The modern day enterprise Developer is wrapped in bodies of thick insulation, literally bodies as you churn through tickets from up high, your manager, seniors and lead are taking the flack and deflecting the pain onto themselves and you have to think... I'm glad it's not me, let me fix this bug.
It wasn't forefilling, I measure my success on promotion and I wasn't really getting promoted.. I'm starting to see why, it's clear to me now that I tried too hard and I didn't care about the customer it wasn't my job, you might be like me, saying "I care about UX" not realising this is actually a way of saying I care that this product doesn't annoy me
I moved away from being a traditional developer for this reason, no more insulation, no more not understanding the motivations from on high, endless ceramony adding complexity, cognitive load and stress, I have been a consultant for 2 years, here's what I learned.
One shot
⭐ When you meet with a customer you have one shot to hear what they have to say, so open your ears, it's handy to know some tricks to defer responces but you won't get another chance to hear the brief, so ask questions and take notes as you talk, it's okay to say I'm taking notes.
⭐ Bring a glass of water, it's kind of like a job interview after all.
⭐ As the expert on the subject of the product, you become the defacto product lead on this specific subject so act like it and lead.
⭐ It's okay to say no
⭐ Tripple your estimates and have a personal goal to achieve it in 20% of the time
⭐ Never give a precise answer to the question how long will it take! Only a breakdown of how to get to that point
⭐ I care about the customer, but I also want to see them succeed, I need to know thier plans and recommend approaches that might be contrary to Thier suggestions
Where do I go from here? Soon I'm going back to development with the confidence that I can lead, I will be looking into this type of role in the future, but can I just say, this wasn't a linear path, a career like this taught me a lot about the entire company I work for and I wonder maybe your trying to go in straight lines and maybe you need to wobble?
Top comments (6)
The best gain in experience are when you go off track. Accept a role with a new technologies. Start helping (aka do the job of the absent) project manager. If in large organization dont follow the official communication rules, aka become friend with the operation, securities, internal tool, etc teams member (but also know when not to go around the official way)
You then become more knowledgeable, demonstrate more responsibility and start to become known in your environment. This makes you stand out when management is searching for new position and might get you those promotion.
Going freelance is one of those off path way to get a lot of experience and it doesn't prevent coming back as a regular employee later and allow you to look for the roles that you want.
A totally agree with and have experienced everything you've said, when your jobs on a knife edge that's also a great motivator to find ways to be useful! Thanks for your comment 🙂
Gold!
Answer questions with answers to other questions 😁
Customer satisfaction is very important
It is, we have to eat 😅