Hey, N00b, We Didn't Hire You to Complete Tasks

Welcome!

Hey, N00b, We Didn't Hire You to Complete Tasks Kent Beck May 15, 2026 201 16 16 Share Welcome! I am going to pass on to you the secret to a successful and brief noobitude, and I won’t even keep you in suspense: nobody cares how many tasks you complete. Why not, and what we care about instead are the subject of the rest of this essay. Look at your situation from our perspective (by “our” I mean “older engineers”). We hired a bunch of people like you. Some of y’all (we’ll call them A’s) will be amazing game-changers, making everyone around them wildly more productive. Many of you (B’s) will be

saved by

• Akira Yoshiyama
• Lailah Nabegu

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