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> companies often have an incentive structure that rewards novelty, especially in the form of features if not entire products. Unfortunately, this is true. Eve

> companies often have an incentive structure that rewards novelty, especially in the form of features if not entire products. Unfortunately, this is true. Every developer has to fit into the everyone-does-everything mold, and if you don't you will not get good rewards. In reality developers are diverse: some are highly creative, some are very good at tracking down hard bugs, some are very good at devops, and so on. Not allowing for this diversity, and not having different tracks for developers to grow is tragic along multiple dimensions: People who are good at devops and enjoy doing devops don't see a growth path, so they leave. People who are creative and would prefer to spend most of their time doing creative work, can't because they are expected to do devops as well. Allowing for diversity of talent, and having growth paths for everyone would make for a stronger team.

surajrmal 3y ago
I've always worked on teams where managers try to allow folks to play to their strengths, but ultimately folks can't entirely focus on just doing what they like to do. Otherwise you end up with unfair division of effort or some important things no one wants to do not getting done. Diversity of experience also allows you to better understand things which may make you more efficient overall. For instance, being forced to do some performance work will help you make better tradeoffs when doing design later. I think the most important things are to voice your preferences to your management and try to pick projects that are in a stage of their lifecycle that have needs for your strengths. If you prefer creative work, find a project early in its lifecycle with less baggage to way you down. If you love hardcore debugging, find something which is growing aggressively. If you like maintenance, find a mature product to help steward.
- breadwinner 3y ago
  > ultimately folks can't entirely focus on just doing what they like to do True, but companies can allow that when there is enough diversity in the team, instead of insisting that everyone fit into the exact same mold.

surajrmal 3y ago

I've always worked on teams where managers try to allow folks to play to their strengths, but ultimately folks can't entirely focus on just doing what they like to do. Otherwise you end up with unfair division of effort or some important things no one wants to do not getting done. Diversity of experience also allows you to better understand things which may make you more efficient overall. For instance, being forced to do some performance work will help you make better tradeoffs when doing design later. I think the most important things are to voice your preferences to your management and try to pick projects that are in a stage of their lifecycle that have needs for your strengths. If you prefer creative work, find a project early in its lifecycle with less baggage to way you down. If you love hardcore debugging, find something which is growing aggressively. If you like maintenance, find a mature product to help steward.

breadwinner 3y ago
> ultimately folks can't entirely focus on just doing what they like to do True, but companies can allow that when there is enough diversity in the team, instead of insisting that everyone fit into the exact same mold.