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Archetypes
Nov. 23rd, 2025 12:55 pmPop-psychology personality types are astrology for people who think they’re too smart for astrology. Very broad descriptions that fit anyone and trigger instant confirmation bias. Sometimes they still make handy metaphors.
I thought about it last week with my last winter chanterelles pick in a forest, when I noticed how many gatherer archetype traits match my own behaviour. That led me to the book Full Potential People: The Hunter, Gatherer and Farmer by Joakim Solberg, which describes these archetypes. It’s not real psychology, but it’s a decent conceptual framework for understanding team dynamics.
The Archetypes:
Hunter: Fast, opportunistic, thrives under pressure, bored by routine. Great in crises and early prototypes; unreliable in slow phases.
Gatherer: Detail-oriented, good at scanning and pattern-spotting. Ideal for analysis, debugging.
Herder (not present in the book, but I'd add it anyway): Social stabiliser. Keeps the group aligned, routines intact, and information flowing. Prevents chaos.
Farmer (Plant Grower): Long-term planner. Builds systems slowly and consistently. Great for architecture and sustained projects; bad fit for constant churn.
Why it’s useful..
These archetypes aren’t science, but they’re practical. In large engineering teams, I repeatedly seen these patterns. Hunters drive breakthroughs, gatherers fix things (but bad builders), herders keep the machine running, and farmers build the long-term foundation. It is great to work for a herder manager (my wife is a herder too), but farmer managers create more successful teams. My type - gatherer is probably not suitable at all for being ppl manager; hunter is the worst type of manager for a dev team, but maybe can be a good manager for a sales team.
As long as I think about it as a metaphor rather than a diagnosis, it’s a surprisingly effective lens for understanding how different developers work and what environments allow them to perform at their best.
I thought about it last week with my last winter chanterelles pick in a forest, when I noticed how many gatherer archetype traits match my own behaviour. That led me to the book Full Potential People: The Hunter, Gatherer and Farmer by Joakim Solberg, which describes these archetypes. It’s not real psychology, but it’s a decent conceptual framework for understanding team dynamics.
The Archetypes:
Hunter: Fast, opportunistic, thrives under pressure, bored by routine. Great in crises and early prototypes; unreliable in slow phases.
Gatherer: Detail-oriented, good at scanning and pattern-spotting. Ideal for analysis, debugging.
Herder (not present in the book, but I'd add it anyway): Social stabiliser. Keeps the group aligned, routines intact, and information flowing. Prevents chaos.
Farmer (Plant Grower): Long-term planner. Builds systems slowly and consistently. Great for architecture and sustained projects; bad fit for constant churn.
Why it’s useful..
These archetypes aren’t science, but they’re practical. In large engineering teams, I repeatedly seen these patterns. Hunters drive breakthroughs, gatherers fix things (but bad builders), herders keep the machine running, and farmers build the long-term foundation. It is great to work for a herder manager (my wife is a herder too), but farmer managers create more successful teams. My type - gatherer is probably not suitable at all for being ppl manager; hunter is the worst type of manager for a dev team, but maybe can be a good manager for a sales team.
As long as I think about it as a metaphor rather than a diagnosis, it’s a surprisingly effective lens for understanding how different developers work and what environments allow them to perform at their best.
