Don't be an annoying software engineer!

Please, don't.

Be the developer you would want to work with.

Be the developer you would want in your organization.

Don’t be an annoying one.

Let’s look at some qualities of an annoying software engineer:

• Dogmatic: You’re close-minded. You refuse to believe other ways are better than your way. You don’t embody pragmatism nor listen to your teammates when they’re speaking. Instead, you interrupt your teammates when they’re trying to present their ideas. You’re the worst to pair code with.

• Picking up many tasks: You pick up many tasks at the same time to look productive. As if you’re getting a lot of work done. But in actuality, you’re not productive. You’re busy. Busy and productive are not the same things. Focus on one task at hand and get it done effectively. Don’t get sloppy and stressed work done. Be a reliable teammate.

• Not open to feedback: When given feedback, you get defensive. You’re hard to work with. You refuse to accept you could’ve done things better. Instead, accept feedback. Be thankful to the person giving it to you. Embrace it to grow as an engineer and person.

• Not being supportive: This could happen in many scenarios. One that comes to mind is as the reviewer of a pull request not helping the author drive the PR forward:

  • Leaving confusing comments.

  • Not suggesting things when requesting changes.

  • Blocking pull requests over biases.

  • Ignoring the pull request after the first review.

  • Being rude in comments.