Be good at everything but better at something
Diversify. Knowing and working in different domains, using different programming languages and tools and handling diverse tasks enriches your creativity as a developer. It keeps your mind flexible and inspires you. Many can agree on that. But on the other hand you should find your niche, your personal joy, your home ground. Different developers have different personalities, different talents and different preferences. People shine when they work with something they like. They are more happy, more productive and more creative. But not all developers in a team or company have the same favorites. Your company should encourage you getting better at your specialty. Work on your strengths.
I like dynamic languages, others prefer static languages. Some developers like to craft desktop software, some web applications. Others concentrate on the UI or controlling robots or sensors. Some ponder over algorithms while others are happy with designing visualizations.
When your team has a common ground but everybody has strengths in different fields everybody can learn from and supplement each other. Synergy is created.
Be support, project manager, admin, …
Developers in our company wear many hats. Sometimes even literally (but that’s another story). If a developer is responsible or takes part in other roles of the project his view is widened. When he talks with customers he not only understands their needs better but also can suggest different ways or solutions. His domain knowledge grows and he can identify pain points. Working with the platforms where the application is deployed and the systems involved also strengthens his grasp of the environment the application lives in. As a project manager he learns to juggle time and scope. He learns to work with constraints and different forces pulling not only the code but the whole project.
Optimize for forgiveness
A user deleted a post accidentally. What do we normally do? We introduce a security question to establish a barrier for deletion. What’s this? We make the UX worse because we think it is the user’s fault and we need to protect him from himself. A better way would be to don’t delete the post but make it invisible. This way he can undo if he wrongly deleted the post. But what about updates? Updating a post overwrites the old content. What if this happened not on purpose? A better way would be to record the last state of the post and undo the update if necessary. Todays computers have so much memory and are so powerful that an application can be allowed to be merciful. It can forgive its users when they did something wrong and want to revert it.
It is not about you
This is one of the hardest lessons to learn. Your work is not about you. Yes, it reflects you in a way. But it does not define you, you define the work. If your code has bugs or you make a mistake and accidentally delete important data, take a deep breath and think. Get help. Plan your steps, discuss with others what to do. Tell them you made a mistake. Everybody does. Do not try to fix it yourself. Do not hide it. Focus on the problem at hand. Not your shame or feeling of guilt. (This goes hand in hand with optimizing for forgiveness)
Talk and listen
Feedback. One of the most important things in software development. Talk to your users. Listen. Again and again. Often talking 10 minutes about a task or problem can result in hours of work saved. The bug you couldn’t reproduce? It was in a different area. The feature you thought was nearly impossible? With a slight change it is much easier. This also goes for everything else. Deployments and commits. Design decisions. You are the expert in your domain, the customer in his. Act accordingly. Tell him the options he has and what will be the consequences. Don’t let him guess. He shouldn’t do your work.
Schneide Blog 