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0 pointshunterpayne10d ago0 comments

My experience is exactly the opposite. The TT ends up being the last engineer standing a lot of the time. The people who want to have better refactoring and more maintainable code are usually the ones who move on. The TT often stays in the same place for 25 years. Often correcting mistakes they themselves made in the past.

I knew one engineer who came in every Sunday night to process missed orders from an e-com system they wrote. They were unable to actually fix the problems with their code, so they just fixed the problems by hand. Every week...for years on end. Management thought he was a star who worked hard. The devs knew he was the worst engineer they have ever worked with. He still works at that same company 25 years later.

The correlation between what management thinks and reality can be pretty large at times.

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wiether10d ago

The profile you describe is not a Tactical Tornado to me.

A tornado is something big and temporary.

Someone who makes a mess but stays to fix it cannot be described as a tornado.

I worked with actual TT and with people fitting the profile of your guy.

To me they are quite different and have a different impact on the teams they work "with".

I would say your guy is more a Sisyphus.

The ones I met where thought as hard working by management, because they actually were.

If your guy works extra on Sunday for free, they're working hard in my books.

They were not thought as stars, but they were more liked than average 9-5ers. "I know he's not great, but at least he's compensating by working harder".

In the end, if they make something not great, but the work expected from what they do is actually achieved, that's more than most.

And I honestly prefer the Sisyphus to the TT. At least I know they'll own what they do. Not drop it on everyone else to go chase their next "miracle".

autoexec10d ago

> If your guy works extra on Sunday for free, they're working hard in my books.

Working hard on the wrong thing: endlessly manually processing things the software should be taking care of. Investing that time in fixing the code would be better. Working hard only matters when the effort is well spent.

DANmode10d ago

Fix your last sentence while there’s still time, an otherwise super strong comment.

(Thank you.)

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