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I chose that number because of this anecdote:

I worked at a start-up a few years ago. I worked on a PHP-powered website that spoke to a Java-powered (Spring/Hibernate) service layer. The PHP team consisted of one: me. The Java team consisted of over 10 engineers. I outpaced them easily and consistently.

In other projects with similar divisions, I've had similar experiences, though not always so dramatic.

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I used to be a hired gun that would be called in occasionally to, like you, code circles around bigger teams when deadlines were tight.

Last few years however I decided to stick around with one of my clients for a while and I realized that quite a few of the employees I considered sub-par before were actually pretty decent programmers doing their best to do quality work in a dysfunctional environment.

I've since then learned to really appreciate this quote, which my gut tells applies to your situation as well:

"Never attribute to incompetence that which is adequately explained by bad management."

You're exactly right. I hope my comment didn't come across as critical to the engineers I worked with. Some of them are the best engineers I have ever worked with, and I have great respect for them.

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