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Comment by leetrout | Hacker News Reader

In larger companies this is how arsonist-firefighter engineers look impressive... fixing a bug they are responsible for while in a highly visible position

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I've been in this situation before, there's a fair amount of "we can do the thing in x time but it'll have these issues, or do it right in x+y time." The quick option gets chosen, things chug along happily for some time, then we hit the limitation and I remember what the issue was. I couldn't even say that the decision to do the quick thing was the wrong one.

I was the young "tech guy" inside the business development department at Earthlink in the mid 90s. The bizdev folks would propose ideas and I would think them through and realize there were technical issues, and when I shared my concerns, they would all be disheartened. But, sometime later, I would figure out a way around the "problem". They were perpetually grateful, but after a number of these iterations, I got the sense that I was mainly solving problems that I had invented. I actually even shared my concern about that with my boss, and he dismissed it – I think they enjoyed the rollercoaster ride.

I once worked one project with (against?) a guy who saw his job as ‘finding problems before they happen’. It was fine at first but as the project progressed, he became more and more focused on proving that the project would fail. Every molehill was a mountain, and flat ground was just a tapestry of molehills. Eventually I realised that if the project didn’t fail, he felt superfluous.

I've been that guy at various points. I thought I was being a valuable counterweight to developers who weren't thinking things through.

But as you said, it can be taken to an unproductive excess.

I managed to calibrate myself out of that, but it took longer than I'd have liked.

I'd see it more as making test cases IRL. you're finding problems to consider and making sure your solution can address for that (even if the solution already did). I'd still be relieved having someone would could consider potential issues that swiftly by my side.

"Mountain out of a molehill" is better than lots of other possible approach angles. The core behaviour is grappling with the problem and looking for solutions.

> arsonist-firefighter engineers

Brilliant, I’m stealing this phrase. :D

A persistent phenomenon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefighter_arson

arsonist-firefighter engineers

Never heard that term. Love it. Definitely has described me on a few occasions.

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