Thank you 💙

I was nervous to send out that last newsletter… I thought it had been too long. So I’ve been truly blown away by the positive response! Thank you to everyone who sent supportive notes. You inspired me to come back this week.

Thank you also to everyone joining for the first time—welcome!

OK, let’s talk remote work, passion in programming, and the leadership responsibilities of senior developers.

Remote Work Issues

I tweeted about remote work a few times during the pandemic, and each time, I received very emotionally charged responses. So, rather than setting off more amygdalae on Twitter, let’s dig in here with some nuance.

I often see the remote work “debate” framed in one of two extreme ways. The first: remote work is great, and it’s only micromanaging, incompetent, and/or nefarious bosses who want to deprive workers of their freedom by forcing them back into the office. The second: remote work is terrible, and it’s only lazy workers who want to keep “quiet quitting” in their pajamas.

As with all human issues, the truth is more complex. That’s hard for our binary thinking coding brains, I know, but it’s true. Let’s look at a few different factors.

• Productivity For some, avoiding the commute and the distractions has been a boon for productivity. For others, the lack of structure and the inability to ask questions in person has hurt productivity. Junior engineers at some of my client companies have reported feeling lost and afraid to bother people on Slack when they need help.

• Health Working from home provides more opportunities to exercise outdoors, eat healthfully, and manage existing health problems. For those who don’t seize those opportunities, though, it may lead to a more sedentary lifestyle. In emotional intelligence workshops I’ve run since the pandemic, people have often reported rarely leaving their desk or stepping outside during the day.

• Career development For some, remote work has provided time for growing new skills and advancing their career without sacrificing time at home. For others, especially junior employees, the lack of mentorship and face time has stunted their career growth.

• Social connection For some, remote work has allowed people to spend more time with their loved ones and nurture friendships outside of work. For others, remote work has been isolating. Not only do people miss out on in-office friendships, but they miss out on serendipitous interactions in the real world during commutes or lunches. Zoom is just not the same.

• Creativity For some, especially introverts, the quiet time at home has allowed creativity to flourish. For others, the lack of hands-on brainstorming and riffing sessions has led to creative stagnation.

• Environmental impact I would guess remote work would be a clear winner for the environment, but it turns out even here the issue is more complex.

So what’s my point? Remember how I said in the last newsletter that this is not a place for easy answers?

For connecting emotionally and building trust, I prefer in-person interactions.

For simple coordination tasks and focused individual creative work, remote work is fine.

But my larger point is that wonderful people can disagree about these issues, and it all comes down to balancing different priorities in specific situations, rather than making sweeping statements. There’s no single compassionate viewpoint on remote work.

What do you think? Feel free to respond to this email.

Passionate Programmers

Do you need to be passionate about programming to be a good developer?

I encountered an intriguing article on 10x developers this week that looks at two developer types, the passionate enthusiast and the professional.

I’ve lived in both of these worlds, as reflected in my Compassionate Coding work. I started coding in my teen years and loved it, so I tried to fit in with the hardcore enthusiast programmers and found external success, but it left me miserable and burnt out. I came to believe that you can be an effective developer and live a balanced life that includes care for people, not just code, and I started this company to spread that view.

However, in recent years, my views have evolved further. Is there still a place for the narrowly focused programmer who really does want to code alone in a basement all day? I actually think there is.

While most teams will benefit from hiring balanced developers, the field as a whole has clearly benefited from the work of developers who become obsessed with one particular technology or problem, perhaps even to the detriment of their social skills. We wouldn’t want every developer to be this way, though.

“Even if the computer programmer can write great code very fast, if that programmer cannot understand the needs and objectives of business owners/users, that programmer is going to write a lot of great code to nowhere.” —Bruce Tulgan, Closing the Soft Skills Gap

Hopefully tech interviews catch up and stop expecting that singleminded code dedication, proven through hobby projects, knowledge of trivia, etc. Just because you’re passionate most about the code doesn’t mean your coworkers need to be.

Again, there are no easy answers, so what if we focus instead on making space for everyone to bring their unique gifts to the table?

Senior Developer Responsibilities

Many people who become senior developer fall into that “enthusiast programmer” category mentioned above. The unfortunate consequence is that they may lack the interest and patience required for mentoring junior developers, or even just providing guidance to peers.

I appreciate Ron Jeffries’s take (even if I personally prefer to avoid “shoulding”): “A highly paid expert shouldn't be highly paid just because she's an expert. She should be highly paid because she is helping other people become experts.”

As John Allspaw puts it, “Mature engineers lift the skills and expertise of those around them.”

Sadly, developers who do invest time in nurturing others risk being seen as less “technical,” especially if they don’t fit the common programmer stereotypes. I hope we can change that!

In a team setting, I believe all developers benefit from growing leadership skills. It’s one of the common topics I cover even in workshops with individual contributors.

What do you think?

As always, I’d love to hear from you!

A bunch of people took me up on the office hours offer last week, and it was such a lovely experience. Those conversations even inspired topics for this week’s newsletter. I’ll have to do that again sometime.

Until next time, take good care, and feel free to email! (I do read all of your lovely messages. 🙏)

Have a great weekend,
💙 April