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Violent agree on variance in value produced. Violent disagree on that junior, senior or other titles or roles have such strong correlations. For very simple reasons: we can’t measure value, and we absolutely can’t measure value within a performance review cycle.

The most devastating value destruction (aside from the rare intern deleting the prod db) that I’ve seen consistently is with senior/rockstars who introduce new tech, takes credit, moves on. There’s a reason for the term resume driven development. Think about what a negative force multiplier can do for an org.



How does violent agree/disagree work? Like after you conclude you agree/disagree to this internet text, do you then proceed to scream out on your balcony that which you agree with / smash up your apartment in rage, respectively?


> Think about what a negative force multiplier can do for an org.

Negative force multipliers are easily remedied: just make sure you have an even number of them.


This totally happened on my first team.

We had a guy who would argue about everything that knew the CTO so we had to tolerate him.

Then we hired a second one and they just argued with each other all the time and the rest of the team could finally make progress.

It was awesome.


I have a feeling I was hired to be this second guy and I really just want to hang up my gloves, man


Thank you for your service


I don't know, I think where I work we have a pretty good idea for the value each person brings. I don't know how much they're paid, but I do know how good each person is (including whether they tend to complicate things, to use exciting technologies, etc).

Maybe it varies per company.


> I don't know how much they're paid

But that’s the entire point you’re missing. The pay is not proportional to contribution or technical skill. It’s proportional to market forces and negotiation skill.


I know what level each of our people is, and levels are compensated fairly evenly. The fact that I don't know exact numbers doesn't mean I don't have a proxy.




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