How to be “The empathic developer”
“Hello, I am a junior developer started a few months ago an internship. My first day went very good and my manager was very nice to me. She introduced me to the team where there are some more developers, all of them more senior than me. I hope to learn a lot and achieve great goals besides them because I would love to become a very solid developer in some years.”
This is one prototypical scenario for new developers. What they figure it out how will the industry be for them like?
My analysis is pretty optimistic. New generations come with a different mindset, things have changed for well. Although there are some matters gliding in the air.
The issues
When approaching a new team you can feel it in their company culture, in the manager's speech, in other developer's, in their lunchtime, in their jokes, in your induction and chat with them.
These are some points that can warn you.
- who-is-right disputes
- locked dialogues
- disrespect to different mindsets
- distrust of others work
- vile attitude, gloating when a peer make a mistake
- demotivation when achieving new goals
- boredom, no fun at work at all
- unavailability, people never got time for you
You as a new developer don't know what's wrong but can feel something is not as it should be.
Your hopes start to fade out.
Although if you are a developer who would like to progress, get better, learn more and faster, understand more complex problems and be able to solve a wider range of problems at the time.
From this point on, I'd like to tell those issues mentioned before will get extinguished soon.
How we can improve (Is there something to do in the meantime?)
If you recognise yourself as part of the issue, thinking deeply, those issues are mainly caused because of focusing on the present too much. It might help you to see the complete story of your working days focus on the long-term perspective. And thinking the challenges you had already in your work life and how you accomplished them.
Have you improved as a problem solver?
As a work colleague?
Do you remember the last big challenges you faced at work? how did you tackle them?
Here are some ideas how to look from another perspective.
1. Disputes. Think how tiny are those discussions in the future yourself. Some of them can make you better person or professional but surely with a bad taste in your mouth, your cognitive abilities are depleted.
2. Standing on the shoulder of giants. It is difficult to understand everyone owns progress without other influence around. You should understand that up front. You are better with people that influence you positively around.
3. Culture. Instead of promoting cynicism, trolls behaviour, distrust, pettiness or meanness among your fellows, you have daily opportunities to do the opposite. Promote what you consider a good atmosphere to grow. Those properties might vary from some peers to others but will get you together to a common ground to seed.
4. Team growth. It is very strange nowadays to see a very difficult problem being solved by only one person. This is more likely happening in big products where one single person is not able to develop on its own. The better team you have the further you can go.
5. Avoid typecasting. It gives more space to grow and increase diversity. Your mistakes don't define you. Neither your equals.
6. Practice. Listening will make easier to get into put in other shoes. For building a product is important to set the tools moreover to align everybody’s ideas around those tools.
Soft skills
You can be a super rock start developer a rara avis that can achieve super complex task on your own.
Take the challenge and elevate this speech to your team.
- Promote try-error safe environments
- Let people express their own ideas and thought without interfering
- Be respectful of others work, empower your mate's effort
- Use others work to maximise yours
- Motivate others to take challenges
- Make your colleagues feel safe after mistakes when they are around you because that will echo on yourself too.
- Celebrate team and individual success that helps to create a common feeling of success and that makes a difference when working towards a common goal.
- Find commons elements of fun at work.
You can be a badass developer but cannot separate your right brain of the left brain. Culture matters and individual feelings matter too.
My beloved Junior developer I wish to be that senior developer that helps you became my alter ego, "The empathic developer".
Hope you liked it, if so please share it.
Thanks for reading.
