How to Be an Unhelpful Developer in Four Easy Steps

There are developers who are fantastic human beings. They go above and beyond their basic job and help those around them to work effectively. It does cost effort and time, and it’s not for everybody.

So, some developers choose to be unhelpful. They get tired of newbies asking the same questions over and over and regress into the type of developer who enjoys watching others struggle and they show off their technical superiority. It can be enjoyable and time saving to be an unhelpful developer.

With that in mind, I’ll give you the shortcuts to becoming that unhelpful developer. There are four essential steps to ensuring you provide as little value as possible while still maintaining an air of authority and making yourself feel good as well.

Remember: If you choose to take this path you’re missing the joke at the heart of this article.

Step 1: Reply Without Actually Answering the Question

When someone asks a question, the trick is to respond without actually providing any useful information. Channel your hidden interviewer as you pretend to be helpful while delivering nothing of the sort to the person requiring help.

There are multiple strategies for achieving this:

The Vague Hint

Instead of just giving the answer, say something cryptic like “It’s in the documentation” (without linking to the specific section) or “A simple Google search would have solved this”. Bonus points if the question is actually something obscure that isn’t well documented at all or is not possible to find on Google.

The Socratic Method (But Make It Annoying)

Instead of helping, just keep asking increasingly vague questions:

“What do you think the problem is?”

“Have you considered looking deeper into that?”

“Why do you think it isn’t working?”

Eventually, they’ll either figure it out or give up and leave. Either way, you’ve avoided being helpful while giving the air of being helpful. Well done you!

Step 2: Mock the Question

A true master of unhelpfulness doesn’t just ignore the question, they make the asker feel bad for even asking it. 

Some classic techniques include:

The Exasperated Veteran

You take on the character of an expressive narrator explaining what you think is happening. Here is a brilliant comment you can utter for starters: “Wow, I can’t believe people are still asking this in 2025.”

The Snarky Minimalist

Reply with “RTFM” (Read The Friendly Manual — where ‘friendly’ is usually replaced with something less polite). If that’s too hardcore for your working environment produce some documentation that once solved the problem but is subtly out of date and contains a solution that won’t work.

The Gatekeeper’s Delight

Remember the following mantra: “If you don’t know this already, maybe programming isn’t for you.”

Remember, the goal here isn’t to foster learning or encourage the person you are speaking to. You want to make sure people are too intimidated to ask for help in the future.

Step 3: Overcomplicate Everything

If you absolutely must provide an answer, make sure it’s as complex, convoluted, and inaccessible as possible. 

Excessive jargon

Jargon and abbreviations can be helpful, but when used to excess can contribute to your opaque and confusing answers.

So, instead of saying, “You need to check if your array is empty before accessing it,” say “You should implement a preemptive null-check conditional guard clause to ensure defensive coding principles align with expected runtime behavior”. Bonus points are given for including acronyms appropriate to your business and business logic at opportune times.

Esoteric programming concepts

Reference esoteric programming concepts that aren’t remotely relevant. When someone asks about a simple loop, bring up Big-O notation. When they’re struggling with a CSS issue, lecture them about the intricacies of WebAssembly.

Over-engineer your response

If they’re looking for a way to split a string, respond with a solution that involves writing a custom parser, deploying a microservice, and spinning up a Kubernetes cluster.

Step 4: Insist That Their Problem Isn’t a Problem

Perhaps the most powerful technique of all, simply deny that the issue exists in the first place. It's a developer favorite due to its effectiveness.

It works on my machine 

If you can’t reproduce the issue, it clearly doesn’t exist. Case closed.

Sounds like a you problem

Even if it’s a well-documented bug, make sure to dismiss it as user error.

Why would you even do it that way?”

Instead of helping, question their entire approach in a way that offers no guidance. Make them regret ever trying to solve the problem in the first place and definitely regret asking you for help.

Why This Approach Works So Well

By following these four simple steps, you ensure that:

New developers are too afraid to ask for help.

Software communities remain as insular and unwelcoming as possible.

You maintain the illusion of being an expert without actually contributing anything useful.

It’s a winning strategy for any developer who wishes to avoid interacting and helping other developers during their day, leaving them more time to develop ever more confusing solutions.

Conclusion

If you’d rather actually be a helpful developer, you could always… you know… answer questions, provide guidance, and foster a learning environment.

But where’s the fun in that?