That kind of developer

Have you ever worked in a team with many developers and there was that one who just wanted to build walls? In this post I’ll talk about that kind of developer, who just wants to do the very basic and don’t care about the rest.

Build walls, WTF dude?

But, what does “build walls” mean?

I just want to put the bricks there and that’s my job.

Participating on a project is more than just “delivering” user stories. I have had a lot of different experiences with developers that just wanted to deliver user stories: deliver deliver deliver.

The big picture

But looking at the big picture is very important, just delivering is not enough. Sometimes it’s good to look at the product and question yourself — how this user story impacts the business/product. Some times it’s good to ask yourself some of these questions before “delivering”:

• Did I build the project before sending the PR or sending directly to the test environment?
• Did I create real good tests to ensure quality?
• Did I test it on the environment instead of doing a poor local test?
• Did I check/understand the requisites?
• In case of questions, did I assume something instead of clarifying with the PO?
• Did I talk to the PO to validate it?

The learning process

Obviously, some of these cases happen with less experienced developers that are starting their careers and are still not able to see the project with this vision, and this is understandable and part of the learning process.

More experienced developers/coaches MUST work to develop this mindset on these less experienced members of the team.

The learning process is part of the game. IMHO, less experienced developers must be more involved in business discussions to understand the goal, the vision and the road map of the product. We need to awaken this spirit on them and make less experienced developer to feel more part of the team and aim to improve it.

About the more experienced ones

The more experienced developers, in other words, the ones that are considered more experienced, many times just want to deliver code instead of looking at the big picture, instead of caring about quality, instead of teaching the less experienced ones.

This post is a criticism to these developers, not to the less experienced, because they are still learning.

Seniority is not just about experience, but it’s about actions, actions of teaching, being responsible, doing a real good job. That’s why I question some of the senior ones.

Thanks for reading until here, I’m sure many of you already went through it.Please feel free to write your comments and let’s discuss more.