[ha-ha-ha]

Hah, very interesting.

On the other hand companies generally put their very best developers on new products and features - i.e. writing those first 1000 lines. While the mediocre devs get to extend and maintain those products/features, by copy paste or what got you.

[mapleoin]

That's because those first 1000 lines of code contain the project architecture and style which will heavily influence the next 10000 lines.

[leokun]

I have never heard of a place where "mediocre devs" get siloed off as a normal way of operating a business. If you have under-performing engineers you should change your hiring and think about mentoring or exits for those you have already.

[fournm]

It's more common in enterprise-y settings, since you don't have to pay them as much. Hire a few senior people to do the heavy lifting and stick all the maintenance programming stuff on the others.

[leokun]

Do they know they are considered mediocre? I think I might change my career if I ended up like that.

[chii]

that's because its more fun to work on that new 1000 lines, vs having to dredge thru old code to add the 1000 lines.