Can someone tell me how a mid level developer with a PhD from EU country is unable to work independently, conduct investigation by himself without too much hand-holding?
Is he too allergic to use google search?

Or is it me that have too much expectation? He's been in our team for 3 months, he should be able to search docs/procedure/files by himself now. Is it me that are too workaholic nerdy and he's just a normal person?
🤔
Thankfully he's the nicest person in our team, but I am getting fed up having to answer his questions many times.

gotta teach them independence

Happens with some people

in university and in jobs I think there's a type of teacher / manager that will get hostile if someone ever goes off on their own. so then these people get habituated into "acting dumb" so they can be the teacher/manager's pet, by always soliciting advice from their authority figure even for things they know. it's probably a defense mechanism

You gotta unlearn that in them and let them know you like independence instead

had a manager that kept telling me "we cooperate here" and not expanding on that... anyway that didn't go well because I do my work solo, and I didn't quite piece together what she meant. but the previous person she worked with I had worked with, and I had to teach that guy independence over several months because such an idea was foreign to him. some people are just control freaks and then dependence becomes a survival strategy

stop answering their questions, straight up, being nice doesn't mean you have an excuse for incompetence.

Some people can get through their whole education solving problems that have been carefully designed so that students can solve them. Harder problems for smarter students, but the person asking the questions always knows what the answer is.

Then they get a job, and get given problems where nobody in the building even knows whether a solution is possible.

Most of them will think that's not fair, because so far, people have only been allowed to ask them stuff that's on the syllabus.

AI is going to fuck 'em.

@jestdotty

I see, that's an interesting view.

I am just so used to dev working independently that I am quite shocked I met someone with enough experience behaving like him.

He won't survive in our company if he keeps that attitude.

@SidTheITGuy

I told him that the other day, let him work alone, but as a result, he accomplished nothing until the end of the day 😬

@cho-uc

COWABUNGAAAAA it is then,

report them to the manager and/or threat them with it. sometimes you need that threat of getting fired over your head for your real productivity to kick in.

@SidTheITGuy so Indian

I think communicating directly what you want him to work independently... look up information in the docs, websites, and trust his own instincts would be better than threatening someone

it might also be difficult to tell if he's doing it or not. I had a guy like this for 6 months. he was very lost at first. independence is a muscle and he simply didn't have it. give him easy stuff to figure out and build up on it. he has to train it. for this guy it took him 3 days to figure out how to do a pull request at the beginning for some simple change

or fire him and say you're not a good fit if that won't fit the timeline you guys need

I'm not personally motivated by threats. did not enjoy an Indian threatening me while literally not telling me what she actually wanted. communicate your expectations properly, you'll have better luck and a better atmosphere

Why do you have a PhD in your team?

@asgs

A PhD is not a requirement. We have several people with STEM background (non-CS). I have a master and a lot people with bachelor degree.

To be fair, he's not really that bad, he managed to finish several of the tasks assigned to him. It's just that I expect more of him as he has a PhD and several YOE.

I was hoping that he can be my peer, discussing and exchanging ideas. Instead I feel like I am babysitting him, even though we're on the same level

.

@cho-uc since it has been a few months he is your team, maybe it is time to push him into battlefield and get things figured out especially if he has already completed several of his tasks assigned already. You can promote him to a release candidate from being an alpha/beta Engineer

Probably a normal person, there are so many nowadays that choose IT just for the income part without further expectation of self development or improvement(that's what I saw in Italy at least)

@h4xx3r true that 🙁 Working as dev for more than decade and saw the mentality change. It's not only nerds anymore 🙁

Presumably because he wasted years on getting that PhD and has no real experience