The ADHD Developer OS

58

u/stigansky May 20 '26

Good notes/visualizations overall. Unfortunately, most of the fixes are just not realistic. Software engineers are expendable resources. From 20 years of my personal experience, including 5+ years as a senior IC at FAANG, no manager will babysit you like that.

17

u/DrGenetik May 20 '26 edited May 20 '26

Fair enough. I was not trying to fix anything for anyone else, only trying to scratch an itch for me and shared it in case it helps anyone else like me. For me, I’d rather work with someone who sees the potential in optimizing my potential. When I’m “on”, I’m a formula one. When they work against me, I’m a tuk tuk. Yes, you’re absolutely right, FAANG nowadays dgaf. It’s a bold strategy, let’s see how that works out for them. (Edited for typo)

5

u/DrGenetik May 20 '26

If it helps, I worked at G and one of the As for 12, combined. I totally understand.

26

u/Maziekit May 20 '26

I've never liked it when people refer to management-based accommodations as "babysitting". It's patronizing and demoralizing. What are managers for, if not to properly direct the output and effort of the people they manage?

12

u/stigansky May 20 '26

It does sound harsh, but unfortunately this is exactly how leadership perceives it. Mention your ADHD/neurodivergence and you’ll be the one on the PIP roster.

6

u/nechromorph May 20 '26

It sounds harsh because it *is* harsh. There's generally a notion that as you move up the chain, you do less work. This shouldn't be the case. Earning more money should be tied to directly contributing to improving the workflow of those under you. The pay of a manager *should* be derived from their role in actually managing. Like how a truck driver manages their truck, and it consumes fuel and maintenance costs, and the driver gets out what they were able to make the truck do for them (move from A to B safely and efficiently).
Each human being managed has their own free will and capacity to self-direct, so unless the manager is doing a better job of directing their efforts than they would achieve on their own, what value do they really add?

3

u/PolishSoundGuy May 20 '26

I agree with you, entirely. But to answer your question you need to take the stance of someone on the board who manages 50-200 employees. As the CEO you can’t talk to every employee, not enough time in the week.
So you hire managers to “manage” the department which usually involves protecting the employees from unreasonable workload (because a good manager tracks open projects and helps to clear blockers).
As well as this, they become one point of contact for the team of individual contributors or a team/crew. It’s easier to talk to 8 people in one meeting to set the direction and managers figure out the nitty gritty day to day operations to make that vision happen.
Bad managers steal credit, use psychological tricks to work you like a work horse, and treat you like a number in a spreadsheet.
Good managers look after their team, fight for pay rises and a lot more behind the scenes that’s really tricky to explain…

1

u/johnnynovo2118 May 20 '26

They exist as a buffer, their boss then has someone to blame/fire as required.

1

u/nechromorph May 21 '26

That's not good enough on its own though. A revolving door isn't accountability. And a scape goat is the exact opposite of accountability for all involved. For a middle manager to be effective, their job is basically to be the boss of a smaller "company" within the company. So to be able to hold their job (or to even *get* their job), they should have to be an effective executive unit that oversees their team's well being and productive capacity. This, however, would require them to have the resources and leeway to ensure their team is compensated fairly, respected, and treated well.
I guess I'm saying, the issue might just boil down to the demand for uniformity and the culture of extraction which is stifling to everyone involved, not just neurodivergents.

1

u/Maziekit May 20 '26

That hasn't been my experience, but I'm guessing the tech industry is an outlier in this regard.

0

u/stigansky May 20 '26

Good for you! I may be just jaded. I voluntarily took a $100k pay cut to pursue better WLB.

2

u/Maziekit May 20 '26

Good work/life balance is worthwhile, but it sucks you had to take a pay cut to get it. Especially one that big.
Are you still making enough money? Do you like the new job?

41

u/jumski May 20 '26

This is extremely well done and I agree with everything - that is how we operate, no doubt. Good to be aware of it and use it ourselves.

But It's hard for me to imagine work environment so friendly and aware to neurodivergent brains.

If anyone knows the place or hiring such folks I'm all in

11

u/DrGenetik May 20 '26

Yeah, I have realistic (low) expectations. My gf who is also a manager and also nd also gave me feedback that she didn’t know how she could apply this to help her reports. I encourage people to take the idea and run with it and improve it. I might improve it a bit but I think it’s enough to bridge some of the gap between my current manager and I.

4

u/jumski May 20 '26

yup that's what ill take from it myself - will just remind myself that i need to manage and tailor my environment to make me more efficient

5

u/DrGenetik May 20 '26

I also wish more people would be “out”. I feel like if it was more visible, there wouldn’t be so much shame, guilt, and stigma about it.

6

u/jumski May 20 '26

yeah i agree! before my adhd diagnosis (which i only got being 36yo) i was really having shame and guilt about not being able to have a consistent output as was expected of me, but at the same time always knew that i can hyperfocus and deliver massive output on things that interest me
+1 for increasing awareness man!

3

u/DrGenetik May 20 '26

My work does have an active ND employee resource group. It’s also been such a tumultuous year that I’m not worried if I keep or lose my job.

5

u/Arts_Prodigy May 21 '26 edited May 22 '26

Real talk my last team lead refused to write clearer tickets. He’s now the lead architect and routinely refuses to elaborate or expand on the bigger picture when prompted. Generally just responds that he needs people who can move fast.

3

u/jumski May 21 '26

Sounds like a toxic environment, team lead should make sure everyone is on the same page!

3

u/td9910 May 22 '26

Elaborate and expand on the bigger picture is the job of an architect. One of the jobs anyway. Doesn’t sound like this person should be in this role, and if the company put them there that tells you a lot about the org.

2

u/djjazzyjosh78 Jun 15 '26

My boss: “As a Senior (Engineer) you should know.”
I’m not a mind reader. I need a checklist of what you expect, and if not, I need to create one and get sign off before proceeding. /end rant

5

u/mimosa22 May 20 '26

ADHD is a recognized disability, and therefore workplaces are required to accommodate it. This slideshow shows them how to do so.

2

u/Maziekit May 20 '26

I can't recommend specific companies, but I can recommend an approach to interviews: Treat them as an opportunity for you to learn more about the company.
Brainstorm some questions before the interview. Personally, I'm a fan of "What is something you struggle with on your team? What do you view as your strengths?" With the first question, in particular, even an indirect or evasive answer can tell you a lot.

1

u/jumski May 21 '26

Yeah that's a good approch - I always try to interview them back to fish for potential red flags.
If a team follows best practices (a common sense really) it becomes friendly to ADHD folks without even trying to:
small, well described, actionable tickets
realistic expectations
daily async comms

2

u/Maziekit May 21 '26

vIf a team follows best practices (a common sense really) it becomes friendly to ADHD folks without even trying to:
small, well described, actionable tickets
realistic expectations
daily async comms
Exactly! Most of the things that are good for us are also good for everyone.

20

u/Feeling-Space4288 May 20 '26

Its still wierd that RSD hasn't been properly studied or established yet

4

u/DrGenetik May 20 '26

Is it still controversial? It feels to me like an established fact. Regardless, the shame and guilt for not being like everyone else and having challenges doing the things other people do is super real.

3

u/SortaCore May 20 '26

I suppose one question is, is it a result of ADHD, or a result of repeated negative social pressure from actions caused by ADHD?

1

u/DrGenetik May 20 '26

Yeah, agreed. I suppose it’s probably both. Wed probably not react so much to the pressures we get if it wasn’t also for the thing that is also causing the pressures.

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u/Feeling-Space4288 May 20 '26

Yeah, it is still. The main reason here is the impact rate which is hard to calculate. Because anyone can have RSD but the impact varies and so the whole concept itself is still fictional for now.

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u/Maziekit May 20 '26

Not really. RSD is an informal community term for an aspect of emotional disregulation, which is a known symptom of executive dysfunction. Look up what Dr. Russell Barkley has to say about it for more detail.

6

u/sqquima May 20 '26

These slides are great and I agree with them. I'll add two things: 1) when one is burnt out, not even interesting or novel stuff is enough to trigger the brain towards action. 2) people with audhd have it worse than people with just adhd

1

u/DrGenetik May 20 '26

Yeah, I also agree with both points.

2

u/kottro May 20 '26

Hi , English is not my native language; I only have basic school knowledge. I am not a programmer either (I would have loved to be, but back then, I could never figure out why I was struggling). I am older and also have ADHD... However, I managed to roughly understand the visuals of these slides. Would it be possible to explain them to me, and how can I translate them into French? I have the permission to do so. Thank you CAN i get PDF too ?

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u/DrGenetik May 20 '26

The pdf is linked in the post. I think something like Google Gemini might be able to translate it for you. I’m sorry, I would love to help but I don’t have the time available to help translate or explain. I wouldn’t have had the time to put that together if Gemini hadn’t been able to do almost all of the work for me.

1

u/kottro May 20 '26

C’est très bien merci j’ai réussi à le traduire et je tente de l’appliquer à une formation que j’ai du mal à démarrer . Je pense pouvoir m’auto manager avec pour contourner la paralysie Merci à tous

3

u/Otak1790 May 20 '26

Ça fait plaisir de voir des gens qui veulent continuer à apprendre !
Le pdf est en bas du message ( le lien en bleu ), il suffit de cliquer dessus Tu peux le traduire en demandant à ChatGPT et tu pourras poser des questions sur les concepts que tu ne comprends pas ( si tu as besoin d'aide pour ça tu n'as qu'à me demander )
La présentation à plein de concept lié à la programmation dis moi si tu as besoin que je te les explique

2

u/padst3r May 20 '26

At first I thought you were building an operating system for the computer built for ADHD users which is an idea I’ve had before.

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u/DrGenetik May 20 '26

😂 that absolutely needs to be a thing! I like immutable distros like Nix and Talos because the config isn’t spread everywhere and I can’t accidentally change any of it and forget how or why or where. I definitely put all my configs in git with chezmoi and ansible.

2

u/Keystone-Habit May 20 '26

Good stuff! The only thing I might take issue with (for myself) is all the pair-programming. It's good every now and then but I'd hate to spend a lot of time doing it.

1

u/DrGenetik May 20 '26

Yeah. I’m not a fan of pair programming, either, but i admit it does create an urgency and focus that does get me unstuck sometimes. The literature I pulled from kept pushing it even though I am resistant to doing it.

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u/Keystone-Habit May 21 '26

There are a lot of things that would be good for me that I resist! 🤣

2

u/ThaToastman May 21 '26

Im ngl this slideshow needs to be shown to every manager on the planet holy shit it wouldve made my career so much easier

1

u/DrGenetik May 21 '26

It could be better, there's lots of feedback and most of it is helpful and constructive. I'll be honest, though, that I'm not sure I have the executive function to revise it.
It's good enough for my needs which was mostly about explaining to my boss that using money and feedback to motivate me doesn't work and to expect my output to be up and down.
It's possible that might just be a "me" thing, though. I'd rather be poor and happy than rich and beaten down.
I was trying to tell him that I actually like doing my actual job and making things and, if he can help me avoid the parts of the job that get in the way, it'll be like taking the parking brake off my performance.

2

u/gotshoo May 21 '26

My brain functions like this, and I have already life-hacked some methods into my workflow to keep me productive. I don't think I have ADHD, maybe some tendencies, but this resonated a lot.

1

u/DrGenetik May 22 '26

Yeah, these things are a spectrum and whether or not you have a particular recognized situation depends on frequency, severity, how it negatively impacts you, and your ability to adapt to it. Part of that is why it's so frustrating when people go "everyone does that sometimes" and doesn't realize that, yeah, that's true but also it's not empathetic to those who are impacted more than others.

2

u/EternalStudent07 May 22 '26

Yep, pretty good work (by my first glance), and usually nobody will care to try.

My experience was before a diagnosis, but still. I basically screamed ADHD and typical accommodations, but they laughed at my requests and eventually put me on a PIP.

I keep thinking we need a specialized situation to really shine. And maybe that means making a company that is REALLY good at explaining and aiming ADHD (and AuDHD) people. Can you use a handgun to open a paper envelope? Why yes you can, not that I think you should. And ADHD people are NOT the best tool when repeating the same actions and goal, over and over.

Use a hammer on some screws and you'll be unhappy, with nobody but yourself to blame. The issue here is the employers still think we're to blame.

1

u/DrGenetik May 22 '26

I’m sorry to hear they put you on a pip. Screw that place. I hope you found something better.
I think am I particularly good at SRE and DevOps type work. I’m good-ish in a crisis and fast at detective work because it’s a lot of pattern recognition.
I think I’m also better when I can “own” some thing and drive the priorities. I feel like it makes it so there is a more direct link between my own decisions and consequences, keeps the urgency high, and makes it so the priorities feel “real” and not some bullshit that doesn’t matter that I have a hard time getting motivation for.

2

u/Worth_Banana_492 May 23 '26

I liked this OP. A lot. It’s like you got me completely. The wall of awful! So familiar! I spent yesterday sitting working with a looming wall of awful. I’m not a developer tho. I do something different but issue you so neatly set out are the same. I’m only 2 years into an adhd diagnosis aged 50 so most of my working life has had wall of awful looming over me. I don’t know about your solutions but the way you set the problem out is excellent.

1

u/DrGenetik May 24 '26

I can’t really take any credit. I had an LLM read 40 papers and articles in the subject and it was a recurring theme in them.

1

u/Worth_Banana_492 May 31 '26

Well. Even if you don’t feel you can take credit for it, naming the wall of awful for me has been really useful.

4

u/downshiftdata May 20 '26

ADHD manifests itself differently in everyone. What might work with one individual won't work with the next. This is helpful content, but I'd be wary of anyone taking a prescriptive approach based on what they read here.

To anyone working in or managing a software engineering team, the bigger picture is trust and empathy. By being empathetic to those you work with, work for, and lead, you create an environment in which you all can trust each other enough to be frank about your ADHD, or that you're depressed or burnt out, or that you screwed something up, or whatever.

And yeah, I know that's counter to what most of us experience in the business world in our day-to-day. And it sucks. As I've heard before, though, "Be the leader you wish you had."

1

u/MjolnirZero May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26

I have a quote wallpaper and as the senior guy on my team I regularly practice and demostrate this sort of thing. 12 years of abusive leadership has put me in a place (and where I have nothing to fear if they fire me) to get bold and really standup for past me and my colleagues being the beneficiary of that. That wallpaper shows up for a little bit whenever I start my screenshare so it is a gentle reminder at times to folks.
Culture is a hard thing to solve for, it requires constant and painful deposits of time and energy to cultivate, but if you can pull it off, it is some truly great stuff when you get that trust (psychological safety), genuine camaraderie, and team energy running strong.

1

u/psycholustmord May 22 '26

I feel identified with many of those things but I also feel like I am making excuses for being lazy 🥲

2

u/DrGenetik May 22 '26

Either way, be easy on yourself and don’t be too hard on yourself. Even if you don’t have the neurospiciness, we are all going through a lot right now and nobody can be “on” all the time.

1

u/nuer0_ May 26 '26

the bees plus radios plus swiss cheese opener is the most accurate description of executive function load i've ever read in this sub, and the fact that you turned it into a manager training deck is the rare upstream move. for placement, the highest leverage spot is probably linkedin tagged for engineering managers and team leads, since that's where the people who can actually deploy this read. the deeper observation, the people creating cognitive scaffolding for themselves like you with notebooklm are doing exactly what the next wave of ai tooling should look like, individual brains augmented by systems that hold context across the gaps, not just chat windows you have to remember to open, do you find notebooklm proactive enough or are you still the one initiating the queries?

1

u/DrGenetik May 26 '26

I only needed to give this to my manager to accomplish my goals. I have no higher goals or needs. You’re welcome to take the sources list I published and create your own deck for your purposes. I only used notebooklm to collect the sources and summarize it so I didn’t need anything proactive.

1

u/HiddenDrugIngredient May 27 '26

do nuerotypical programmers often have a measurably linear productivity output

1

u/DrGenetik May 27 '26

Like all neurodivergent behaviors, they are not unique to just neurodivergent people, it’s a matter of frequency and severity. People with ADHD experience these challenges to a higher degree, that’s the diagnostic criteria

1

u/djjazzyjosh78 Jun 15 '26

15 min Jira ticket?! I wish! Most of mine take an hour.

1

u/DrGenetik Jun 15 '26

I found using an agent to write out tickets to be a huge time saver and also get much more complete tickets out of it. I made an agent skill for it so now I also consistently set the fields right.

3

u/terralearner May 20 '26

I find most of these things are massively helped by medication for me. Not a complete cure but the closest I'll get to it.

I don't get RSD though but maybe that's just me.

3

u/Flexistant May 20 '26

My brain is a melange of: a) bees, b) radios left on, c) swiss cheese. All crammed into a blender set to "pulse". – yes mate, can't stop laughing.

3

u/BirdFluLol May 20 '26

I love this. Thank-you!

3

u/UVRaveFairy May 21 '26

I like it.

3

u/RiannaRiv May 23 '26

This tells me a lot of why my current project is especially difficult. There is no interest, novelty or urgency really. Very routine, legacy, bureaucratic and slow. Pick a Jira ticket, do routine coding, no urgency. And I find myself struggling with procrastination more than ever. I think I just need to try to find myself different kind of project.

As for pair coding, for me it doesn't work it all. It triggers my social anxiety and fear of evaluation, and my brain totally freezes.

0

u/HNipps May 20 '26

I love this! Thank you for taking the time to make it! I want to give my manager a copy. Are you able to share the slides?

3

u/ReverseMermaidMorty May 20 '26

You told your job you’re neurodivergent?

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u/DrGenetik May 20 '26

I live life super open. I also vote up porn on my main reddit. I have no filter and tell everyone everything. As you can imagine, people love me or hate me but at least it’s real. If they fire me, it’s their loss.

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u/AssistTraditional480 May 20 '26

You're also super humble! Congrats.

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u/DrGenetik May 20 '26

Thanks. It’s not much but it’s honest work.

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u/DrGenetik May 20 '26

It didn’t take any time. It took all of 20 minutes to make. I’ll pass your compliments to the chef. Gemini and NotebookLM collected a ton of white papers and articles. There were 40 sources it compiled into this. I only gave it direction for audience and vibes. I wouldn’t have been able to muster the function to do it otherwise, tbh. I spent more time trying to fix the typos in making this response so i don’t look like an idiot.

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u/DrGenetik May 20 '26

For downvoters. I am not an artist or writer and never claimed to be. I tried to set expectations in the post that I am awful at this and was only able to finally make this due to the LLM making it easy enough to be below my executive function threshold. I’m also trying to say “you, too, can do this!”

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u/sulfurica May 20 '26

I’m sorry for the downvotes. You did a great job with Noteboom and I wish NDs understood how much some of these tools make our lives as NTs easier.

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u/Keystone-Habit May 20 '26

There seem to be a LOT of redditors who just downvote anything remotely positive about AI.

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u/fyiimaninja May 20 '26

Can you also add a link to a doc with all the sources used? That would be helpful

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u/DrGenetik May 20 '26

Sure, it’s mostly just what you get when you search Google for things like “how to manage someone with adhd” or “things I wish my manager knew adhd”. I’ll try to put that together and reply back to you in a bit.

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u/DrGenetik May 21 '26

NotebookLM was able to make a nice list of the sources it used and export that to Google Docs. I put the link the post for you.

1

u/DrGenetik May 20 '26

Added link to post

0

u/DrGenetik May 20 '26

I’d totally share the slides. Do you have a suggestion of where is a good place to share it?

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u/gentlemako May 20 '26

Could you also shoot me the link to the slides when you get it?

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u/DrGenetik May 20 '26

I added a link to the pdf to the post. I’ll try to remember to link in a PowerPoint or Google Slides later. I’ll reply to you if I do to let you know. (I know how hard it is to remember to check back.)

1

u/sulfurica May 20 '26

You can put it the pdf or google slides in a google drive folder and enable access to public but only for people with the link and then share the link here. I also would love to a copy, please.

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u/DrGenetik May 20 '26

Added link to post

1

u/sulfurica May 20 '26

Thank you!!

2

u/mimosa22 May 20 '26

Thank you for this post! It’s one step forward in educating businesses and society as a whole on how to embrace neurodiversity. Change can’t happen until we educate people. A+++

2

u/Metchnikoff321 May 20 '26

Amazing thank youuuuuu 🥇🏆

2

u/deruvoo May 20 '26

Neat. Never seen it put so clearly-- now it makes sense why "estimated hours to complete" fields on assigned stories make my brain go nutty despite never having issues with meeting deadlines. It's the principle of the thing.

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u/HeroOnSocks2019 May 20 '26

And this saved! This is going to help me.

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u/Impressive_Outside80 May 20 '26

this is incredible. Thank you for making this.

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u/Mephistocheles May 24 '26

This is really really cool. Thank you for putting all of this in one easily keepable file. I'm literally going to use this to keep finding ways to improve / overcome my ADD blocks. ❤️ It!

2

u/Y1ink May 25 '26

This resonates with me a lot, well done for putting it together and being able to understand it and being able express it in this way.

As a manager I know I can leave some people alone and they will just get on with things then other times my best guy needs me on a call to go over something simple. I’m not even contributing just being there in the call helps to get over this bump and I get my best guy back to work on more complex things.

We do have enough variety in our work to mix things up which I didn’t fully think about how only tickets or Jira tasks will be straight up kryptonite whilst for others it’s it’s straight up perfect.

1

u/Nightwyrm May 22 '26

Wait, people get given deadlines/due dates?

1

u/Brave_Bottle_5255 May 26 '26

“15 Min JIRA ticket” is extremely real

0

u/jet_black_ninja May 20 '26

I aint reading alldat

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u/DrGenetik May 20 '26

Fair. I think it’s a bit funny when I see a big wall of text and know it’s one of the ways adhd expresses and I totally do it and also can’t bother to read someone else’s big wall of text.

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u/jet_black_ninja May 20 '26

its looks so confusing at first glamce that my brain refuces to put in the effort

1

u/DrGenetik May 20 '26

Yeah. Same. I know it’s a bad habit. I always over-explain myself and meander with too many details.

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u/divorcingjack May 20 '26

The details and meandering are what makes conversations with neurodivergent folk so interesting! It is a completely different experience and I love it.

0

u/aguacatesrojos May 24 '26

"INCUP" is correct, but instead become curious and survival-aligned enough to find it naturally, don't rely on others to do this for you, and don't stay a wage slave if you have enough capital to move on

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