Amplifiers

Every software engineering team seems to have a core set of people who do a little bit more than what they are assigned to do. The little bit doesn’t seem much when looked at in isolation, but a few people doing it consistently over time is what creates the magic.

They often end up working a little more, but that’s not really what distinguishes them. They tend to take responsibility for more of the outcome.

If a junior is stuck, they help. If something is broken but doesn’t have an owner, they fix it. If they see a problem that is going to become a problem later, they bring it up. If something needs to be done but nobody specifically asked for it, they just do it.

This is especially important in software engineering because it is not possible for a manager to specify every task that needs to be done. There is a lot of work around a project that cannot be captured in tickets or assigned explicitly to someone.

These people tend to be the gap fillers. They do what is required, even when it is not specifically asked for.

Most projects will go nowhere if everyone on the team starts doing only what is specifically asked for.

The interesting thing is that these people tend to have an impact beyond their own work. By helping juniors, solving problems that don’t have clear ownership, or making things easier for everyone else, they amplify the output of the rest of the team.

Over time, due to various reasons (career moves, wanting to work on different problem statements, or wanting to work on a new project) these people may start moving out of the team.

When that happens, the workload on the remaining people starts increasing. Some of the work that was previously getting done without anyone explicitly noticing now needs to be picked up by someone else.

Eventually this can lead to burnout and, in some cases, the collapse of the team.

Collapse here doesn’t mean that the team literally stops functioning. The team and the project will continue to work. But you don’t see the same level of energy anymore. In itself, this might not be a bad thing. The team is still functioning and delivering. But the outstanding outcomes may not happen anymore and the team no longer an outstading team.

I think managers play an important role in maintaining the balance here.

The problem is that the contribution of these people is often not visible. Most of what they do is not part of their assigned work, so it doesn’t show up clearly in project plans or task tracking.

The answer is not to keep the same people doing more and more extra work either. That eventually makes the team dependent on them.

A better outcome would be to create more amplifiers within the team, people who gradually learn to take ownership beyond what is explicitly assigned to them. That is probably one of the differences between a team that simply gets its assigned work done and a team that consistently produces outstanding outcomes.