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I've not sat down to really work through all the details, but I've had this notion in my head for some time that putting a kind of "developer secretary" on team
by yamtaddle 4y ago
I've not sat down to really work through all the details, but I've had this notion in my head for some time that putting a kind of "developer secretary" on teams, to deal with all various tools developers are expected to navigate directly as part of their job and as just extra junk their employer makes them do (say, learning and using time-off request systems or expense-submission systems), such that the developers only needed to know & context-switch to email and maybe a chat program ("what about Jira?" ideally the secretary could do all that make-work shepherding and tracking down next-tasks, too), in addition to the actual thing they do that makes them so expensive, it could be a net-savings.
I doubt the math works out well for lower-paid employees that are also required to juggle all kinds of tangential shit these days ( sorry :-( ) but I think it might for even mid-pay developers.
- scruple 4y agoI don't know if it's true today but once upon a time a AAA game studio everyone here has heard of had exactly these "developer secretary" roles on game teams. From what I understand it was extremely helpful and it also served as an entry point into other, more interesting roles in the company. I know of one such person who transitioned into project management work internally, having first been a development team assistant, and she's had a wonderful career in games for at least 15 years now.
- Kon-Peki 4y agoLaw firms still have secretaries because the lawyers have to bill for their time, and they have to itemize their bills, and the clients read them. It turns out that if you actually keep track of both time and its value, secretarial jobs are a good bargain.