April 18, 2003

Managing software engineers
Posted by jbutler@bostonworks.com">Jason Butler at 6:51 AM -

This is an article from a couple years ago which I came across again this morning: Philip Greenspun on managing software engineers. You should read this if you are a technical worker, or if you manage one.

Software engineering is different because only the best people significantly contribute to achievement. ...

In the same factory, the best worker may produce two or three times as much as the average, but all the workers are contributing. In software engineering a good programmer is at least 10 times more productive than an average programmer (Brooks 1995).

While I disagree with some of the points Philip makes -- I personally would rather my people have interesting lives outside work than spend all their time here -- I do agree with his basic premise on overall productivity.

If you are allocating your fixed product development budget, you are better off having one highly paid rock-star developer and two people helping her than having six average developers.

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