In Silicon Valley, a discussion has been sparked by the viral series of tweets from Stanford researcher Yegor Denisov Blanche. His analysis of the work habits of over 50,000 engineers across various companies revealed that approximately 9.5% of programmers are essentially “ghostly engineers” who do little work but still collect a salary.
Denisov Blanche and his team gained access to internal company code repositories and conducted a thorough analysis over two years. They developed an algorithm that assessed employee performance based on task complexity, coding time, code quality, and structure. The results showed that the productivity of these “ghostly engineers” was less than 10% of the average level.
The researcher argues that by eliminating such employees, companies could save billions of dollars. These employees not only drain resources but also impede progress within teams. However, it is important to note that the research findings have not yet been published in peer-reviewed journals and are currently only available as graphs on social media.
The growing interest in identifying unproductive employees is linked to the rise of “re-destructive employment,” where individuals hold multiple jobs simultaneously without their employers’ knowledge. Companies are increasingly implementing tools to spot ineffective employees, such as systems that track user activity at workstations and evaluate productivity based on behavior.
Denisov Blanche highlights that while companies previously accepted inefficiencies in 10-15% of engineers as unavoidable costs, the landscape is now changing. The algorithm created by his team offers a precise evaluation of code quality and writing time, eliminating potential manipulation with metrics.
Despite critics pointing out that assessing engineers solely based on code may overlook their broader contributions in design or management, Denisov Blanche assures that companies are refining employee responsibilities to ensure accurate analysis. Many organizations have already shown interest in the study results.
In the current labor market characterized by complexity and widespread layoffs, engineers are finding it increasingly difficult to secure new jobs swiftly under previous conditions. This heightened focus on staff efficiency is driving the adoption of new technologies to streamline work processes. Denisov Blanche predicts that in the future, programmers’ performance will be evaluated similarly to salespeople – based on outcomes rather than indirect measures.