Signs of a Bad Developer

Date:

Everyone has a fear of falling for a bad web developer. First, we recommend contacting trusted companies like Fireart company, as well as paying attention to several details.

It is worth noting that “bad” is too strong and not an accurate enough word, let’s use the categories “weak” and “strong”, implying that we are talking about a person’s ability to qualitatively solve set tasks correctly. Of course, quality criteria are also relative, but everyone who has had to work with someone else’s code probably understands that with the same result, it can be both convenient, understandable, and effective, as well as confusing and non-obvious. Those who write something closer to the first (assuming the solution is correct) are traditionally considered stronger developers than those who sin the second.

Another typical problem that accompanies many developers at the beginning of their career path – in popular literature it is called the “Dunning-Kruger effect» and applies not only to programmers. 

Overconfidence can be a logical consequence of limited knowledge and a marker of “weak” developers. For programmers, it manifests itself as a desire for any typical task to make its own solution – often also overcomplicating it, instead of using existing solutions. 

Often referred to as “reinventing the wheel,” this approach can have much wider and far-reaching implications. For example, such a developer rushes to do a task without fully understanding the requirements – he “and so everything is clear.” At the same time, he does not ask any clarifying questions, so in the end he gives a result that does not meet expectations at all. At the same time, when managers point out mistakes to him, he can become frustrated and reduce his productivity even more. 

software developer

In general, the habit of asking clarifying questions is extremely positive, and its presence in the developer adds points to him in favor of “strong.” Often, at interviews, programmers are given situational or technical tasks with a deliberately incomplete condition in order to test this particular ability of the candidate. 

The main difference between the self-confidence and self-confidence of a developer is that a self-confident programmer is aware of the limits of his knowledge and does not hesitate to ask more experienced colleagues, consult and collect opinions, validate hypotheses and work on himself. 

A self-confident developer, even with good inclinations, has a long way to go before he can get rid of illusions about himself and his abilities. And very often this is one of the main obstacles on the way to realizing his potential.

And do not forget that the only real and objective measure of the “goodness” of a developer is the demonstration of his applied abilities in solving programming and development problems. As Linus Torvalds said: “Talk is cheap, show me the code”, – that is why large companies interested in the best of the best are never limited to oral interviews only, but offer to solve problems, online or offline.

In addition, it is quite possible to find these patterns in well-established, mature developers, and even in opinion leaders and recognized industry experts. This does not mean at all that they are “weak” – although, to be honest, this happens. 

First, in “strong” developers, you can see one or two of these points, but never all at once. While in the “weak” they very often go hand in hand. And secondly, as has been said several times, you should not raise all these rules to the absolute.

Well, and an important result – in accordance with the laws of dialectics, any process contains its own negation. In this case, in the course of professional growth, the developer may well take some of these shortcomings into service already consciously. After all, as you know, in order to break the rules, you must at least know them.

Samuel Jim
Samuel Jim
Samuel Jim Nnamdi is the CTO of Foxstate, a platform that powers digital infrastructures for Real estate financing globally. He has over 8 years of Software Engineering and CyberSecurity expertise.

Popular Posts

Related Articles