Software Developer Life: Career, Learning, Coding, Daily Life, Stories by David Xiang

Author:David Xiang [Xiang, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: David Xiang
Published: 2018-05-18T04:00:00+00:00

The ability to work as part of the collective, to be a team player, will always trump technical skill when it goes rogue.

In your journey, you will encounter many developers like this. The ability to work as part of the collective, to be a team player, will always trump technical skill when it goes rogue. Many 10x developers are let go due to this kind of behavior.

This story shines a light on another issue that happens often in software development: preferential treatment. Protection from bosses and biases in favor of developers is rampant in the tech industry. Companies put developers on a pedestal. After the ordeal with Martin settled down, I felt obligated to share my thoughts with my boss and also, more importantly, with Martin’s boss.

Regarding Martin’s boss, I agreed with his high-level priorities—Martin was to be spending his time getting up to speed with our code. However, I crossed my fingers, hoping that he would acknowledge how Martin’s behavior was disruptive to our preexisting team dynamic. Perhaps he could steer Martin in a better direction next time.

Unfortunately, that’s not what happened. With minimal thought about our remote team in China, Martin’s manager reassured me that this initiative was an innocent “learning project.” According to him, Martin should be able to take as much time as he needed to learn the ropes and make independent decisions on how to improve the technology. In addition, Martin’s reworking of the system would move more expertise to our main headquarters, something the company originally wanted.

Though I agreed that this sentiment was technically pragmatic, I still didn’t think it justified secretly rewriting big features or making a whole team upset. From my perspective, Martin and his boss had simply prioritized local engineering above all else. They had little empathy for the complications added to product development, for our offended developers in China, or for the serious butterfly effect that radiated out from his actions.

Nothing came of the situation. Martin continued being Martin, and eventually the teams were reorganized, with no effort spent on remedying the situation. This obscene bias towards engineering was shocking and demoralizing to the point where I came to accept it as company culture. No one should be put up on a pedestal. Developers are valuable assets, but that doesn’t mean they get a free pass to do whatever they want. Empathize with both non-technical and technical colleagues. Take time to understand what matters to other people and how your actions might adversely affect them. You might be the diva on your team, changing the entire dynamic without knowing it.

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