DHH’s Reminder to Obsess Over Competence
October 12, 2025
David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH to most of us) closed 2023 with an essay called “Commit to competence in this coming year.” He starts by unpacking the word “competence.” It means being able to do the job you already have, not some distant dream role.
Use The Time You Already Spend
Every January we promise ourselves big reinventions: learn a language, launch a side project, read fifty books. DHH’s point is that these pledges usually fail because they assume we can conjure new time. Instead he reminds us we already pour about 2,000 hours a year into work. Redirect ten percent of that (roughly four focused hours a week) and you get the benefits without inventing a new schedule.
He uses programming as the test bed. Once you know how to solve a problem you tend to reuse the same pattern forever. That repetition makes you fast, but it also freezes your growth. Experience turns into a ceiling when you never try a different move.
DHH describes four layers. First, make it work. Second, make sure it is correct. Third, make it fast enough. The fourth layer is the one we often skip: make it beautiful. By beauty he does not mean clever macros. He means the 4C: clarity, cohesion, consistency, conciseness. Code with the 4C respects the next reader.
Treat Drafts As Drafts
His tactic is to treat the first version as a sketch. Ship a working slice. Then circle back with an editor’s mindset: rename the vague variable, split the function that does too much, jot a note about a trade-off. Junior engineers stop after the tests turn green. Seasoned engineers obsess over that last polish because they know someone else pays the price for their shortcuts.
DHH ends with a simple practice: read other people’s code. A teammate’s pull request is a free class in style and structure. You pick up habits you did not know you lacked and spot areas where your own code could be cleaner. Competence is not a lightning strike. It compounds quietly when you keep using the hours you already spend at the keyboard on purpose.