Smart individuals
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Hello Great People, Recently, we had a new hire in our team joined as a Sr. Software Eng (I am called the same). The management was very happy about the new join, they were thrilled and believed he was one of the smartest; and was smarter than most of us. The new guy is chess champ, won few programming contests etc. Yes, when you talk to him you can definitely say he was smart and he knew it too; all confident etc. Some of us were annoyed, some worried about all the hype/attention he was getting. Couple of months passed as the management is not happy with him. According to him, writing i18n bundles (for the error codes you add), reviewing test cases, updating sprint backlogs are very low level jobs and they should be assigned to jr developers. I happened to review his code (along with an sr architect) and his code is not as smart as he talks. I am sure that I am not a smart individual as my new colleague; I was curious why the management gave so much hype about him. Any comments?
Working as a contractor, the interviewers would often wheel out their guru who would show off their intricate knowledge of the subject and ask specific questions from programming books they have read. To my mind they would be better concentrating on the competencies of a developer that would actually be valuable to them instead of reducing it to a competitive showdown. At work, I've seen many examples of code written by people who have added all kinds of unnecessary bells and whistles to further their knowledge or just because they like to play. Some devs try to be clever but don't comment or document adequately or at all to enable others to understand easily what is going on so they can modify the code. Being a smart-ass at interview is less useful than being able to approach the job with a certain amount of discipline, but that aspect of the job is often not covered.
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Christian Graus wrote:
Sometimes people market themselves so well that they continue to be regarded as geniuses, despite all the mistakes they make. There's nothing you can do about it, and no good reason to 'compete' with a colleague. Keep doing the best you can, and working towards making sure your projects are delivered on time and to a good quality. If this guy really sucks that bad, they'll notice eventually.
Alternately, he could just smash him in the mouth.
Michael Martin Australia "I controlled my laughter and simple said "No,I am very busy,so I can't write any code for you". The moment they heard this all the smiling face turned into a sad looking face and one of them farted. So I had to leave the place as soon as possible." - Mr.Prakash One Fine Saturday. 24/04/2004
Love it!
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Also, sometimes really smart chaps decide early on that they're too good to work like the rest of us... Or they're simply not as smart as they think they are. Funny this should come up twice today, an ex-colleague just sent me this link to a wiki page with reference to a mutual acquaintance who exhibits this tendency to a truly, quiveringly, frightening degree... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect[^] I think this calls for bacon.
Smokie, this is not 'Nam. This is bowling. There are rules. www.geticeberg.com http://melpadden.wordpress.com
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Hello Great People, Recently, we had a new hire in our team joined as a Sr. Software Eng (I am called the same). The management was very happy about the new join, they were thrilled and believed he was one of the smartest; and was smarter than most of us. The new guy is chess champ, won few programming contests etc. Yes, when you talk to him you can definitely say he was smart and he knew it too; all confident etc. Some of us were annoyed, some worried about all the hype/attention he was getting. Couple of months passed as the management is not happy with him. According to him, writing i18n bundles (for the error codes you add), reviewing test cases, updating sprint backlogs are very low level jobs and they should be assigned to jr developers. I happened to review his code (along with an sr architect) and his code is not as smart as he talks. I am sure that I am not a smart individual as my new colleague; I was curious why the management gave so much hype about him. Any comments?
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Hello Great People, Recently, we had a new hire in our team joined as a Sr. Software Eng (I am called the same). The management was very happy about the new join, they were thrilled and believed he was one of the smartest; and was smarter than most of us. The new guy is chess champ, won few programming contests etc. Yes, when you talk to him you can definitely say he was smart and he knew it too; all confident etc. Some of us were annoyed, some worried about all the hype/attention he was getting. Couple of months passed as the management is not happy with him. According to him, writing i18n bundles (for the error codes you add), reviewing test cases, updating sprint backlogs are very low level jobs and they should be assigned to jr developers. I happened to review his code (along with an sr architect) and his code is not as smart as he talks. I am sure that I am not a smart individual as my new colleague; I was curious why the management gave so much hype about him. Any comments?
humility. it is my belief that "smart" is relative. and, it is better to be humble; maintain and open mind at all times; use your brain like a sponge; and personally i like to think of my self as a student, rather than as a scientist and software engineer.
David
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There are many books teaching you to behavior like that. Is it part of American culture?
No, it's not part of american culture, any more than it's part of English or indian culture. Some people who are smart become humble, while others get used to being the smartest guy in the room, and start to like it. Watch out for these latter guys, they don't believe they can possibly do anything wrong. Since it turns out that everyone can make mistakes and everyone can learn to do better, these people waste their brains and annoy the hell out of their colleagues.
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Sometimes people market themselves so well that they continue to be regarded as geniuses, despite all the mistakes they make. There's nothing you can do about it, and no good reason to 'compete' with a colleague. Keep doing the best you can, and working towards making sure your projects are delivered on time and to a good quality. If this guy really sucks that bad, they'll notice eventually.
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista. Read my blog to find out how I've worked around bugs in Microsoft tools and frameworks.
Less talk and more action is what I try to do. And I prefer a hard working individual, that is a good teammate, does not disrupt the work environment and is willing to learn over a genius ANY day.
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Some people talk the talk, but can't walk the walk. You will find them often, they can explain everything in theory, and tell you all the rules of everything, but when it comes to implementation they hit a brick wall.
No matter how long he who laughs last laughs, he who laughs first has a head start!
Did you just read my mind? hahaha I was thinking the same thing when I posted above.
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"As a individual, I try to put my best efforts, learn from my mistakes, don't repeat them and always to work as team, work hard; by doing so, I hope I would be a better developer in future." Keep that up and you will definitely become a very valuable developer I am sure. 4 years is not such a short time :) And just because someone has 21 years more experience than you does not mean you are wrong ;)
Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential.(Winston Churchill)
It is not the same to have 4 years of experience than to have 1 year of experience repeated 25 times! hahahaha
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Sometimes people market themselves so well that they continue to be regarded as geniuses, despite all the mistakes they make. There's nothing you can do about it, and no good reason to 'compete' with a colleague. Keep doing the best you can, and working towards making sure your projects are delivered on time and to a good quality. If this guy really sucks that bad, they'll notice eventually.
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista. Read my blog to find out how I've worked around bugs in Microsoft tools and frameworks.
"If this guy really sucks that bad, they'll notice eventually" Not if he's really good at putting the blame off on others. Sometimes, people like this are. draghu: Whatever you do, don't let their manager give them sole responsibility over some critical part of the code base, and then have them fix all thge bug in it too because "only they know how that code works". Its the only surefire way I know of for management to discover their incompetence, but its not fun to be part of the cleanup crew they leave behind.
patbob
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humility. it is my belief that "smart" is relative. and, it is better to be humble; maintain and open mind at all times; use your brain like a sponge; and personally i like to think of my self as a student, rather than as a scientist and software engineer.
David
Agree 100%. Worst trait IMHO: prepotent pricks
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No, it's not part of american culture, any more than it's part of English or indian culture. Some people who are smart become humble, while others get used to being the smartest guy in the room, and start to like it. Watch out for these latter guys, they don't believe they can possibly do anything wrong. Since it turns out that everyone can make mistakes and everyone can learn to do better, these people waste their brains and annoy the hell out of their colleagues.
Any person who believes he can't make mistakes is either: 1. an idiot (no matter what his IQ is). 2. or has absolutely no experience whatsoever. If it weren't for society protecting them, people like that would die an early death. (Either by accident or because somebody got fed up with them and did the world a favor.)
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If they happen to know the theory, they are worth a lot - even if they don't know how to use a keyboard. One can use such people to extend his own knowledge and get new ideas. If they are only good at self-marketing, one can even learn from that! :) One can't learn anything from arrogant folks, though.
If they don't know how to apply the theory then they actually don't understand it all. And they probably can't actually explain it other than to parrot back the words they memorized reading the latest article. Nothing to learn from them except that what you do is more important than what you say.
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draghu wrote:
According to him, writing i18n bundles (for the error codes you add), reviewing test cases, updating sprint backlogs are very low level jobs and they should be assigned to jr developers.
If he were really smart...he wouldn't have applied for a job that was so low level and beneath him.
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Hello Great People, Recently, we had a new hire in our team joined as a Sr. Software Eng (I am called the same). The management was very happy about the new join, they were thrilled and believed he was one of the smartest; and was smarter than most of us. The new guy is chess champ, won few programming contests etc. Yes, when you talk to him you can definitely say he was smart and he knew it too; all confident etc. Some of us were annoyed, some worried about all the hype/attention he was getting. Couple of months passed as the management is not happy with him. According to him, writing i18n bundles (for the error codes you add), reviewing test cases, updating sprint backlogs are very low level jobs and they should be assigned to jr developers. I happened to review his code (along with an sr architect) and his code is not as smart as he talks. I am sure that I am not a smart individual as my new colleague; I was curious why the management gave so much hype about him. Any comments?
This guy really reminds of Steve Jobs' first job: http://classicgaming.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Articles.Detail&id=395[^] Basically he lied to his bosses about how good he was, tricked Steve Wozniak to do the real work for him and got all the money and credit in the end. I'll now get back to making this damn iPhone app I'm working on behave properly... Oh, the irony!
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Sometimes people market themselves so well that they continue to be regarded as geniuses, despite all the mistakes they make. There's nothing you can do about it, and no good reason to 'compete' with a colleague. Keep doing the best you can, and working towards making sure your projects are delivered on time and to a good quality. If this guy really sucks that bad, they'll notice eventually.
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista. Read my blog to find out how I've worked around bugs in Microsoft tools and frameworks.
You are SO optimistic. Non-technical managers or management have no idea who's good or not, how much they produce or not.
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There are many books teaching you to behavior like that. Is it part of American culture?
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Hello Great People, Recently, we had a new hire in our team joined as a Sr. Software Eng (I am called the same). The management was very happy about the new join, they were thrilled and believed he was one of the smartest; and was smarter than most of us. The new guy is chess champ, won few programming contests etc. Yes, when you talk to him you can definitely say he was smart and he knew it too; all confident etc. Some of us were annoyed, some worried about all the hype/attention he was getting. Couple of months passed as the management is not happy with him. According to him, writing i18n bundles (for the error codes you add), reviewing test cases, updating sprint backlogs are very low level jobs and they should be assigned to jr developers. I happened to review his code (along with an sr architect) and his code is not as smart as he talks. I am sure that I am not a smart individual as my new colleague; I was curious why the management gave so much hype about him. Any comments?
Your smart guy is completely right about his position, but was completely wrong when deciding to get a job in your company. If you ask well-qualified programmer to clean a room or bring a coffee to his manager - first, you offend him. Second, you can't expect he'll clean the room as accurate as a cleaner:) Furthermore, his possible actions, in return, will include a kind of italian strike (in your case - he writes stupid cumbersome code) and looking for another occupation (that's smarter). Asking *really* good programmer to do things like localization is just inefficient. Very inefficient. So, the problem not in the smart guy, but in dumb project managers.
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Your smart guy is completely right about his position, but was completely wrong when deciding to get a job in your company. If you ask well-qualified programmer to clean a room or bring a coffee to his manager - first, you offend him. Second, you can't expect he'll clean the room as accurate as a cleaner:) Furthermore, his possible actions, in return, will include a kind of italian strike (in your case - he writes stupid cumbersome code) and looking for another occupation (that's smarter). Asking *really* good programmer to do things like localization is just inefficient. Very inefficient. So, the problem not in the smart guy, but in dumb project managers.
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I am glad that you have a different view. I feel writing one line English equivalent for an error code you introduced in not equivalent to cleaning a room. If I am wrong, I am a room cleaner.
It was a kind of exaggeration about cleaning:) Really, I just mean that effective development supposes separation of duties. For instance, I'm a Sr.Dev/Architect for the project. I've got 2 Jr.Devs in my group. And I know that they can create a nice form in designer, write basic event-handlers/validators, test-cases, so on. And I have ENOUGH other work like creating business-logic, more complex parts of code, profiling/optimizations, etc. When some part is trivial, I may tell one of Jrs: "look here, could you finish this? If you have any questions or need help - just call me!" - and then switch to harder and not that obvious things.