You don’t understand your software engineers
A PSA for non-technical people in tech companies
It may seem like this is all we do:
But it’s actually a bit more complex.
Generally, developers are self-motivated people, many taught themselves how to code in their spare time, and it eventually became a job. Around 81% also codes outside of work hours as a hobby.[source]
I remember when I used to sit until the late hours of the morning developing something, just because I felt that it needed to be done then and there, no matter if I was feeling hungry, tired, or skipped important chores for the day. The single most important thing was taking my current tasks to completion.
At one point, in an old company I worked at, I switched teams.
My expectations were high as everyone around me was way more senior than I was, so I expected to learn a lot.
One morning, after the standup meeting with the SCRUM master, where she was telling us how important these current tasks were, and how time was not on our side, a co-worker sits down and starts to code.
After about 10 minutes he stops coding, browses to youtube and watches an hour long video of how to sharpen a chisel.
That’s right, an hour long video about sharpening a chisel!
Whilst he was watching the video, his attention was required by other co-workers and random office noise. He was interrupted maybe five times in the 60 minutes of the video, so he took closer to two hours to finish the hour long video. Shortly after that he went for lunch.
Had he been coding, the interruptions would have been there too, but shifting your focus from a creative task and back again requires tremendous amounts of energy, in order to save that precious energy…