How Do You Know a Developer Is Doing a Good Job?

Re:How Do You Know a Developer Is Doing a Good Job? by ScottBurson on Friday February 10, 2017 @03:35AM (#13614046)

> Ultimately you can't make any judgement of the developer without detailed understanding of the specifics of the work.

You've nailed it. This is why I would go so far as to say that someone with no programming experience can't effectively manage developers.

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Re:How Do You Know a Developer Is Doing a Good Job? by pc86 on Friday February 10, 2017 @08:04AM (#13615076)

You can manage them, you just can't judge their work. I'm a team lead and I'm lucky in that my direct supervisor was a programmer for a long time, still runs a SaaS in his spare time, etc, so he gets it. But he has colleagues who are CPAs, management consultants, etc before they were managing their current dev teams.

They rely a lot more on their technical leads to tell them how the other devs are doing at a technical level. They're perfectly capable of managing their professional development without having an in-depth knowledge of enterprise architecture or C#.

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Re:How Do You Know a Developer Is Doing a Good Job? by ScottBurson on Friday February 10, 2017 @03:25PM (#13618567)

> They rely a lot more on their technical leads to tell them how the other devs are doing at a technical level.

So the leads are de facto managers in that they're assisting the manager in managing the other developers. I think this can work, but I don't think it contradicts what I said. It just means the leads wind up doing some managing even though that's not what their titles say.

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Re:How Do You Know a Developer Is Doing a Good Job? by rubidium on Friday February 10, 2017 @07:15AM (#13614836)

I've meet one programming manager with 0 programming experience (but he was a Mech Engr). His team loved him, they got real work done, he prioritized things for them effectively, and he helped insulate them from the b.s.

So, while it's rare there are certainly managers out there who can.

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Re:How Do You Know a Developer Is Doing a Good Job? by vog on Friday February 10, 2017 @07:48AM (#13614997)

> and he helped insulate them from the b.s.

This reminds me strongly on yesterday's Dilbert: http://dilbert.com/strip/2017-02-09

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Re:How Do You Know a Developer Is Doing a Good Job? by crdoconnor on Friday February 10, 2017 @04:09AM (#13614191)

This is also why remote working isn't more popular.

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Re:How Do You Know a Developer Is Doing a Good Job? by jjude on Friday February 10, 2017 @04:31AM (#13614264)

Can you say how this is related? I am trying to get into remote development (after 20 years of software experience).

How are the other two points mentioned earlier related to remote working? I am curious.

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Re:How Do You Know a Developer Is Doing a Good Job? by crdoconnor on Friday February 10, 2017 @05:28AM (#13614443)

If you can't accurately assess the productivity of the developers by monitoring their output, you will default to metrics you can understand - usually that means monitoring the time spent in their seat.

From what I've seen coding managers seem much more open to remote work than non-coding managers.

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Re:How Do You Know a Developer Is Doing a Good Job? by passiveincomelg on Friday February 10, 2017 @11:49AM (#13616767)

I like this blogpost on the subject: https://www.pandastrike.com/posts/20150622-remote-assess-dev...

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Re:How Do You Know a Developer Is Doing a Good Job? by bryanrasmussen on Friday February 10, 2017 @05:05AM (#13614378)

well remote working does make checking on the remote worker harder so more difficult to know what they are actually doing, but knowing if their tasks are difficult or similar things should be achievable just over chat.

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Re:How Do You Know a Developer Is Doing a Good Job? by bertil on Friday February 10, 2017 @05:46AM (#13614513)

I have noticed that people who review your code have no issue with remote work, and can easily assess your state of mind, personality traits without much more help like video and visits. It makes it harder for the people not reviewing your work.

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Re:How Do You Know a Developer Is Doing a Good Job? by Singletoned on Friday February 10, 2017 @05:34AM (#13614473)

Sadly you are right. In person, an unskilled manager can tell if it looks like you are working hard, even if they don't understand what you are doing. Remotely, they can't even tell that, and are effectively blind.

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Re:How Do You Know a Developer Is Doing a Good Job? by paulgrimes1 on Friday February 10, 2017 @03:44AM (#13614089)

Bingo. Well said

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