WWCD - What would CAOS do?

[Peter Motyka]

So, I’ll likely be posing this question to TechRepublic.com too, but I’d like to see what the members of CAOS have to say, especially the ones that have been tossed into the working world.

I’ve recently started a new job at a rather large company.  I was drilled pretty thoroughly during the technical interview, so my expectations of fellow developers were rather high due to the technical competence of the architect that I had met with.  Soon after starting, I’ve been placed on a few project involving n-tier architectures using .NET web services and ASP.NET.  Much to my surprise, there were several developers on these projects that are seemingly incompetent with the use of web-based technologies.  In one instance I was nearly floored when referencing the request/response objects and postback of the ASP.NET tier.  I received a blank stare and was asked to explain what I was talking about.  I consider understanding the basic tenets of HTTP roundtrip communication to be a core competency required to develop Internet-based applications.  Not only is this coworker deficient in their understanding of web applications, but is ignorant of several fundamental computing concepts that I consider requisite to any type of software development.

At this point, I’m beyond frustrated with answering questions that have answers found in most entry-level software development reference books.  Should I report to my supervisor and inform them that several team members are severely under qualified for the jobs they hold?  I can’t help feeling like I’m attacking them, but also feel something must be said.  What is the most diplomatic approach to this sort of thing?

Thanks!

[Peter Motyka]

OMG, I just had to walk this same person through basic string concatenation and using the \ character to escape a quote.  Save me...

[Jonathan Birch]

Unfortunately, I think your experience is rather common.

I've frequently gotten the impression that a lot of people in the working world are just competent enough to play at doing their jobs so that other people can pick up the slack.

And to be fair, I've developed a number of Internet-based applications despite not having a complete knowledge of HTTP. It's easy to avoid ever using it directly if you stick to high-level languages.

If the person fails to understand something they're actively responsible for, that's one thing, but it's possible you're expecting too much.

[Peter Motyka]

greyblue wrote:
And to be fair, I've developed a number of Internet-based applications despite not having a complete knowledge of HTTP. It's easy to avoid ever using it directly if you stick to high-level languages.

Sorry to be harsh, but this is a damn shame.  Not to blame the 4G Visual Studio .NET, but it sure has created a culture of throwing crap together and hoping it works.  And when it breaks, people are left with an incomplete understanding of how to resolve bugs that may require inspecting the lower level details of a protocol like HTTP, SOAP, etc.

greyblue wrote: possible you're expecting too much

I think not.  IT is far too competitive of a field for lackadaisical inept people to be wasting my time.  Perhaps I need to be more aggressive and out these people for what they are, simpletons who have pursued careers in IT expecting lofty salaries while they ride on the coattails of others.  After all, they are being paid and this isn't a charity.

[DaleDoe]

I also work in a large company, but my project is small.  What size project are you on, pmotyko?

On our project of about a dozen people, we have one who is not competent.  Management hired him because he worked in our customers' domain and they thought they could train him.  4 years later he can write HTML.  In our project, management knows how well each of us are performing, but it is in the corporate culture to train an inept employee rather than fire him (even if they never learn).  They don't fire people for being lackadasical, either, so long as they still do something at work.  They can only fire someone for wasting company time, which is hard to prove given that we are on flextime.

In my company it seems about 10% are not competent.  Do you think that management doesn't know these guys are incompetent?