

Senior programming "guru" who can't program - should I find a different career? - edw519
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1246058/senior-programming-guru-who-cant-program-should-i-find-a-different-career

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BigZaphod
I don't really see anything about this that suggests he can't actually
program. The worst bit might be this:

"... if you ask me to sit down and code up a new application from scratch I
will spend ten times longer than programmers who are much more junior than
me."

That doesn't sound so bad to me. It kind of implies that he can still get the
job done, just more slowly than some others. I don't know if that should be a
"I can't program" qualifier, though.

He must not think that his extra coding time adds any value to the process. In
my case, I know I'm not always the fastest around, but I like to think that my
code is better designed and easier to maintain than the average (* may or may
not be true...) because I'm almost pathological about building my applications
from small, self-contained components, never having the same logic exist in
more than one place if at all possible, and perhaps most importantly, clean,
clear and consistent naming conventions. That kind of stuff takes time but,
IMO, improves overall quality in immeasurable ways. Speed isn't everything.

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sophacles
It's always nice to see someone do an honest self assessment, and then own up
to it, even the negative parts. My current office-mate is like this, he sucks
at coding, but is very broadly knowledgable in tech stuff, and very good at
bringing ideas together, and getting broad strokes of what needs to be done
fleshed out. I'm sure a lot of places will hire someone like this, but the job
title is usually Architect or similar.

As a tangent, if I was him, I would fess up to this at interview time -- any
employer who doesn't want good self assessment from employees doesn't deserve
someone like this.

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wyw
"Fess up" is an interesting suggestion but I'm pretty sure that would not go
over well in an interview situation even with many employers who otherwise
would be good to work for. Admitting weakness in an interview is generally
just giving the other side arguments to use againsnt your candidacy with very
little upside. In some rare cases you may find someone empathetic but I doubt
it's worth the risk.

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jzdziarski
I think I've worked with you before.

