Re:Being OK with not being extraordinary
by syndacks on Tuesday August 25, 2020 @12:58AM
(#24268229)
>Once upon a time in my career it was standard for devs to wander off into the woods to painstakingly craft a wonder over 3-4 months
Care to elaborate on that more? Curious to hear what kind of work streams you were a part of, and how they differ from the more 'collaborative' norm of today.
For a while I was employed at a shop that was a sort of unified platform and on that platform we would support a number of tools - these tools were usually developed by contractors that would get a complex set of business rules and build a solution to fit - then we FTEs would take care of the plumbing and platform tech debt... Unlike how a lot of places like that might look with outsourcing our contractor pool was pretty steady so while they didn't technically continuously work for the company they were essentially co-workers.
It was an interesting place to be but suffered greatly from a lack of permanence in the roster - for a few years tings were great - then some of our regulars moved on and were replaced with more flaky people. I assume it was just the specific mix of folks that made that setup sustainable while it was.
I agree. And over time I have realised that a good team player is far more valuable than an algorithmic wizard who is a prima donna.
The problem is no one interviews for that.
I think that fresh out of uni people feel like being a prima donna algorithmic wizard is the expectation so they play towards that sterotype. When you're looking at hiring more senior people they have usually accumulated the confidence to highlight how dev teams they've been a part of have worked together to overcome issues together without telling a personal glory story - those folks are worth their weight in gold.
Honestly, if someone walks into an interview talking about how they did something awesome to support a co-worker while they were struggling that's about the best anecdote I could hope to hear.
Being a good communicator is probably what I'd ask new devs to focus on the most - it's going to pay out a lot more than an encyclopedic knowledge of algorithms or creative problem solving and it's the only skill that everyone on the team greatly benefits from.