When Your Manager Goes 'All In' on Python—And the Whole Team Hits Pause
There’s a special place in software legend for stories about managers with “big ideas.” You know the ones: They stride in, credentials gleaming, and announce a sweeping change that, on paper, looks modern and bold—but in reality, leaves their team blinking in confused horror. Today’s tale, straight from Reddit’s r/MaliciousCompliance, is a classic of the genre: a manager so enthusiastic about Python, he tried to turn a C/C++/C# shop into a Python-only utopia… overnight.
Spoiler alert: It did not go well. But oh, was it entertaining to watch.
The Setup: A Small, Mighty Team—and a Sudden Shift
Our story begins in a small but profitable company filled with brilliant scientists and engineers, and a tight-knit software team. For years, this group built and maintained custom programs to calibrate specialized equipment. Most of the codebase was in the C family—C, C++, C#—with a sprinkling of web technologies. Life was good. The team was highly skilled, productivity was high, and the occasional legacy program kept things interesting.
Enter the new software manager, hired for his impressive resume and sensible approach. For the first few weeks, he watched and listened, inspiring hope that he’d fit right in. But then came his Big Idea: “All new code must be written in Python. Effective immediately.”
Malicious Compliance: Python or Bust!
Why the sudden shift? As it turns out, a scientist in the company was struggling to understand the team’s C# code and wanted to make edits directly. The new manager’s solution? Have the entire software team switch to Python, with a bonus requirement: all code must be “Pythonic” enough to pass the scientist’s approval.
And there was a catch: None of the developers actually knew Python.
When the team pointed this out, they were told to “learn on your own time and dime.” Existing libraries, honed over a decade, were now radioactive—nope, you can’t use them. Want to update a C# app? Figure out how to bolt Python onto it, and make sure it’s done the “right” (read: scientist-approved) Python way.
So, the developers did what any good software pros do when faced with impossible demands: They complied, to the letter. Productivity flatlined. Complex updates became impossible. Instead, everyone spent their days writing tiny Python scripts, poking at tutorials, and trying (futilely) to glue Python into C# user interfaces. Not a single piece of software shipped for months.
The Great Undoing—and the Return of Sanity
Eventually, the inevitable happened. The manager, perhaps sensing that his Python Paradise wasn’t materializing, “pursued other opportunities.” (Translation: he was probably shown the door, but no one wanted to say it out loud.)
His replacement took one look at the smoldering productivity crater and made some sensible adjustments:
- Support legacy code in the language it was written.
- Use Python for new, small tools where it made sense.
- Train the team in new languages—on company time and budget.
- Keep science and engineering input in their lane: validate the science, but don’t edit production code.
With these changes, the team bounced back. Python found its place, but so did C, C++, C#, and web tech. New programs rolled out. Users were happy. No more “Pythonic” approval queues.
Lessons Learned: Code, Culture, and the Perils of One-Size-Fits-All
What’s the moral here? No one language rules them all, especially in a shop with a deep, diverse codebase. Good managers know that sweeping changes need buy-in, training, and—most importantly—context. A programming language is just a tool, not a religion. And when a team’s productivity tanks to zero, you might want to ask if the process, not the people, is the problem.
So next time you hear someone suggest rewriting your entire stack in the “language of the week,” remember this cautionary tale. It’s not about whether Python, C#, or anything else is better—it’s about using the right tool for the job, and respecting the expertise of the people wielding it.
Have you ever experienced a top-down tech mandate that went spectacularly wrong? Share your war stories in the comments! Let’s commiserate—and maybe laugh—a little together.
Original Reddit Post: All in on Python... You got it!