How To Behave At a Software Company? 842
dawilcox writes "I'm a recent grad and am going to begin work at a software company. I want to make a good impression on my boss and coworkers. I know that performance is usually tracked, but there are also innate personality traits of good software developers that bosses just want to have around. What are those personality traits? What should I be trying to do in order to make a good impression on the people at my work?" (Appropriate side question: What behavior traits would you like your co-workers to exhibit?)
Re:Advice, Dawg (Score:5, Interesting)
As a branch manager in an IT company this is bad news to me, it tells me employee in question is not a team player shown by their inability to communicate well with others. IT is about the flow of information and team work not about building walls. The best advice I can give anyone just starting a job is to not to form opinions and listen.. Also do not try and show off as this may mark you as being insecure. So on your first day take a note book and use it as this will tell your employer that you are serious about your job. Last but not least "be yourself"
Re:Advice, Dawg (Score:5, Interesting)
What worked for me, and what I wish I had done (Score:4, Interesting)
10+ years in development...
Here's what has helped me:
Learn to be more than a geek. Don't be another one of those guys that just wants to sit in his cube, write code, and be left alone. If you are, pretend you aren't. Learn the business-speak. Don't speak in acronyms all the time. Speak at stake-holders' level, but don't talk down to them.. they're not stupid, they just may not understand what you do.
What I wish I had been told:
Don't be a bitch. In other words, when you make estimates, don't be ridiculously low because you're afraid of what the stake-holder will say. And no, they won't always be nice when you tell them a number they don't want to hear. But stand your ground, intelligently (as opposed to defensively) explaining why it'll take so long/cost so much. This makes you an asset who "tells it like it is". The other way, you become a pansy with a bad rep because you're always so far off.
Re:Advice, Dawg (Score:5, Interesting)
Here here, I agree whole heartedly with your modification (and everything else about the OP comment). I worked at a place a few years ago and since most of us didn't make all that much, we usually went out to fairly cheap places for lunch. One day several of us went out to a Mongolian grill over the river from work and on a spur of the moment I decided I could afford to pay for lunch for all of nine (I think) of us (it was about $55 IIRC). I didn't start out the lunch by saying I'd do it, and I insisted that no one pay me back. I was hoping it would help morale (it was generally okay, but not great sometimes as our bosses were slashing jobs left and right, while insisting each one was the last). It worked very well, and people started offering to pay for each other's lunch from time to time. Sometimes small gestures, especially when unexpected, can help relationships, if handled properly. I suppose YMMV of course, especially if you have a bunch of self-entitled people at your work.
Well... (Score:3, Interesting)
And really, when it comes down to it, that's about the only way to learn how to behave in any job.
S/he can be offered all the advice in the world, and truthfully, I don't think it'll make a difference. You don't learn job-related interpersonal skills until you've had to deal with very different types of people and situations - on the job.
I don't know why s/he is sweating it... it'll come if they want improve their work life and stay employed.
But then, I'm and old coot.
Shameless self-promotion (Score:3, Interesting)
Try JamesPad, it's a quick and dirty app I wrote that saves the notepad when you close the window, like old-school Mac Classic's notepad program:
http://blakeyrat.com/jamespad/ [blakeyrat.com]
Requires Windows and .net 2.0 (I believe... some .net version.)
You are so wrong (Score:1, Interesting)
Many years ago (back when they made test instruments and work stations) HP did a survey to see if they could figure out what were the best educational qualifications for their employees. Should they insist on Masters degrees, should they be shopping for PHds? Should they insist on high academic averages, were certain schools better? They found no correlation between employee performance and educational attainment. In fact, they found that a high IQ was often bad for career advancement. Once employees had the minimum qualifications to do a job, it didn't matter where they went to school or what their marks were or if they had higher degrees. The only thing they found that mattered was that the employees who hung around the water cooler did better.
Study after study has corroborated the above findings. The first one I am aware of was done by the US Navy during WW2. Some later ones are cited by Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers.
Work on those social skills, develop them. Socialize widely. Try to know everyone and try to be on good terms with all of them. Try to develop contacts within the industry. Be a team player. If you (as I suspect) have poor social skills and don't know where to start, you might try "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie wiki [wikipedia.org]. See a shrink, get a counselor. If you have no clue, find someone who does.
Re:Good hygiene, don't be a know it all. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Woah (Score:5, Interesting)
The concept of keeping your work separate from your life is BS.
Hear hear! Your coworkers are a part of your life. They are your family at work. Just like your family at home, you weren't allowed to pick them, but you're stuck with them, so you need to learn how to like them.
I've lived and worked in Japan for most of my working life, and I just have to say that most places here get that right. Westerners wonder why Japanese workers are so loyal to the company, and there are a lot of reasons, but one of the strongest emotional/psychological ones is that many places really try to foster a real kinship. You very well might think that Kinoshita-san from 2 desks over is a jackass, but when push comes to shove, he's your jackass. Also, thanks to the boozy parties the company throws (that everyone pays for equally), you've chatted with him over beers and know that he is a super-involved dad who takes his kids out on the skiff to go fishing every weekend. You can't see him as just a jackass anymore; now he's a neat dad who happens to be a jackass at work.
At first, I resisted this culture with all my BS American individualist might, but before long I came to get it. They aren't forcing you to go to the party because they want to see what kind of stupid thing you'll say when you're drunk; they want to hang out together, and if you don't go it'll be a bummer for everyone. It's not a trick. People actually want to get to know each other. They probably won't be BFFs or anything; and the relationship will probably disappear if you transfer to another department or office, but for the time that you work together, you're doing it with people you know, and that makes all the difference in the world. When Sayama-san is going through a tough time with her husband, you cover for her--not because she's having a hard time with her husband, but because she's Sayama-san. And Sayama-san is having a hard time with her husband.
Finally, though, so much of this is predicated on the assumption that you're not going to be fired at the drop of a hat with a simple "oops, we can't afford so many people; bye." But that's another post entirely (and again, not really a socialistic post--one about not handing so much goddamned money to the people at the top so you don't have to panic every time the market changes, because you have money in the bank and tons of wiggle room in the budget).
Re:easy. (Score:5, Interesting)
A little self-respect, and enough spine to refuse to be exploited into giving up your personal life to further your bosses ends. Every time you work long hours, you create expectations that your co-workers should work long hours too, and they will despise you for it.
My first (and last) experience in a cubicle farm was a pretty shocking one. We had three guys doing the work of 10. It was extremely stressful. My co-workers would routinely work 60-70+ hours a week, if not in the office then at home with the laptop dialed in. I mean this job was practically their entire lives, and for what? $35k/year? Fuck that. When 5 o'clock rolled around I rolled out. The boss called me up one Friday evening wanting me to come back in and restart a data conversion process that had failed (due to programmers not having the file structure figured out completely) and I said no. I'd rather stand in the sun and dig ditches all day, regardless of pay, cause at least ditch diggers know when they get to go home and forget about work. They called some other unlucky fool in to do the job and nobody ever said a word to me about it, but I could feel some people didnt like it at all. Fuck them. My life is too valuable to be spent slaving away for someone else's benefit.
Re:easy. (Score:1, Interesting)
Well I've been in this bidness since 1978 when I sold and installed my first TRS-80 model 1. I've done gigs for Anderson Consulting, EDS, Bellsouth Telephone, Unisys, Lockheed Martin, DoD, DHS and TSA.
Never work more than 40 hours.
Come to work at 10am, take an hour for lunch and leave at 2pm, bill for 8.
Learn how to bill two hours for every hour worked.
When you get to be a Project Manager, start a section 8 corp, and pimp yo hos to your own employer and make $25 for every hour each of your employees work.
Work from home 3 days a week.
Bill 160 hours both in November and December but don't come back to the office until Jan 2.
And always remember the IT credo, "Never have so many been paid so much to do so little".
Re:Good hygiene, don't be a know it all. (Score:3, Interesting)
It's been mentioned to him before. He'll apologize, say he doesn't realize he's doing it, and then be right back at it not too long after.
I'm not sure if he's deliberately being a dick, or if it really just is that ingrained of a habit, but either way it's not worth making that big of a deal out of (really, the only next step at this point would be to get my boss or HR involved, and I've got more important things to worry about). If he's going to be inconsiderate, I'll do as little to help him as I can.
Re:Good hygiene, don't be a know it all. (Score:4, Interesting)
Good luck and may the workforce be with you.
My Guidelines for Good Developers (Score:2, Interesting)
1. Attention to detail. It's amazing that new guys here who are veterans don't have that. A requirement will come in and they'll get 90% of it done, but either gloss over or not notice the 10% they didn't do. I take pride in my work and I would expect others to at least pay attention to detail in theirs.
2. Extra effort. I work in a small company so each cog that contributes to the team translates to a stronger company. If a customer who uses our software has an issue and it's critical, we expect someone to handle it in a timely fashion even if it means working on weekends or late into the night/morning.
3. Team player. We work in a team where I am at, and no single developer stands on their own. Everyone has their own area of expertise and we often go to each other looking for insight or help. People shouldn't be afraid to ask for help and others, time permitting, should give assistance to others. Also a big part of being a team player is offering *constructive* criticism. Don't be negative or if you do, have it lead to a positive outcome. I know a lot of developers may have foot-in-mouth syndrome (even if they don't know they do) or more destructive than constructive, but it's important to try to reach a positive result with everyone feeling better about the situation than before. Nothing destroys morale than a fly in the ointment or a nay-sayer... I do agree in logical discussions and hearing everyone out, but once a decision is made, people need to move on and not be petty.
4. Curiosity. It annoys me when someone asks for help without even trying. My general rule of thumb when it comes to helping is if you've tried solving a problem for an hour and have no measurable progress, outside help is advised. But curiosity also serves to improve something or to gain more knowledge.
5. Thoroughness. If a bug should resolve itself with a bizarre fix, why did it fix it? What is the real underlying cause? I've worked with people who say they've fixed an issue when they've just fixed the symptoms or have put a bandage on a wider problem. If you know the problem is bigger and it is important enough, why not spend the time (time permitting) and fix it the right way?
6. Take Notes!!! Nothing annoys me more than having to tell someone how to do something over and over and over again. I can understand once or twice. But beyond the 3rd or 4th is a waste of my time. If you know you're going to have a tough time remembering, take notes! Write something down or do something! Be creative!
Anyways, that's what I've come to value in developers here where I work as a lead developer.