How To Excel At Your Job As A New Developer

Dear new developer,

I think that there are only really four tasks you need to do to do a good job as a new developer.

Say what you are going to do, then do it. This is all about communicating what you are working on. You can do this explicitly (via face to face communication or slack) or implicitly (via moving cards on a Trello board or Jira). The important part is to keep other people (who likely will have a better idea of the big picture) in the loop. Oh, and then you actually have to do the work.
Ask questions. Don’t be afraid. This will help you do the work.
Don’t make the same mistake twice. Learn from any that you make. This will help you do the work better in the future.
Show up consistently. Sometimes you just have to grind. To do the work. (Is there an echo in here?)

If you can do these four things, you will stand out as a new developer. Why? It’s sad to say, but there are a lot of developers who aren’t very good. I’ve seen a few in my time. I’m not sure if they weren’t good because they were burned out, just didn’t care, didn’t have the skillset or the desire to learn, or were just in it for the money. Other times, I’ve seen developers get complacent, which is a foolish thing to do in this day and age (and a luxury that most new developers do not have). See also this comment thread on Hackernews about 20% of developers failing to be able to write fizzbuzz.

So, you don’t have to be brilliant to stand out. You do have to be good and consistent. And do the work.

Make sure you do all these, especially during the first few months, and you’ll gain a reputation as a delight to work with. This reputation will follow you for years and continue to help you.

Sincerely,

Dan

The Surprising Number Of Programmers Who Can’t Program

Dear new developer,

This came up in a Hacker News comment thread recently:

I’ve been working since the 90s and I never attempted to do FizzBuzz. Is it really relevant? Maybe to screen junior developers out of college?

And the response

So, as someone who spends maybe 20% of their time hiring, it’s still a very effective screen. You wouldn’t believe how many people can’t do it. People at big companies, respected places. It’s surprising.

I find it truly surprising. Here’s a post from 2007 about the same issue, so it’s been around a while. From that post:

…I’m starting to get a little worried. I’m more than willing to cut freshly minted software developers slack at the beginning of their career. Everybody has to start somewhere. But I am disturbed and appalled that any so-called programmer would apply for a job without being able to write the simplest of programs.

As a new developer, realize that

You are going to stand out among other applicants if you can program.
If you can’t program, you need to fix that asap.
There are some folks that are just not effective programmers who somehow are in the profession (or seeking employment). You may end up working with and for some of these people.

So, make sure you practice programming. My letters have been about some of the other aspects of software development, but if you can’t do the basic work, you’re going to have a tough time. That’s like a baseball player who can’t run. Doesn’t matter how good someone is at catching a ball or hitting, if you can’t run, you’re going to be fundamentally disadvantaged at baseball.

Sincerely,

Dan

No company is a monolith

Dear new developer,

When I was a new developer, or actually new to the business world, I thought that companies acted rationally.

They don’t.

I remember when an old timer at my first job talked about empire builders. Basically, his perspective was that above a certain level, there’s not much interest in actually doing things at many companies. Instead, people in power want to accumulate more power–more budget, more headcount, more influence. And this causes turf wars.

I have seen this happen with my own eyes. At one point in the mid 2000s I was hired as a contractor at a big company. Showed up bright eyed and bushy tailed ready to do work. Nothing to do. Asked my contracting company what to do–“bill 40 hours”. Asked my manager what to do–couldn’t get ahold of him. Asked employees what to do–no one wanted to give me any tasks (I never found out why). I believe the manager was just maintaining his budgets and headcount. I spent a lot of time browsing the internet.

I have never felt more useless in my life.

So the point is that there are factions in a company above a certain size (below a certain size, there are still factions, but they are more united because they are trying to make sure the company continues to exist, and there’s fewer places for bad apples who are not interested in the company mission to hide).

What does this mean for you? When you don’t have a job, realize that there are different people and departments that might hire you. Just because you were rejected from one position doesn’t mean you’ll be rejected from another.

If you have a job, it’s a good idea for you to gain an understanding of the various factions and players. Lots of times this can be accomplished by asking questions at company social events and drawing your conclusions. You can then determine which faction you want to be part of (a rising one seems to me to be the best).

I have no patience for this kind of stuff. I’d rather find a great boss and work hard to make him or her look great. That’s probably why I’ve spent most of my life at small companies.

But, the point is, if you’re working in a larger organization (more than say, 60 people) you”re going to want to be aware of the internal politics.

Sincerely,

Dan

Tips for using email well

Dear new developer,

Writing great emails is a key skill. For all the hullabaloo about slack, emails still rule the roost when it comes to cross organization communication. This is because everyone has email, it is auditable and uneditable once sent, and requires no special permission beyond knowledge of an email address.

Email is great at conveying information, but horrible at conveying context. It also can be unclear and ambiguous. Because email is asynchronous, ambiguity causes slowdowns and confusion more than ambiguity in conversation (where you can say something like “when you said tomorrow, do you mean Saturday or Monday, the next business day?”).

This post has some great tips on how to write great emails. From the post:

Avoid using only temporal adverbs/nouns like yesterday, today, tomorrow, two hours ago etc but include also the specific dates/times otherwise they might be misunderstood or require from recipients to check the email’s sent date/time to calculate the actual time.

and

Use bookmarkable links when you refer to something that would eventually require from the recipient to search for in another platform.

There are a number of other great tips for writing clear emails in this post. The author also provides before and after examples, which really illustrate the points.

Worth a read.

Sincerely,

Dan

Develop Denver Presentation

Dear new developer,

In a slight departure from the normal posting schedule, I wanted to announce that I’m speaking at Develop Denver on Friday, August 16. I’ll be talking about three things that surprised me when I was a new developer. There are a number of other interesting presentations across a variety of topics. Here’s the schedule (pdf). Lots of smart people, which will, among other things, let you have great conversations and break out of being an expert beginner.

You can still get tickets here. If you’re in the Denver area, hope to see you there!

Sincerely,

Dan

There are no adults in the room

Dear new developer,

One of the most shocking things I learned when I started working in a professional capacity is that there are no adults in the room.

That is not to denigrate everyone at your company, working hard to help make the place successful.

Rather, it is to say that no one knows everything and everyone is doing the best they can. (Well, most people, and it’s good to assume positive intent.)

If you go into a company expecting to be handed work on a platter and to have someone know exactly what is going on, the way that, say, a college professor knows how to teach physics 101, you are going to be disappointed. It’s much more likely that the folks who are senior to you are trying to stay one step ahead of the customer.

There are people who are more or less expert at the problem space, but I’ve only worked at one place in my life where someone was truly a master of almost every aspect of the business. And even in that place, there was a lot of uncertainty around new programs and a lot of “hmmm, will that work, let’s try it and see”.

(This isn’t isolated to the software industry, by the way. I know folks in other industries and they aren’t perfectly run organizations. Even in organizations that really matter, like hospitals, the chaos and uncertainty is there.)

So, once the maelstrom of chaos and uncertainty arrives, there are two ways to look at it

problem. Oh my god, no one knows what the heck is going on. What kind of place is this?
opportunity. Excellent, I can see that folks are grappling toward solving problems and need some help. Let me put my nose the grindstone and see how I can help.

Of course, there is some level of uncertainty that you shouldn’t accept (anything that could damage your health, ethics or paycheck, for starters). But it was sobering to me to realize that there are no true adults in the room at any organization.

Just people trying to do their best.

Sincerely,

Dan

Write a brag document

Dear new developer,

You will encounter good managers and bad managers in your career. I’ve found that one common thread for all managers is that they are busy. Busy with meetings, busy with coordination with other teams or parts of the business, busy putting out fires, busy with helping team members. Busy busy busy.

They also will likely be responsible for your career. Promotions, compensation increases, title changes. A good manager will want you to be challenged and grow and learn.

However.

The only person who really cares about your career is you.

You can help your manager help you by helping them know what you do. Sometimes this feels like an undue burden. Surely your manager can keep track of what you’ve accomplished on their team. And some do know some of the stuff you’ve done, some time.

But what you want is to help them know everything that you’ve done that you’re proud of. This helps them understand what a great team member you are, and also gives them ammunition to fight for resources (money, projects) that you deserve.

One place to put this information is in your LinkedIn profile (more about my opinion on LinkedIn). Of course, make sure you don’t reveal any company secrets (projects, launches, technologies) in this.

Another alternative is an internal brag document. Julia Evans has written a great post on writing one. This outlines one way you can help your manager (and yourself) keep track of all the great work you’ve done. It can be far more detailed since it is internal and not limited in length.

It’s not just limited to project accomplishments. You can build a bigger story. From the post:

In addition to just listing accomplishments, in your brag document you can write the narrative explaining the big picture of your work. Have you been really focused on security? On building your product skills & having really good relationships with your users? On building a strong culture of code review on the team?

I haven’t written one of these (although you could consider my blog somewhat of a brag document, I suppose. Yet another reason to start a blog). But having some kind of record of your accomplishments that you can share with your manager will help them help you.

Sincerely,

Dan