[Swizec]

Personally I'm a starter. Great at implementing prototypes, getting things working fast, but absolutely terrible with polishing things and taking care of edge cases.

And I hate it. I consider it a personality flaw, a flaw in my work ethics, and so on. Whatever it is, I don't want to have it.

What I've found has helped me get beyond this problem is taking on freelancing gigs where I'm mostly the guy who gets a rough prototype and has to make it work. The beauty of this is that I know how to think like a prototyper, so I can become productive on a foreign codebase quickly.

And because I started at a different goalpost, I can still work as a "starter" even though I'm doing the job of a "debugger/finisher".

[follower]

> I consider it a personality flaw, a flaw in my work ethics, and so on.

I'm curious what percentage of software developers self-identify as finishers and what percentage as starters.

My assumption is that starters are much more common--but maybe that's because I assume everyone is just like me.

Are there really software developers who fit the "finisher" description? And prefer it? :)

If it turns out that software developers really do have a range of roles available to them and each individual suits some more than others then maybe it's best to work to accept it rather than feel guilty about it?

[benjaminwootton]

I'm a good starter and a good finisher. It's the middle of the project where my motivation can dip, particularly on side projects.

I love taking a seed of an idea and running with it into prototypes etc.

And I also love doing that final layer of polish, trying to break my code and handle edge cases and tweaking user experience.

I think it's because I approach the start and the end from the users perspective, but then the middle of the project can sometimes feel a bit disconnected from the user.

Something like writing your persistence layer doesn't really feel as though it's contributing to the vision of what you want to build.

[adestefan]

I'm a a debugger. I can't stand to look at a blank screen since I never know where to start. However, I love it when someone toss a difficult bug at me. I can spend days pouring over code in nothing but a debugger and live for the rush when a simple change fixes everything.

We have a running joke on my team that I come out of the bullpen as the setup man and hand it off to our closer. We'll have meetings where it comes and my colleagues will say, "Put him in coach." It works for us since most people are starters and one guy is a great finisher.

[aurelianito]

> My assumption is that starters are much more common--but maybe that's because I assume everyone is just like me.

If finishers are less common than starters, shouldn't they be payed more? Are they being payed more? Is it a flaw in the market?

[T-hawk]

They are. The debuggers and finishers are the ones making $100k for day-to-day Java maintenance at the big banks and insurers and retailers and such. For every starter who's succeeded in their own business or risen to a $200k director job in CorpWorld, there's four other starters who are subsisting on someone else's capital and haven't launched anything for real income yet.

That said, pay is based on perception as much as results. If a starter can sell someone on his vision of a $50M revenue payment processing platform, there's a good chance he can convince someone to pay him a small fraction of that like $500k, at least until the project dies off. Finishers can't do that while shooting one bug or fixing one feature at a time.

[nadam]

I think most programmers can earn more by doing 'finisher work' than doing 'starter work'. I am a starter by heart, but I earn more money by maintaining a big Java system than I would have working for example at a small startup. Of course this is not true for prestigueous/famous programmers. They get the 'starter' jobs even in high-paying positions.

[vladd]

I've seen successful finishers. You can see them hang out around sites like www.flippa.com , looking for that special project that they could buy and operate as owners for a quiet life and sustainable revenues.

[polyfractal]

I think Rob Walling is a perfect example of a Finisher. He's purchased several different web properties, polished them up with a new skin, new marketing and new copy, removed all those nagging little bugs that the previous owner left languishing.

[krelian]

To bad that 90% of the starters on flippa think the finishers are idiots ("huge potential!") and market to them as such.

With most sales on flippa I feel like I am playing "Find the scam".