alt Hacker NewsI’ve also seen this show up with stable vs buggy code.
Person A writes some code that just works, no one hears about it and the developer may tend to fade into the background.
Person B made a lot of mistakes is always stepping in to fix problems and be the hero, and everyone forgets that they caused those issues in the first place.
When it comes time for promotions, Person B is fresh in everyone’s mind due to the heroics performed to fix their own code over the weekend. They can take credit for the features being shipped and the operational work done to help run it.
Meanwhile, Person A is overlooked, they just shipped some solid code and were able to get a good night sleep.
Replies
dullcrisp • today at 5:51 AM
Yes at least we can sleep.
I've been person B and got promoted to staff engineer once.
I'm back to being a senior in a new org and I try to be person A, but be extra communicative of what I'm working on and how it impacts and why it's important.
I find I spend more time trying to understand how to explain the value my work has to the business (screenshots, demos, docs) than trying to actually do my work. But I think it's important though, otherwise I'll be the person A who never gets promoted.