Understand the business

Dear new developer,

Your code is written to further some end. It could be for academia, government, or, more likely, for business purposes. In all the cases, having a greater understanding of these overarching purposes will allow you to make smarter decisions and write better systems. However, just like in software development, business uses a lot of jargon.

It’s worth spending some time decoding that jargon. You may not understand every part of it (just like you probably don’t understand every piece of the system you are working on) but even a little can help. It can help you sift through possible solutions and connect with non technical staff.

For a very high level overview of how business and financial decisions are made, I can’t recommend the MBA Mondays series enough. From one of them:

If cash flow is positive for all periods, then you are done with cash. If it is negative, do one more thing. Divide your cash balance by the average monthly burn rate and figure out how many months of cash you have left. If you are burning cash, you need to know this number by heart as well. It is the length of your runway. For all you entrepreneurs out there, the three cash related numbers you need to be on top of are current cash balance, cash burn rate, and months of runway.

You can definitely find other sources for this information (I enjoyed The Personal MBA as well). These general purpose business books will give you a handle to have discussions with other people in the business. Have those discussions–at gatherings, in the hallway, at lunch. Take these opportunities to ask questions–people love to talk about themselves.

You don’t need to be an expert in the business your employer is in, but being even slightly familiar with it will give you a better understanding of how your technical decisions affect expenses and revenues.

Sincerely,

Dan