

Great Startup Engineers - mdenny
http://blog.derrickko.com/great-startup-engineers

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AngryParsley
So great startup engineers should have focus, compassion, balance,
responsibility, and openness. When would you ever _not_ desire these traits in
someone? The opposite is scatter-brained, indifferent, unbalanced,
irresponsible, and uncommunicative; all rather undesirable traits.

I'd much prefer to learn about some trade-offs. Is lacking any one of these
traits a deal-breaker? What if someone's very focused and compassionate, but a
little irresponsible?

And most importantly, how does one evaluate these traits?

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calinet6
Hey, you brought up another one: not a black-and-white thinker!

Things are not only their extremes and the opposite. Hence why "balance" is
actually an extremely undervalued quality in a person, and it was very apt of
the author to call it out.

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dclusin
I think your observation about thinking in black and white is a good
observation. However, you still haven't answered the OP's original question.
And adding your observation to the list, these sorts of things are still
required at large organizations.

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greenyoda
None of the qualities mentioned here are really specific to startups. Even if
you work in a big company with lots of product managers and marketing people,
being able to focus, take responsibility and empathize with your users is key
to being a good developer. And definitely good qualities to have if you ever
want to be promoted beyond an entry-level job.

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calinet6
I went in expecting something about dedication and ability to go the extra
mile and be a "rockstar"—but instead it was a refreshingly short and focused
list of often undervalued traits. Nice article.

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abc_lisper
I have a problem refocusing again and again. How does one go about that? Are
there any resources that can help one with that. I am very comfortable with
focusing on one thing and getting it done, but as soon as I switch contexts, I
take a while to get up to speed.

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hansef
Compassion is a great one, a trait I feel like we don't spend enough time
talking about as an element of success. I've worked with many extremely
talented, genuinely bright people whose business skills suffered because of a
lack of compassion and empathy: for their users, coworkers, or people they
generally (and probably correctly) considered less intelligent than
themselves. Making a conscious and genuine effort to understand someone else's
position and needs will get you MUCH further than dogmatic self-righteousness
- even if you really are right. ;)

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alexkearns
He is missing one thing a great start-up engineer should have: a great big
chunk of equity, preferably all of it.

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sneak
Stop blogging and add a fucking progress bar and transfer speed indicator to
your file transfer app, ffs.

