I want to be invested in my work
By invested here, I really mean that I want to know who my users are and what does my work enable them to do? How does it really help them? For my entire professional career, I've always worked on applications that I'd never use because my work targets a user base that is in an entirely different career path than me. That doesn't mean I can't be invested in my work for them. Knowing that the applications my team and I build directly makes our user's jobs possible or more efficient is that investment I desire and having direct user feedback is a huge payoff for that investment. Take that feedback loop away and I'm less driven to actually get things done.
I prefer an interesting problem
This doesn't mean that I can't find enjoyment out of implementing the simple things. Sometimes it's the simplest looking designs and functions that turn out to have a hidden quirk that needs more thought or design put into it than originally thought. I have a drive to make things better whether that's the code, the process, or the people and that's where I find the most interesting work. When a team starts to fall into their comfort zone and refuse to push the boundaries is when I know it's time to move on.
I need transparency
This one is actually twofold. One aspect of this is having transparency within the team and our goals to know where we're going and how the team feels things are progressing. Having worked in teams that feel they can open up and teams that guard their every move, there's a world of difference between the two and even on teams where people sometimes don't get along or disagree with each other, the more transparent team has always been lower stress and higher producing. The second aspect of this is transparency from the management structure. Where are we heading as a company? When this aspect isn't transparent, it reduces morale because there's a level of uncertainty in what the team's role is and how our work moves us closer to the company's goals.
What about you? What drives you at work every day?
Top comments (2)
Scaling!
Our company has been growing at a pretty good clip for the past 3 years and every day we have to process more and more data. I love all the challenges that come with that from making the site faster to ensuring that our datastores are all working optimally. There are a lot of hard problems that scaling presents and I thoroughly enjoy tackling them all.
On top of that, the rate at which we can process data is above and beyond anything else in the industry and hearing the excitement that brings clients is pretty cool. We play a really big part in making our client's jobs easier and that makes it all feel worth it.
That’s awesome. Scaling is definitely one of those interesting problems that provides a huge payoff and sense of accomplishment once solved (or can it ever truely be solved? :) ).