• One of the most important things that will tell the difference between the heroes and super stars is tell them that you want them to comment their non-obvious code.

    If they can't or refuse to comment code, no matter how profanely they do it, the person is probably not a good team player.

    I have seen comments along the lines of:

    This is in case the end-user is a jack**s and won't fill out the gender box.

    But it is an idea of the logic and why they did the following code.

    Now that you’ve recruited rock stars, you actually need to build stuff. One of the –most difficult steps in managing engineers is -stopping yourself coding.

    Then there is the opposite incentive for your rock stars -- make sure there is a non-managerial path for your rock stars that does involve more money or prestige, but doesn't involve managing people on a permanent basis. Even during my interview I told them I can do team projects or help train newbies, but I don't want to manage people on a regular basis. If, during the interview, they had said they eventually saw me managing wetware, that would have done it for me. I would have passed on the job.

    I don't mind reporting to a manager that is not really technically savvy but she can learn. But she also doesn't sit over my shoulder either. She gives me a job and walks away.



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    Jim P.

    A little bit of this and a little byte of that can cause bloatware.