How do you keep up With fellow developers who are always bragging about themselves ?

Hmm... Interesting question.

I've only dealt minorly with people like that. What I tend to do is:

• Be polite.
• Show the same amount of interest as I would to any other human being.

So if they say something like "I know React inside out", I would give them the benefit of the doubt and say something like "cool, you must have quite a bit of experience with it". Or if you really don't want to start a potentially long conversation, just say "that's cool" with a smile and get back to work.

Unfortunately there are suspicions for people who openly brag. If you're a good developer why do you need to brag about it? People would have noticed without you bragging. It is equally likely that you're not a good developer and just want to appear that way.

I would suggest that a more subtle solution is better. They can be helpful, which shows expertise, and they can notify people about their achievements in an update kind of way. Something like:

• Hey team, just to update everyone I fixed that bug that was causing problem X. The reason was Y and the solution was Z.
• To product managers: Hey Alice, I implemented that feature you wanted.
• In a code review: Hey Bob, this module is quite large and has multiple concerns. I think we could refactor concern X and Y into separate modules to better abide by the single responsibility principle. Please come see me if you have any questions.

Two easy steps:

• You realize that those dudes who are trying so hard to impress their peers are putting their energy into an essentially meaningless activity
• You focus on your users and provide value to them

Be like Alice in this story

Alice Makes Unusual Landscapes Beautiful and Doesn't Seem to Have Time for Much Else

Stop Arguing with Software Developers on the Internet

Erik Dietrich ・ Jan 21 ・ 10 min read

#career

If they knew so much, they would use their keyboard to display it, not their mouth.