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So, in short they want a developer that has skills that no developer is allowed to train. If you want business oriented developers, you need to change your com

So, in short they want a developer that has skills that no developer is allowed to train. If you want business oriented developers, you need to change your company's culture. I have once been asked to work towards becoming one. I was asking for a salary augmentation after I had just doubled my workload during the previous year. I had upgraded to doing both front-end and back-end. My CTO told me that no matter how good at coding I would become, that's not what generates money and unless my value increased my salary wouldn't move. He wanted me to become a better mentor, to be better at juggling budgets and at dealing with clients. He also tracked my time to the minute and I wasn't allowed to do anything but code. Taking an hour to think about a problem before tackling it was frowned upon. They will never promote any developer into that position, their company culture is the opposite of that. I ended up leaving and found a nice company that actually rewards productivity and allows people to breath between tasks.

wrestlerman 8y ago
At first, I disagreed, but then I completely agree after thinking about that problem more. The proper mindset comes from the Top. If managers can't guide/lead their devs then they just can't expect business-oriented development. I guess most often what they want is less coding more features anyway. But if developers are supposed to help with business then they should understand the business and not be viewed as programmers but as the developers - for instance, programmers would probably code new feature from 0 but developers could use external SaaS to verify the need for that feature in the first place. I agree that developers need free room and a lot of help from management to make business development a reality. On the other hand, I do think that not every developer is meant for that kind of work, there are lots of developers that think only about coding...
- Raphmedia 8y ago
  I've seen people who worked their own business, freelancers, etc., come in such a shop and end up out of date code monkeys after 2 years.
mgkimsal 8y ago
> that's not what generates money and unless my value increased my salary wouldn't move. He wanted me to become a better mentor, to be better at juggling budgets and at dealing with clients. How does being a better mentor "generate money"? If your workload "doubled", that means you were doing the work of 2 people, no? (or similar). it doesn't generate money, but that saves money they might otherwise have spent. Unless "dealing with clients" means "getting them to spend more money", "dealing with clients" doesn't generate more money (and... depending on how its done, can be a financial loss). On "taking an hour... before tackling..." - that hour is tackling the problem, no? Just with a "code after it's been thought about some" approach, but it's tackling it all the same.
lliamander 8y ago
> So, in short they want a developer that has skills that no developer is allowed to train. > If you want business oriented developers, you need to change your company's culture. Woah, so true. I'm inclined to say that unless tech leadership (CTO, engineering directors, etc.) specifically work setup training and mentoring programs to help engineers move up the ranks, then any sort of technical career track is just useful fiction for recruiting and nothing more. Likewise, if you want people to take initiative outside of the scope of their current responsibilities, you must provide them slack to do so.
Agathos 8y ago
During my orientation, I was able to visit the call center and put on a headset to listen in on a few client calls. It was quite interesting. That was years ago and I haven't had direct contact with any customer since, even though my work affects them directly.

wrestlerman 8y ago

At first, I disagreed, but then I completely agree after thinking about that problem more. The proper mindset comes from the Top. If managers can't guide/lead their devs then they just can't expect business-oriented development. I guess most often what they want is less coding more features anyway. But if developers are supposed to help with business then they should understand the business and not be viewed as programmers but as the developers - for instance, programmers would probably code new feature from 0 but developers could use external SaaS to verify the need for that feature in the first place. I agree that developers need free room and a lot of help from management to make business development a reality. On the other hand, I do think that not every developer is meant for that kind of work, there are lots of developers that think only about coding...

Raphmedia 8y ago
I've seen people who worked their own business, freelancers, etc., come in such a shop and end up out of date code monkeys after 2 years.

mgkimsal 8y ago

> that's not what generates money and unless my value increased my salary wouldn't move. He wanted me to become a better mentor, to be better at juggling budgets and at dealing with clients. How does being a better mentor "generate money"? If your workload "doubled", that means you were doing the work of 2 people, no? (or similar). it doesn't generate money, but that saves money they might otherwise have spent. Unless "dealing with clients" means "getting them to spend more money", "dealing with clients" doesn't generate more money (and... depending on how its done, can be a financial loss). On "taking an hour... before tackling..." - that hour is tackling the problem, no? Just with a "code after it's been thought about some" approach, but it's tackling it all the same.

lliamander 8y ago

> So, in short they want a developer that has skills that no developer is allowed to train. > If you want business oriented developers, you need to change your company's culture. Woah, so true. I'm inclined to say that unless tech leadership (CTO, engineering directors, etc.) specifically work setup training and mentoring programs to help engineers move up the ranks, then any sort of technical career track is just useful fiction for recruiting and nothing more. Likewise, if you want people to take initiative outside of the scope of their current responsibilities, you must provide them slack to do so.

Agathos 8y ago

During my orientation, I was able to visit the call center and put on a headset to listen in on a few client calls. It was quite interesting. That was years ago and I haven't had direct contact with any customer since, even though my work affects them directly.