Beyond Tech: What makes a great developer?

As I close in on 30 years of developing software professionally, I have progressed from being a programmer to developer to senior developer. I have been a team leader, a development manager, and even a director of engineering for a short time. Most recently I have been given the title of Principal. I’ve been a Principal Analyst, a Principal Engineer, and now, at my most recent job, Principal Consultant.

While I don’t care about titles, I do care about people. I have a strong sense of responsibility for those around me, and I want developers, especially newer developers, to be amazing.

Developers, developers, developers

Over my almost three decades in this profession, I have worked with a lot of developers. Some of them were amazing, and some not so much. I have worked with highly experienced developers who I still hold up as shining examples of what a developer should be, and who I still aspire to be. I’ve also worked with people who, while they could write rock-solid code and had excellent problem-solving skills, also alienated entire teams because of their enormous egos and cocky attitudes. I’ve worked with senior developers who couldn’t code “Hello, world” without help, and Principal developers who had no desire to help others, be more involved or grow outside of the little groove they had created for themselves.

I’ve worked with senior developers who cringed when they had to sit at a table with interns, and who routinely talked about being underpaid because they “used to work in New York City.” They wrote horrible emails to people in other areas of the company and never saw anything wrong with this behavior. They made life difficult for those around them, but wow, they could code and solve problems!

I’ve also worked with junior developers, fresh out of college or a bootcamp, who were excellent developers. They had a hunger to learn and didn’t have any bad programming habits. I watched them grow into fantastic developers, and they became amazing assets to their teams.

By this point, you may have figured out that I don’t necessarily consider pure technical skills to be as important as other things. Coding ability is only one part of the puzzle. I would go as far as to say that when I consider what makes a good developer, coding ability and technical skills are only about 20-30% of the full picture. There is so much more to being a good developer, and I believe that applies whether you’re the most junior developer out there or among the most experienced.

Things that matter

• Be able to effectively communicate with others whether it’s through speaking or writing.
• Have a growth mindset and a willingness to share what you know.
• Know when to ask for help.
• Be pragmatic.
• Be humble and lose the ego.
• Be empathetic.
• Be confident.
• Be grateful.

I plan to address all of these in future posts, but I wanted to get them out because I believe they are important. These are many of the key points I talk about in my “Beyond Tech” session.

Final Thoughts

We all have areas we can work on. We all fall victim to ego and impatience and anger. This article is a reminder that we all have work to do, and more selfishly, this is a reminder for ME that I need to continually do the work, to be mindful and empathetic and confident and pay attention to the details. I can’t rest on my laurels, even with 30 years under my belt.

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