You Know Them By Their Fruits; Qualities Of A Bad Software Engineer

I was going through this earlier and I thought I’d share it with you.

A software engineer is an important part of any IT project. His work can either create wonders or ruin the entire focus of the project. Software engineers are genius coders. There are certain qualities of good software engineers. Today we have listed nine characteristics of a bad software engineer.

1. Stackoverflow Bot:

If the program that a software engineer runs into an error, the first thing some software engineers do is Google for the solution. They mostly head to Stackoverflow, copy-paste the patch and voila. Copying from Stackoverflow is not bad, it is a great resource but some engineers directly copy-paste the patch without understanding context of it. This often leads to bigger problem that what they were trying to fix.

2. Testing: 

Some software engineers think that testing is the job of a tester. They need not test their code. But, in age of mature Agile software development methodology, this attitude is very bad. Software engineers are little hesitant when it comes to testing their code. However, if software engineers start testing their code while writing it, they can save lot of resources and help in building better products.

3. Documentation: 

Some people think that code documentation is boring. A good software is not the software that provides number of cool features but, it is the software that can be used by many people and can be modified by thousands. Great developers believe in precise and detailed documentation. 

4. Excuses: 

Some software engineers give very lame excuses when their code doesn’t work. A bad code is not the source of the problem, the excuses are. Only bad software engineers give excuses when their code doesn’t work. A good software engineer would rather try to fix the error than giving excuses.

5. Short-term Investor: 

Some software engineers pay minimal attention to the program or problem statement. They code, deploy and move on to the next project. They are like robotic coders. They are good people to get the work done but you cannot expect quality work from them. All they care about is the amount of hours they put in for the project and the project deadline.

6. Protestor: 

There are always these kind of software engineers in a team. They are always trying to defend themselves. “I didn’t do this”, “This looks bad”, “This is not my problem.” They always blame colleagues for the bad output. 

7. Dictator: 

Some software engineers always try to lead the team. They are never working as a team. They try to imply their own ideas and solution in the project. This kind of people affect the productivity of the team. Irrespective of experience and skills, this kind of software engineer is always bad for the team.

8. Overcautious: 

Developers need to be risk taking and challenging. Some coders avoid getting out of their comfort zone. They never touch other part of the system other than their responsibility. Good developers have tendency to try new challenging tasks. 

9. Carelessness: 

These kind of software engineers can be harmful for the project. They forget to backup a system. They leave system out somewhere and print in production code too early. Mostly newbie coders are careless, they get better with more professional exposure.

Credit: Efytimes