Ask HN: How to deal with developers that go much faster than others? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How to deal with developers that go much faster than others?

I recently started working at a company where the development team is very large. A few team members go a lot faster than the others, which pressures the team to speed up. The few that do everything really quick are already on the team for more than three years and know all the ins and outs. The vibe in general seems to be that these are the only “senior” team members although they aren’t officially in the lead. How should I deal with this situation?

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Use them to prototype ideas. Use them to code review the next tier to try and level them up. Reward their efforts as you're damned lucky to have them, as their success = team success = your success.

Or, feel threatened by them, drive them away and then complain you need more developers. A bigger group of no-troublemakers looks good and you profit from the larger empire.

Is their work quality high? Can you dig into how they work faster and leverage them to speed up others? Can you put them on a tiger team, or split their responsibilities so they can move at their fast pace w/o disturbing the team?

What exactly is the problem, do the high performers feel entitled to more compensation?

Being a senior developer is not about velocity, it's about making other people better. If they aren't doing this - if they are only doing their own work - they aren't senior.

Is there a problem?

This is a pretty normal occurrence. Code base knowledge does matter.

Potentially the problem could be that their constant hurry could stress out other team members (including me). They could forget about the fact that not everyone is accustomed to their way of thinking. I mean, sometimes, well thought out ideas can be more beneficial in the long term as well. Others could drop out or lose motivation as everything is changing so fast.

Don’t stress. That’s rule number one. Nobody is going to die if you don’t go faster and it’s not a race.

Instead, slow them down to speed you up.

Review their code, even if it’s been merged already (introduce them to post-commit reviews)! Most of my code is actually reviewed this way — a basic requirement to keep momentum on a team spread over 3 continents. But anyway, ask questions. Ask the why’s and seek to understand. Ask lots of questions.

Whomever seems the nicest or jives with you the best, ask to pair program after lunch or something. You do the typing and let them do the talking. Learn from them, don’t argue or come across as judgy. Just learn.

Eventually, you’ll be a fast one too and one day you’ll get a review on some code you merged a few days ago…

What is the specific problem you are trying to fix?

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