All things i guess I have to look forward to in my next role. (just as soon as I find one!)

In my experience (which is probably a biased sample) about 4/5 of them profess it will cure cancer, but actually just like the fact it lets them take over the team permanently and talk all the time. These are the loud and dangerous ones which I make a point of putting myself in a position to tell to fuck off.

The remaining 1/5 are actually clued up on it, know the theory behind it, have enough emotional intelligence to understand than making sure all needs are met is the most importantly part and are worth listening to.

But again, it’s probable my sample is biased.

We had certain individuals who talked without gaps, and when confronted by others responded by saying they needed to do this to think. When it was posited that maybe other people needed space to think, and the opportunity to contribute, the response was that this was our problem. Because letting people talk as much as they like is easy, but making sure all needs are met is hard and requires effort and skill. And acknowledges that the majority of engineers can’t just pick this up from first principles.

I do not feel like I’m emotionally intelligent, but I’m told I am. I think it’s because I’ve spent a tonne of sleepless nights working out why this sort of thing is bullshit and how to explain that to people. And when that fails, putting myself in a position to veto it.

Fortunately, I am the senior engineer now, and at least for the time being I have enough clout to tell people to fuck off when they start trying lazy and toxic bullshit like that.

Tho I had fab experiences with pair programming as we were working on a simulator which had a comfy car seat and a projected view of the world up front. This view was driven by the same machine we developed on, so inevitably we would end up with the "subject" (another dev during testing) being able to comfortably observe the changes and collaborate. I think it also helped that you didn't have someone literally over your shoulder and talking into your ear

(And now I remember that this workstation did this all with its 256MB of RAMBus memory )

tangentially, I've also been thinking about how ten years ago people were saying "data is the new oil" and at the time I was like "ah hm yes" but I didn't think about how ten years hence we would of course be building data refineries that no one wants to live next door to

Again. Kind of a unicorn culture and I’m not sure I’ll ever see this again.

There’s a shift to be made in a team from “a group of individual contributors” to “we all sink or swim together, and it’s the job of the experienced members to lift up their juniors”.

This is, and again I speak from experience, a very difficult shift. But it makes a massive difference to both morale and productivity.

I’m lucky to work in a team where the senior staff are all of that mindset and we’re able to propagate it to anyone who joins. Honestly, it’s the only reason I’m still here.

But again, you need a bunch of powerful and emotionally intelligent people to set that baseline. And that’s… not guaranteed in engineering teams.

Both mobbing and pairing require emotional intelligence, or at the very least leadership who can ensure that needs are met for everyone.

My personal experience is that mobbing requires exponentially more of both and in some cases just isn’t practical.

@mcc @glyph this is an apt way to describe it, not even a metaphor. digital spaces are an extension of architecture, and the more we think that way the better we can understand the consequences of interface design

With pair programming the balance of dynamics is usually such that as long as you have two people working in good faith and a good culture you can usually work it out and be flexible enough for both parties. It’s also easier to pick and choose effective effective relationships.

My experience with extended (as opposed to occasional) mob programming is that it requires actual skills/training and either a specific set of personalities or a lead with strong emotional intelligence in order to bridge the gap. Mobbing is a lot harder to get right and if any team wants to try it for extended periods I whole heartedly recommend getting an experienced coach in.

In the job where this was an issue management refused to provide any of that. It was implemented badly, we went straight into chaos with no guidance. We had certain individuals with certain neurodivergent traits who, and as I say this I lay the fault at management and not these individuals, flourished at the expense of the rest of the team. Leadership refused to step in in order to make sure that everyone’s needs were met while still insisting on mobbing.

I can’t speak for the other individuals who got burned out.