Beware The Lone Wolf Leaders
When building a new team, a shoo-in maverick under the radar team leader can cause all sorts of unnecessary problems.
If you’ve spent any amount of time working in the Grand Game of Software Engineering then I’m pretty sure that you’ve already been hired quite a few times for a new project by what initially seems like a a knowledgable developer who seems to know what they’re doing.
Usually this is a senior developer and they do actually know what they’re doing but, sometimes, they’re also someone who’s recently been brought in often in a great rush as management has made a lot of promises that it turned out they couldn’t keep and now is what I like to call “panic hiring”.
Hiring a senior developer in normal circumstances isn’t so easy as we’re a progressive and selective bunch and to reel us in requires an accurate job specification, at least market rate pay, a short and concise interview process, and (unless the money is high enough) a company that seems like it knows the ins and outs of the software development process¹.
To that end, as management promised something that they don’t have for a deadline that they don’t understand (as I mentioned previously) they more than often call in a friend, past employee, or someone who looks like they’re qualified but are the usual kind of job hopping “move on before anyone…
