable and nearly cash equivalents).

Deleting code is arguably the most valuable work you could be doing.

I've never heard of any colleagues doing it either. I would never snitch if it happened, but I would certainly consider that person untrustworthy or think that they have an undisclosed condition that is between them and HR.

As you covered in your post, we don't write code 8 hours a day. This is normal. Meetings, context switch and times when focus is unachievable are expected and mostly understood by my experienced management. So are times when we are monitoring technology advancement and keeping an eye on the industry and community (e.g. lurking at HN but not overly posting and commenting) and times of social activity between workers (e.g. talking about the weekend).

Most of us take mental health breaks between meetings and need to take time to think through issues. Many also need to periodically break focus to think about personal life issues or hobbies. As long as you generally strive to work, this is not a problem either.

But walking into a stand-up and then lying about your day? To me, that's unethical.

The real question to me is:

Do you do that on purpose or is this something that happens even if you are trying to focus? There are many conditions, from stress and anxiety to diagnosed mental health issues that can prevent you from focusing. Burn-outs and bore-outs also come to mind.

In my eyes, the fact that you asked the community about it shows that you have some form of concern towards that behavior. Would you say it is negatively impacting your life?

Dear original post author, you really need to start doing something that you enjoy or that motivates you. You can also try to structure your life in a way that allows you to not work when you don't feel like you can or will be efficient. This is one of the very reason I'm freelancing: I work when I want/can, and do not pretend the rest of the time. But when I'm working, I'm trying to stay as close as possible to 100%. I charge a premium rate for those very focused session, and do not pretend the rest of the time. There are times when I work a lot, a d times when I don't accept new projects because I need time off (usually 4 months a year)

I'm really wondering how healthy is, psychologically, all this pretending.

Anyway, I don't think you're alone in your situation but I don't think it's a good thing either

>Dear original post author, you really need to start doing something that you enjoy or that motivates you. You can also try to structure your life in a way that allows you to not work when you don't feel like you can or will be efficient.

May I ask why? The OP doesn't suggest anywhere they are unhappy. Presumably, they have a very good work-life balance, seemingly leaning toward the 'life' side of the equation. They presumably have a lot of time to themselves, to enjoy as they see fit. Furthermore, they say that their performance reviews range from good, to great. So if all the above is true, both parties seem to be happy with the arrangement.

I am in a similar position, and I think it boils down to not relying on my work for personal satisfaction or happiness. I work to live, not live to work. I provide a good service to my employer, and I believe my value is in my overall output, not overall input. When I am needed, I work hard enough to achieve the end goal. Otherwise, I work enough to satisfy my employer, regardless of how long that takes. My relationship with my employer is transactional, and I see no moral obligation to work beyond what is absolutely necessary - providing I do enough to satisfy my employer.

I do however understand the mindset of someone who is motivated and driven by work and their career. If that's what floats your boat, more power to you. That's not everyone though, and as long as the person is still providing enough value to someone that their salary is still a worthwhile investment - hey ho!

Screw this advice. The world is filled with and is highly tolerant of mediocrity. Do your best and collect the biggest paycheck that you can. Not everyone gets to have their dream job.

With "maybe you'd like to consider searching for something ..."

And it's good advice? Everything doesn't need to be taken literally :-)

9-5 just isn't for me but it seems like you found a way around that with freelancing. I would love to do the same. Can you please shed some light on how you got started with it and how you built you client base?

I have always admired those that get to work in their own time as you do, it would be a dream to do the same.

I felt the same way. One of the weird things about the Internet is that it, as Randall Munroe wrote recently, "makes us see messages from awful people and assume they come from normal peers." That isn't to suggest that people who share OP's views are awful -- just that these comments could come from any world view, income level, religion, mood, and state of intoxication.

Working 5 to 10 hours a week seems very low to me, though as a lead or as a coworker I would judge OP by the impact, not by the time spent behind the computer. But I doubt anyone can have serious impact in such time.

I had the chance to work with a brilliant coworker who preferred to slack off - and have passed on recommending him for this very reason.

World is a big place and there are many ways to go through life, so I'm not judging - but if you're asking if this is common, then the answer is "no, not at the places where I worked, and not how I work".

Of course you would have to pay/promise me fortune to get more than 40hr weeks from me, but I'm not hiding that. :-)

But, five to ten a week?, get a different job that you like. I have worked in situations where there wasn't really enough to do. My response, write something else. If I was 100% retired I would work more than five or ten hours a week.

And I think, karawebnetwork, that you are right to inquire amount mental health. Having that little energy and motivation is not a good thing.

It was pretty frustrating and de-moralizing as it felt like they weren't pulling their weight. Among teams there is a social contract, it's not all just between an employee and the company, it also impacts your coworkers.

So I don't think it's unethical to work less as long as your employer is still happy with what you do. Sure, lying is always suboptimal. But if your company likes your output and would just be confused by the hours needed to achieve, I don't see a big problem with it. You could even argue that working full time and producing 8x as much could bring coworkers in trouble who already can barely match OPs output. And they will exist, he wouldn't have gotten to the point where he is if he constantly was the worst performer.

Then tell the truth and deal with the consequences.

If talking with much less technical people

But not if talking with a brighter and more experienced person

>> tell the truth

> Why? Perception is reality in engineering

There's also the saying that goes "pick your battles". -- Compared to other things in life, how important is it that the managers know that in fact you work only so and so much?

There is no amount of "smartness" that will allow you to tell the difference... they will flatter you, shadow you, mimic you, and hide behind esoteric jargon. And chances are, you will be none the wiser.

I've met one or more such people already (no harm was caused, but thereafter I started paying even less attention to clothes and voice and self confidence etc). Good to get to hear your perspective.

Please note that I included the words "more experienced" -- meaning, you would be more experienced, know more than them, about the things they were talking about. Any esoteric jargon -- you'd know all of it.

But you had in mind areas where one isn't experienced oneself, and then I think you're right. It's a different thing than what I was trying to write about though

> Engineering is a charlatan's paradise

Aha, you meant that the engineers could be fooled by business/sales/law people. Then I better understand what you wrote. (First I interpreted that text, the other way around)

I suggest 2 tests to see if you're lazy or dumb:

1. Try to be more productive by sheer effort of will. Just say to yourself "this month I will write more code than usual" and set to it with a positive attitude. If you succeed you were being lazy and now you know how to not be lazy. If, as is more likely from what you've said, you fail, then you're not lazy. You're working at your maximum capacity but you have a poor understanding of what constitutes "work" in the job you do.

2. If, by the above test, you are not lazy, then look at how well you do relative to your peers. If you're holding your own (as you say you are), you're not dumb either.

All true statements, but that's not what we're talking about. OP recognizes that he works 5-10 hours a week, and effectively blows the rest of the day off.

Reminds me a bit of an engineer who reported to me a few years ago. He would describe every week in our 1:1s and during team meetings how he was solving this tough thread-synchronization problem. Because we trusted each other, we trusted that the problem was difficult. Then when he finally submitted his code, it was a single line. A single trivial line (as in, read the python `multiprocessing` docs for 5 minutes and the solution is right there). OK... sometimes it can take a long time to find that one-line fix, I get it. But then I looked into his commit history, and it turns out he was averaging a few lines of code a week -- on a good week, and sometimes even zero. When I confronted him, he said "You can't measure my productivity by lines of code!!!" OK, sure, but how far am I supposed to excuse an engineer who has committed 100 lines of code in 10 months? What a statistical oddity, that every single task he took on turned out to be a single-line-fix dragon!

The point I'm making is that some people in our profession think they are slacking when they're not, for the reasons I described. OP's description doesn't convince me that they necessarily are. In particular the comment at the end about having spent the years prior to the pandemic "pretending" to themselves that they were working hard sounds to me like somebody who's never really understood their own mental processes and has encountered a different perspective by doing the job in a different environment. I might be wrong, but that sounds more likely to me than that they have been getting away with minimal contributions throughout what they describe as a 20 year career. Your report didn't get away with it - the evidence is always there in the commit history, and the 2-5 year job length OP mentions is, contrary to their assessment, plenty of time to judge a developer's productivity.

Another hint is the fact that this person is seriously proposing the idea that everybody else is slacking off and lying too. This indicates that they don't think their actual output is less than other developers'.

As I say, I may be wrong. I don't know this developer - these are just some thoughts based on what they've posted. Unlike some here I'm not assuming I know the truth.

Personally I don't see why I should be overworked if I get all of my stuff done in a short amount of time. Plus because I feel guilty I am always available on Slack and answer or even code on demand if somebody really needs it.

I sense that higher ups look at me as a hard worker and a good employee, but if only they knew the thruth. But if I was forced to work a lot more I would probably quit.

There's nothing noble about burning out.

The problem is poor understanding of an employee's performance. Squarely on the management side.

2) If it was so easy to fix, why didn't you do it yourself? Too many meetings?

2) A guy on my team is repeatedly telling me he's on the verge of solving a tough problem, and then I take a look at his code and discover it was a trivial issue all along. No, the answer was not that I should have jumped in earlier and taken over the bug myself.

His story ended by being put on a performance plan, which he failed, and then we let him go. At the end of the day, though, he could very likely have stayed with us, if he just accepted my feedback that his productivity was far lower where it should be, and lower than all his peers. He refused to hear it. "You can't measure my performance based on LOC!" Correct, but the LOC was the first clue that he was delivering nearly zero value.

The reason I even told this story to begin with was because some developers somehow tell themselves that they're super productive despite barely checking in any code. By and large, that can't be true.

To add to this, even if for a time, you can increase your productivity, sometimes that's not sustainable. There's nothing wrong with having ebbs and flows. On days when you have a larger workload of smaller tasks, you may find yourself to be incredibly productive, and days when you have smaller workloads, or larger tasks, and you may be less productive.

The thing is, if your boss is happy with your pace and work, then why be worried? It is literally your boss's job to notice if you aren't pulling your weight, and to ensure you are compensated fairly for your work.

The work-place hierarchy (hopefully, and usually) is set up so you don't have to govern whether you are working at the proper pace, that is the problem of your superiors, it's only up to you to accomplish the tasks you are given, or give advice about those tasks if they are wrong.

For me, I try to do put in sheer effort on a regular basis. It is just that more day than not, I just can't bring myself to do it. I end up spending more time berating myself for not working, slacking off, writing this answer on HN, etc, than actually working.

The sad (or perhaps enlightening?) thing is that it has always been like this. Since school, I would always do work at the last possible second. The only save is that I actually do a good job at the end, so it goes unnoticed. But the process is excruciating, and looking back at week after week of something like 5-10 hours per week is frustrating.

Like the original question, I also "lie" in standups. I get why people say it is unethical, but I can't bring myself to saying I wasted the whole day yesterday on reddit.

I recognize a lot in this thread.

But it's the agile standups that force the bullshitting. If you spent a day background thinking of best ways to achieve the goal while resting in your backyard hammock, there's no way you can say that out loud at the standup. So you're forced to come up with some random bullshit to fill your standup minutes.

That's why daily status reports are so incredibly toxic in any creative or intellectual field. Progress doesn't happen in neat daily chunks like that.

There is absolutely no part of OP that warrants this charitable interpretation. My interpretation is that they just spent the day playing video game or something like that. You are reading things that are not there

I tend to make a lot of progress just organizing my thoughts during those times; it's like the act of doing something else distracts the part of my brain that would get in the way of the processing I needed to do otherwise.

Strangely, I also tend to play Rocket League pretty well, even though I'm not fully focusing. Again, probably something about just doing vs. thinking about how to do.

I don't switch off from work very well, though, so this invariably happens when I should be enjoying my personal time but I'm still thinking about work. The exact opposite situation from the OP's.

It just sounds like they’ve managed to get enough done to get by, and continue skating like this. I’ve seen quite of few people do this professionally. It’s just important to be honest about it.

My guess is there’s a motivation problem, which may be from the job itself, or something else.

>You are reading things that are not there

you too???

If they deliver X, and the expectation is X; OP may call it "bullshitting" but his point is that he's delivered expectations and now he's coasting which is totally fine. He delivered on expectations.

What make you think they deliver? Certainly not the OP.

I think everyone is reading OP as an “anti-agile champion”, a “hero against meaningless jobs”, but the way I read it they are just a lazy person lying their way around to trick companies into paying them for work that they are not doing. At all. Not even willing or trying to do. Just lying to people.

To be honest, if you’re a manager who can’t spot incompetence or laziness, then you deserve every bit of it. Same with upper management who hires managers who can’t spot incompetence. It’s really not hard at all. I don’t get why OP is the bad guy when he literally meets ALL expectations per their manager’s own words.

Why is the onus always on the bottom workers to be honest? Why are we trying to feel guilty about our working hours vs how much we're paid? Because it's clear salary is not tied to better performers given how much upper management is compensated.

Just enjoy your life. Management probably lowballed you coming into the job anyway, but if they are happy with your work, then spend that extra time you're saving to enjoying other things in life.

What do you want to do, OP? The new year is coming up.

But, when you have the opportunity to work under an excellent CEO or CTO you will learn that they do bring 10x or even 100x the value you bring to the team.

The same can be told about OP who claimed that they work 5-10 hours a week but their performance reviews have consistently ranged from mediocre to great. The point is, the hours you work is not an indicator for the value you bring to the team.

- Connections: industry, hires, investors

- Investing themselves into the company (bringing capital to help you grow)

- Domain specific knowledge. Hopefully they know the industry better than anyone.

- Management. Do not underestimate how far good management can go. It can really be a productivity multiplier - but the other way is true, too. If you have bad management, you're going to kill productivity.

Using your parallel, I think it'd be more fair to compare

> CEO + 300 software engineers, sales people, product managers

> 400 software engineers, sales people, product managers in a flat structure

I tend to think that the former would be more efficient, because otherwise we would be seeing at least some organizations of the latter type outcompeting the former on the free market. We don't, with 1-2 exceptions.

This is relative. In my experience, many people in upper management have held little to no real responsibility because they were the types that if all goes right, it's their doing, but if anything goes wrong, it's the fault of someone below them. I find this more true for middle managers, but I have seen this with upper management numerous times.

Again in my experience, the higher in rank one achieves, the less real work they end up doing when compared to their subordinates. Delegating isn't that hard to do and takes very little time -- and there are some master class delegators out there.

That all being said, I do respect and love working for upper management who understand, who care, and who do as much as the rest of us. I currently work for such individuals and it's part of the reason I've stayed as long as I have.

10x programmers don't make 10x the pay. They might make slightly more, but not even 2x what a 1x programmer (of the same level, no comparing seniors to juniors) makes at the same company.

there is a disconnect about how companies mildly or jot so mildly “gaslight” employees into burning all of their energy on the job.

Its more cultural than profit-seeking. The profit seeker would want to maximise the effectiveness of the worker, by for example thinking hard about what work is worth doing.

The biggest waste i see is cancelled projects that could have easily been pre-cancelled. The next is features that are hardly used. Followed by technical debt and its impact on velocity.

Minimize risk and time spent in efficient markets with millions of participants (the developer talent pool, the stock market). These places are treadmills.

Instead, spend your free time in inefficient markets by starting a business with the rest of the time you’ve now freed up.

Most B2C and B2B markets don’t have millions of competitors, and hence are much less efficient than the developer talent pool and stock market (which do).

This is the optimal strategy.

I don't know what L9s or 10s are paid; it's probably highly variable and the total number are probably a handful.

if the engineer is doing their job correctly, they are negotiating to be paid more than tne 1x

Why is that a good idea? Isn't there a risk that s/he will then quit?

Knowing the personal number of CxO from a Fortune 500 company and being familiar enough to just call them is worth a TON of money for the whole company.

Management experience is also a plus, but it's not necessary when you have the ability to short-track yourself (and your company) straight to the people who make the decisions.

I think you're interpreting what theshrike79 wrote, a bit too literally :-) (agreed, though, about the skill distribution thoughts, I guess)

(Good books, btw, the Hyperion series, theshrike79 :-))

Power imbalance. The same reason why *essential* workers often get poverty salaries.

I consider myself very competent in my field even though I stopped doing purely technical work some time ago, but there are a lot of very good coders out there, but not enough "lazy pragmatists" like me.

My team likes me because I don't micromanage, I support them as much as I can and can entertain them with some good jokes, career advice and a general openness that is hard to find in professional circles.

I have also been able to work remotely for months, and when I say remotely I mean in very remote places.

I also make top money for European standards.

Some will see me as a "parasite", but they would be very wrong. I do exactly what I am asked to do, I am positive and upbeat and always ready to support the team at large when needed. Others may ask, "is she not getting bored?", but the answer is "are you kidding me?". I can spend time with my kids and partner, climb mountains, and brunch on the regular with my girlfriends.

Maybe (surely?) it will end at some point, but like someone said, "tomorrow is not promised to anyone".

I might start a coaching service at some point, as I believe most professionals (forget about the SV types, I am talking about other geographies) are far from having a real understanding on how big companies work and what should be done to have a comfortable and impactful professional life (I am a top performer!), while at the same time enjoying this splendid world we are lucky to live in.

I have found many times that junior developers really love to write code (I did too early in my career). Most of my time is spent stopping people from writing more code. As in, why are you doing this instead of using this library? Why are you even thinking about writing code to do date/time manipulation? Why are even thinking about doing something custom when it’s security related?

I guess it’s because modern development is actually mostly boring so anything that looks challenging people love to think they can finally apply that algo/leet code shit they’ve been prepping for. In NormalCorp you can forget about it. It’s my job to actively make sure no one is trying to be clever by writing unnecessary fun code.

I envy your ability to see the world as splendid in the context of work. I see exploitation, destruction of the environment, abusive relationships, boredom, meaninglessness. I believe most of your/our bosses feel the same way.

I would love to learn from successful people like you, is there anything you can recommend reading or any course to learn?

I'm in the middle of my life and feeling stuck and confused about working in tech. What's the remedy?

I grew up in a family where my parents worked normal (non-tech, non-professional) jobs and never talked about work when they were home. We would take cheap vacations in the summer for 3+ weeks and they never checked in at work to hear how things were going or whether or not the xyz project was approved.

If you work in technology, you're probably used to your work life spilling over, in terms of time, thoughts and concerns, into your life outside of work. Culture, which is a social phenomenon, has great effects on the lives of individuals, but there is usually ample room for the individual to decide what their approach and attitude will be.

People who hate working with you are a problem. It could stem from a cultural mismatch or from people who are better at their jobs than you are and aren't as inclined to work with someone on their level (I'm writing descriptively here, no judgment) or from a toxic environment, like some I've had the displeasure of finding myself in. What's going on there? Look at it honestly and without emotion, which is hard to do at first.

By observing and understanding how the world works, which is one of the most important skills you can possess, it is quite easy to observe what is the most common way to achieve a goal, to the point where it is sometimes surprising to see how delusional most people are. For example, if you want to build a muscular physique, it's easy to do the following: observe what most people who are muscular do - given some starting points (endo- or ectomorphic, tall/short, genetically weak or strong points) - and follow what they did at different stages of muscle development. But what you often see when you go to the gym is a large number of non-muscular people doing all sorts of bizarre exercises or protocols that people who have achieved success never did. Same with diets or learning or doing business.

And the same with career development. To get a, say, director position at Big Tech, say FAANG and company, the most common way is to move from IC to manager to director at a FAANG and co, either vertically within the company or horizontally with some possible down-leveling or a mix of the two. Now the second step is to look at how people are promoted, and it's a combination of technical skills, personality (someone has to promote you, remember, you're not promoting yourself), actions (e.g., backstabbing or turning the other way often works, this is unfortunately the world we live in, to the point where the "be nice" movement advocated by people in positions of high power makes me laugh, because to get to their position it's very likely they were only being nice in their minds. But I don't tolerate bad actions in my world), and timing. Do I have the technical skills? Do I have the personality? Do I have the right timing? Clearly, it's all situational, which is the second thing you should learn in combat sports (the first is being able to fight), i.e. you have to somehow adapt to the situation that arises in the fight (yourself and your opponent).

You might read this and say, no, it's not that easy. But actually it is, conceptually. Then, one sometimes cannot achieve the technical proficiency necessary for a certain position and peace. But at least one doesn't run in circles thinking that the secret to a great career is in adding brown sugar to coffee.

Then, one last (of many) aspect to consider is that new positions and advancements often don't provide a linear increase in "professional currency," but at the n increment, where n is much larger than 2. Say, you're working as an IC at the Nooneknows company with a certain skill set and you get by luck, skill and whatever else a position at a FAANG. In 6 months, you'll be contacted by 10-100 times the number of companies that were interested in you before. A good effort can be enormously rewarded.

But first, think about what you want to do with your life. You only live once, that will never change, and taking control of your life, forgetting as much as reasonably possible (we all want a piece of it) of validation from friends, family, neighbors and society at large, is the necessary first step toward a great, wonderful life.