I am a REAL bad software developer and this is my life | Hacker News Reader

I am a REAL bad software developer and this is my life

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30 pointsbratao10 comments

They way they approached their job at Amazon using git blame, finding out who to ask for help, and debugging, are all great signals to me. Conversely, a junior/mid who doesn't ask for help is a massive red flag to me because it means they're either struggling silently or probably going down the wrong path. I've worked with people who spent weeks working on the wrong solution, way worse than a two hour pair programming session when they initially got stuck.

After only two years in the industry they sound on par with where they should have been. Thinking too much into where you should be at can definitely set off imposter syndrome. For my first 3 or 4 years I was blissfully ignorant, I really didn't have a good understanding of what I was doing; I just made things work in whatever way I could. When I think back on those times it blows my mind that I used to be able to confidently hop into new codebases with new languages and write code. Today I dare not touch anything until I completely understand it first. Sometimes this can be crippling.

It sounds like this person was in the wrong environment which probably didn't help the mental issues that ensued. But I wouldn't put any of it down to being a bad software developer.

I'm sorry for their situation but I'm glad they were able to get help. Perhaps one day they may change their mind and get back on the tools.

I completely disagree. Yes, using git blame and getting support from your senior engineers is expected of junior engineers. However, it sounds like there was pretty much no growth in ability to work independently after two years as a full-time developer on the team.

I can't judge further without knowing the details—perhaps they were not getting the mentoring they needed to be independent, and the senior members of the team are responsible for that. But in any case, this is not "where they should have been".

They had the ability to work independently on their own projects, just not the team projects. Also, the post screams impostor syndrome, so it’s likely their “inability to work independently” claim is exaggerated.

You’re right, we don’t have the full details, but this sounds like a team problem to me. I also believe that when a student fails, this is the fault of the teacher, not the student. It seems likely they weren’t getting the support they needed.

If anything, this strikes me as a person who just really didn't like what they were doing and eventually imploded along their own personal fault-lines. Not to be overly reductive of their psychosis, of course -- one cannot disentangle the neurological from the psychological and so the way things shook out is hardly a matter of personal responsibility or playing blame.

This is all to say that they have my sympathy... but also to kind of disagree with their premise. Truthfully, the "best" bad programmers never get so far as imploding. They simply manage to sabotage everything they touch while being none the wiser. They smoothly redirect blame whenever it comes their way without even consciously thinking about it, because they truthfully believe that they are in the clear.

I would place a much higher significance on the reported mental health issues - it’s hard to get on disability in the US, and if you’re truly on $3k/month because you are unable to work, you have a serious disability.

Otherwise? Totally agree. The worst developers are the ones that make everything they touch that much worse merely by virtue of touching it. I’ll take dead weight, “go write a bunch of printf’s and accomplish nothing” over them any day.

>...if you’re truly on $3k/month because you are unable to work, you have a serious disability.

They're most likely talking about Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI). The amount is completely unrelated to the severity of a person's disability.

The reason is in the name--it's insurance for lost wages. Workers' FICA taxes are the premiums they pay while working, and are based on wages as well. So basically: the more one makes while working, means the more they pay in while working, means the more they lose when disabled, which means the more they get paid by SSDI.

The size of the monthly pay isn’t what is significant - having any nonzero amount is. The SSDI acceptance rate is lucky to hit 30%, typically takes multiple hearings/appeals to get a payout, and can be denied if the government can demonstrate the potential for you to work outside the field you were employed in. If you receive anything from it, it is prima facie evidence of a serious disability.

So to my point, this isn’t a story about a bad programmer, it’s a story about a person who is truly so disabled that they can’t program.

> I did not complete a single task in my three months of time there before I was fired for schizoaffective/bipolar manic psychosis.

Well did not see that one coming.

This is both funny and sad. The author’s difficulties were almost certainly caused by their mental illness.

As an aside, as a Canadian it’s always amazing reading about American CS grads with no practical skills start at a salary higher than I will likely ever have. What a difference a few kilometres make.

>What a difference a few kilometres make.

Well, that or finding a company looking for applicants on TN visas. Remember, it's a 30% raise at the same published dollar value.

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