Why your programmers just want to code

Yet another person who I feel I would dislike working with. Maybe, at the start of each post where people ramble in such a binary fashion, they could post a snippet of why they think they can comment with authority on whatever the article content is about.

This guys MO ties in nicely with most "well meaning" but utterly clueless folk I've seen when it comes to software development.

Even more so when I see his site (https://marcusblankenship.com) has:

> Let me teach you how to create a high-performing software team

> When it comes to what actually gets implemented — all of the power is in the hands of the programmer who gets there first. After all — once the die has been cast and the direction set, who is going to undo the work and start again? In this, the programmer is the decider.

That is how you loose customers. And how software teams get bad reputation and then wonder why-oh-why are other departments so hostile next time they have requirements. And why other departments assume bad intentions on honest bugs - because their experience in the past was exactly that.

> But what's the stage after that?

Unfortunately I feel like I can answer this (or at least suggest a direction) from current personal experience.

When the engineers are not allowed to fix fundamental problems, the next stage is about defending themselves from blame that they feel is not rightfully theirs.

Ex: _________

"Hi Bob, this problem appears to be due to corrupt data. Our 9-year old platform does not actually use foreign-keys or database transactions, and we haven't been able to get approval to replace it."

"Alex, I haven't seen this feature before, it seems to be from the offshore contractors and their PM. Reproducing the error, it seems they introduced it about five months ago, so we'll have to check those records for mistakes."

"Mary, I'm afraid our software isn't able to support names in those languages. I'm including a link to a memo I made three years ago that explains the limitations and suggests some ways we could fix it, if the business considers it a priority."

> His concern for market share and business health is replaced with (...)

> His enthusiasm for changing the world is replaced with nit-picking the development process.

Here's your answer. It's because you hired the programmer based on technical competence and not their attitude to servitude in business.

You get what you measure. You didn't disqualify me as a candidate because I think your business is boring and I need the money. So don't be surprised that I'll be doing my job as effectively as possible - which involves lots of lone coding, unless your internal process is completely bonkers - but I ain't gonna drink the kool-aid. Want someone with a more "professional" attitude? Filter for that during the interview.

And that "changing the world" thing? That's just bullshit, and you're not fooling anyone past their teenage years with that. You're not SpaceX. You're not changing shit. Chances are, you're just trying to make money selling the usual butt CRUD everyone else is selling too. If you hire smart people, don't be surprised they know it's bullshit.

Programmers want to code because they're programmers. Chefs want to cook because they're chefs. That's what they do. This article only shows hiring laziness, coupled with usual complaining that the company isn't getting more than it asked for.

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EDIT:

Ok, this article doesn't only show hiring laziness. The point about how vulnerable enthusiastic people are in the initial period is spot-on and I agree with it. I wrote the above comment because I believe that the article as a whole exemplifies additional lack of understanding of the perspective of programmers, which can lead to extra post-interview disappointment.

Brilliant! Please turn this into a Medium post!!