5 Tips on How to Spot a Bad Developer and Team Member

1. He hates libraries, framworks and cutting edge technologies

He always hates newest technologies and considers that pure programming with no libraries and frameworks is the masterpiece of coding and only way to show his greatness. Any mention of a library name results in something like “blah, this sucks” with no explanation why. However most often the reason is “because it’s slow” with no examples of how slow actually this library is – he does not make any performance tests at all. Always prefers to write his own pure “javascript” or “php” based code/library because he thinks this is the cutting edge of modern technology.

2. He hates helping and talking to clients

Always after a phone call with a client he’s angry, because “the sutpid client” doesn’t understand his way of brilliant thinking. He thinks that a project must exists just to show what a “good” developer he is and how much he knows, not because the product will be someday, somehow used by poor clients.

3. He loves to see how others make mistakes

Bugs by other developers are always accepted with a smile with some words like “I told you”. He doesn’t think bugs will be comited if he were the developer. However bugs in his code are always accepted and explained as misconseption of the client!

4. Always negative at meetings

Whatever solution is proposed on a meeting he’s negative. But he doesn’t propose his own solution. Typically a bad team member is always trying to say “whatever solution you get I’m telling you that there are some pitfalls”.

5. He hates interviews

Because he thinks he’s the best programmer in the world, he hates going to interviews. His behaviour on interviews is always like “you know less than me and I don’t know why I’m here”. However once he gets the job he behaves with his boss like “I’m making you a favor to receive a salary from you!”

Advice: To avoid working with such jerks try to spot them on the interview. If he tells you that your choice of library and technology sucks you should better get another candidate.

6 thoughts on “5 Tips on How to Spot a Bad Developer and Team Member

  1. This post is not about “how to spot a bad developer”. This is a passive-aggressive personal attack on one of your coworkers. I suggest you try talking to him instead of taking your personal feud to the web.

  2. The first one is ambiguous. If you are able to combine a minimal set of FW, libraries and helpers for the project, it’s OK. But if you include some library or even framework, instead of writing some 5-10 lines of code, then you’re an ass.
    Good example of bad library is smarty. It has it’s own syntax, which you must learn and get used to, it has a lot of limitations, and it can be perfectly replaced with some 10-15 lines of PHP. It also is rarely supported by IDEs or editors.
    Anyway, this question always depends on situation and project needs. You just can’t say “This guy sucks ’cause he hates my favorite template engine”, if he has reasons to hate it.

  3. @webperson – No, this is not a passive-aggressive attack. In my opinion almost every team has his own black sheep! The thing is that it appears that this is a feature of the team itself. I just described my personal observations!

  4. man … cmon .. tell me is there a developer who LOVES or LIKES to speak with clients… cmon 🙂

    about the rest I agree

  5. @JOKe – c’mon, we developers don’t exist just to code. We are supposed to make products for the clients. Not speaking (talking) to the clients is so old-school!

  6. Points 3 and 4 especially 3 is so true for one of my coursemates who was on the same team with me in one of our courses last session. He always thinks his methods are the best and loves when someone comes to meet him to help fix some code errors.

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