Ask HN: Autistic employees think they’re better than everyone

18 points by gamma-male 3 years ago | 25 comments

I’m working with a 10x engineer who’s most likely autistic and produces more than everyone else. He’s taking the team down because he steals work from others and nobody can learn the codebase. It’s also really bad code so he’s the only one that can understand it and refuses to document or explain what is going on. Is it rare or is it a common situation?

cjblomqvist 3 years ago |

The title is not a question, but a statement. There are no evidence more than this anecdote to support this statement, and it's a very harsh one, putting all autistic people in one basket - despite the likely chance this has more to do with the person than autism.

Please be more careful when putting out/framing your personal thoughts than this. It's the same category as racism.

the_clarence 3 years ago | |

I agree but this doesn’t help gamma-male. I’ve dealt with people who were producing more than everyone else and must have been on the autism spectrum. It’s not a bad thing per se, but it makes you wonder “can non-autistic people achieve as much and compete with their asperger coworkers?”

cjblomqvist 3 years ago | | |

Gamma-male should probably learn to frame/ask his (?) questions (statements...) better, and not jump to baseless generalizing conclusions. In that light I actually think my comment could've helped him, by highlighting that problem.

Didn't help with his specific situation though. But it seems like he needs to learn the other part more.

terminalcommand 3 years ago | | |

Coding capability is not everything, the asperger programmer probably has serious problems in social skills, social life. Let people be. If you're neurotypical aim for management, earn more code less.

dang 3 years ago |

As the commenters have pointed out, you're creating lots of negative reactions by asking your question in this way. I'd add that you don't need the word 'autistic' here at all - your question would be clearer without it. Also, your text implies ("most likely") that you don't actually know if he's autistic, or why that would be relevant. You'd be better off sticking to what you do know—i.e. reporting your own experience and direct observations. Then you'll be able to give people more information.

Actually, your title would be better off without "thinks they're better than everyone", too, since (unless you have a mind reader) that's not a direct observation either. If you describe your situation more factually and neutrally, you might get a better response from the community. Just a thought.

sen 3 years ago |

I think if you remove the word “autistic” from the title then almost everyone on HN would have worked with someone like your description.

I’ve worked with a few. They’re usually solid over-achievers in general, and have gotten by with their toxic personalities due to their above-average output. They’re a burden on those around them but management just see the output so don’t really care.

I’ve quit jobs due to people like this.

mytailorisrich 3 years ago | |

Some people are dicks, but in many teams the 'over-achiever' with an 'above-average' output ends up effectively subsidising others and the team, which can also rightly piss them off.

orwin 3 years ago |

This is weird, because i know two good engineers on the autistic spectrum (one visibly Asperger, who literally can't lie and have difficulties with irony, the other a bit more subtle) and they are really detail-oriented and love to document everything because this is good practice and also a ritual.

I don't know what "bad code" is (undocumented?), one of them really like his tricks (especially obscure ones), but each time document what the line does. Also, and i think this has to be because we were taught that at the school, they really like small functions (more than 20 lines of code and they start sweating) and modular code, so i guess to me it is really good code (i was at the same school)

badlucklottery 3 years ago |

I would say this particular situation is rare but the underlying problem is pretty common.

This is a management problem manifesting as an IC problem. If management is aware of this jerky behavior and lets it continue, they're hobbling the team and limiting their overall productivity. If they're unaware of the problem, they're just clueless.

Either way, you probably want dip out on that team. If you're the conscientious sort, you can tell them why as you go.

Also:

> 10x engineer

> he steals work from others

> It’s also really bad code so he’s the only one that can understand it and refuses to document or explain what is going on

10x more code produced != 10x better engineer. When people talk about "10x engineers" they usually mean the latter.

markwisde 3 years ago |

Yeah we have the same coworker. He diminishes other people’s result and make it impossible to scale the team by taking over work than others could do and learn from. When he’s expressing his opinion that nobody seems to be able to do the work, it’s pretty much that he’s not willing to train the other engineers to do the work. What does the company do? They either listen to him, fire people, and waste indefinite time trying to hire someone who can match the 10x engineer’s skills, or they try to remove the 10x engineer as the bottleneck that prevents the team from growing (also, if they don’t act fast enough everybody has left except the 10x engineer)

KingOfCoders 3 years ago |

I don't know about autistic IANAD - but I've met the behaviour in several companies. Often the code was bad and not complete, used new technology to tackle a problem, then person moved on to new code/technoligies when they get bored, leaving ruins. Had always the highest standing with management because he was an "achiever".

throwaway0asd 3 years ago |

Your coworker may or may not be autistic but the behaviors you describe are fully unrelated to autism. Perhaps a better term, according to your descriptions, is narcissistic. You cannot reason with an extreme narcissist in a meaningful way because the intent is always self serving at expense to everyone else.

jamestimmins 3 years ago |

You're not working with a 10x engineer. It sounds like you're working with someone who may think they're a 10x engineer, but they're likely just reducing the effectiveness of the rest of the team. Hopefully your company/team's management is aware of the distinction. If not, you and the team need to communicate this to them (in a tactful manner).

I've worked with people who were truly 10x engineers and others who just thought they were 10x engineers. The actual ones did this by succeeding in the context of the broader team. The ones deluding themselves just made everyone else miserable, and then left messes to clean up when they left.

updateYourMind 3 years ago | |

I think they are different definition of 10x engineer and OP’s definition is someone who writes a lot of code and understand the stack.

jamestimmins 3 years ago | | |

Perhaps, but I've never heard of a definition involving someone who writes "really bad code".

Overtonwindow 3 years ago |

I think this is very shortsighted, but also not unexpected. As far as I understand, someone who is autistic often does not consider themselves to be autistic. But also autism is a problem of social cues. Maybe this person is in capable of self regulation and monitoring, and so he thinks he’s great, it’s everyone else who is bad. That’s just a classic defense mechanism.

Bottom line, working with someone who is autistic can be extremely difficult, but it’s not their fault, it’s mostly their defense mechanisms in response to the way people are treating them.

lozenge 3 years ago |

You mean autistic employee, singular.

Whether the behaviour "comes from" his autism or not should not have any bearing on how you deal with it. (This is not legal advice)

Do you not have a code review step to prevent bad code from entering the repository?

the_clarence 3 years ago | |

OP didn’t say he was the one responsible for bad code. Autistic here probably means that he seems better than most people and most engineers can’t compete with his output

terminalcommand 3 years ago |

I suspect writing bad code with poor documentation has nothing to do with autism. I'd suggest don't treat him different than any other employee.

If he steals work he steals work, less to be done by you. If he crashes and burns, so be it.

updateYourMind 3 years ago | |

What if he’s the supposedly tech lead who is not interest in leading and growing the team?

terminalcommand 3 years ago | | |

My objection is this, the fact that he may be autistic has nothing to do with his behaviour. This kind of labeling would hurt autistic people.

If he were the tech lead I do not think he would steal work, he'd just delegate it. I think OP and the 10x programmer are peers and they are in an unhealthy competition.

the_clarence 3 years ago | |

Not sure why you’re being downvoted