Comment by eek2121
1 month ago
lol no, I have worked with companies that do that. Many developers have very specific personality types, and they also think in technical terms rather than customer terms. It isn’t a bad thing, it is why they are good at what they do.
The most successful companies I have worked with have a good product manager that can take customer input and work with a technical manager to balance priorities/effort. The technical manager consults the team before making decisions (such as SCRUM meetings if using that)
Issues come into play when folks start distrusting developers. When we say it will take 4 weeks or 8 weeks to implement something, there is a reason for that. We know the code. We know how much of a PITA it is to work with, and we aren’t being misleading. On the flip side, we have been trained to give conservative estimates thanks to crap management and unexpected pitfalls, so we try to understand promise and over deliver. If management could recognize this, everyone would be happy, provided they recognize that 8-week timeline is fine and they don’t promise something different to the client and trust devs to do their thing.
EDIT: Managers also tend to forget that we aren't a machine in a factory. We have good days, bad days, and everything in between. We excel with using our brains, however our brains suffer from anything between lack of sleep, depression, and other nonsense due to just plain having a bad day. I feel like it is more noticeable with us because we rely on our brains so much more than other folks in other professions do. Shoot, even random noise in an office, whether working at home or at an office, can hurt productivity.
Now I have myself missing dev work. Hoping to go back soon. Currently unemployed.
Farming would be extremely effective if the crops would be plowed down into the ground when they're ripe, instead of bothering with all the work of harvesting, refining, packaging and distributing to customers.
But fortunately, software developers are not involved in architecting farming.
What I'm saying is that developing for developments sake is completely pointless. The purpose of software is to help in the real world. And every developer should understand that connection, no matter how shy or antisocial.