In my case, my bozo list is a handful of names that I use to help choose where I will and won't work. If one of these people is at that company, I will decline to accept a position that will subject me to their leadership. Some may see this as arrogant. It certainly assumes I have the privilege of multiple options of employer. It's not generally been my experience that people react badly to this in general, however. I can easily see how it would be much more disruptive when internal to a team.
That said, I have seen whole teams set the bozo bit on other parts of the organization. For example, I saw the head of an infrastructure group refuse to maintain or patch key services while insisting on ownership. The security organization set the bozo bit on this person and worked to protect the organization from the consequences of their choices. As an organizational tool, it can be a useful caution about known bad-faith actors.
As to your broader point, I think you're correct. Programming is difficult, error-prone, and thus benefits from an intellectual humility. Approaching it with the mindset that you are incapable of error makes this much more challenging.
As someone rounding off 20 years in this industry, I'll advise you that it is a _lot_ smaller than you think. Some of the people I've met or worked with early in my career are big names now due to blogging, writing, starting companies, etc.
When I interviewed for my current job, it turned out that I had separate, personal, previous-work-experience connections to all four of my interviewers and it only surfaced during each of the interviews.
And this is after changing my role/specialty.
----
And along these lines, be careful who you shit on in this industry and be default-nice to everyone. I'll never forget one role I had that was fully remote where I was mentoring a guy who was a bit on the weaker side technically for the job that we were doing. Everyone else was constantly telling him that he sucked and was pushing him to quit.
It turns out that he was learning the ropes to transition to a huge leadership role in the company and no one knew it. He had previously led an entire division of a massive computer manufacturer, but 2008 wiped out most of his retirement and he had to come back to work. The very first thing that he did with his new responsibility once his role was announced was to give me a huge promotion to work directly under him with no interview.
There are parts of
our vast industry that aren’t as large, and the “premier” places to work at are only a few big names. Embedded systems comes to mind for me here as does something like chipset design or telecommunications infrastructure, just to name a few examples I can think of
All complex rewarding software jobs but it’s not the same as say, web development, in terms of choices and volume
> How can a handful of names across an entire industry meaningfully affect your career choice?
I've found myself approached by recruiters for the exact large company and sizable department that one of these people has substantial rank in. It's already had an impact on my decisions.
That said, I have seen whole teams set the bozo bit on other parts of the organization. For example, I saw the head of an infrastructure group refuse to maintain or patch key services while insisting on ownership. The security organization set the bozo bit on this person and worked to protect the organization from the consequences of their choices. As an organizational tool, it can be a useful caution about known bad-faith actors.
As to your broader point, I think you're correct. Programming is difficult, error-prone, and thus benefits from an intellectual humility. Approaching it with the mindset that you are incapable of error makes this much more challenging.