Become A Better Developer Today

While technical skills are always useful, even the most talented developer will fail to be noticed (and appropriately compensated) by management if they aren’t effective in their work. If you’ve been around a while, you’ve probably noticed that not all of the most skilled developers are recognized for the quality of their work, with many languishing for years in senior developer roles. Worse still, you’ve probably seen developers whose skills and knowledge were mediocre at best who were promoted over and over again. While it’s a common refrain in this industry that good development practices aren’t respected, that’s not really the entire picture. The real deal here is that “good” development practices are only going to be rewarded if they actually produce value. Further, there are plenty of good practices that a developer should engage in that have little to do with code and have everything to do with actually providing value to the people signing your paycheck. If you want to be a more effective developer and to have that adequately recognized by management, you have to change your patterns of behavior so that your technical skills are actually visible and acknowledged. For your skills to really shine through, you have to get rid of other problems that can make you look bad in spite of “mad technical skillz”. Further, if you follow these practices, you’ll often find that they have a side effect of forcing your technical skills to improve as well. If you want to be a better developer starting today, there are a lot of things you can do to see an immediate improvement in how other people perceive you. Not only does this make it more likely that you will get recognized for your development skills, but it makes you more useful in general. This usefulness will not only make it easier to make more money, but it also puts you in a much better position to improve your own skills as a developer. Episode Breakdown Consider second order effects Every action has a reaction (and most non-actions do as well). A lot of problems come from failing to anticipate second order (and following) effects. For instance, adding an online store to your application also implies additional regulatory and security compliance costs. Second order effects aren’t all negative. Sometimes they create opportunity as well. For instance, the online store mentioned previously might provide the opportunity for further product customization for your buyers. The consideration of second order effects will help you write better code in anticipation of likely business needs, and asking questions about second order effects will help you build your network outside your department, which is very helpful for a lot of the other things we are suggesting in this episode. Optimize for team efficiency and be vocal about it. Good developers fix their own processes for better efficiency. Great developers do the same for their team. You shouldn’t be competing with your teammates. If you are, that’s a very bad sign. Instead, if you are helping your team be more effective as a unit, your contributions will (should) still be noticed, and you will create more value. While you may not have the leverage to actually MAKE your team use better processes, you can still lead them to implementing better processes by showing how those processes make things easier for them. Learn how the money comes in. Many developers think they can just come into the office, write some angular code, and be done with it. However, the truth is that the value of your code is always based on how that code impacts the flow of money in your organization. Learning how the money comes in will also help you position yourself within the organization. When you understand how the money flows through the business,