What if some of the people on your team weren’t actually working—but just good at looking busy? In this episode, I sit down with Yegor Denisov-Blanch to discuss a fascinating and troubling trend in the tech world: ghost engineers. These are software developers whose productivity is so low that they barely contribute—yet they manage to stay employed. Yegor, a researcher dedicated to improving software engineering performance, dives into what causes this phenomenon, why it’s more common than you’d think, and how it affects company culture, team morale, and overall efficiency. But instead of just calling them out, his goal is to understand why this happens—and how to fix it.

We also explore how the same disengagement issues that plague workplaces show up in schools. Yegor shares his own unconventional education journey, having dropped out of the traditional system at 14, teaching himself to code, and later excelling in university. What does this say about the way we measure productivity and success—not just in work, but in learning? 

Episode Highlights:

[00:49] - What exactly is a ghost engineer, and why are companies unknowingly paying them?

[03:41] - The research behind software engineer performance and why measuring it has been difficult.

[06:38] - How ghost engineers operate—are they just lazy, or is there something deeper going on?

[10:41] - The surprising psychological and workplace culture factors that push employees toward disengagement.

[15:22] - The role of trust in the workplace and why micromanagement can actually increase disengagement.

[23:30] - How remote work has changed productivity—for better and worse.

[25:18] - Yegor’s unconventional education journey: Dropping out of 8th grade, starting a business at 14, and later graduating top of his class.

[32:24] - How personalized learning and self-directed education could prevent disengagement in students before they enter the workforce.

[40:30] - The bigger mission: Not just exposing ghost engineers, but fixing the system so they don’t need to exist.

Links & Resources:

• Are ‘ghost engineers’ real? Seeking Silicon Valley’s least productive coders: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/12/08/ghost-engineers-programming-productivity-coding/ 
• Stanford Research: Measuring Software Engineering Productivity: https://dpe.org/sessions/simon-obstbaum-yegor-denisov-blanch/stanford-research-measuring-software-engineering-productivity/ 

If this episode has helped you, remember to rate, follow, and share the Self-Driven Child Podcast. Your support helps us reach more people and create more content that makes a difference. 

If you have a high school aged student and would like to talk about putting a tutoring or college plan together, reach out to Ned's company, PrepMatters at www.prepmatters.com