Team-Driven Developer

A newsletter with tips and tools for building software as a team

Who doesn't love stories of heroics?

We're in the middle of March Madness (shoutout to my alma mater, NCSU, for making the Final Four!), and as such, there is always a thread going on beneath the surface:

Who is going to make something happen in this tournament? Who will put their team on their backs to "get it done?"

Who will be the heroes we will remember in years to come?

This narrative keeps us glued to the screen during the final minutes of a close game or what draws us in to see the next Marvel movie.

But in software, heroics can be a bit different. We have a problem if we find a team needing a hero too often or our code requires people to sacrifice to keep things up and running perpetually.

This week, I'm sharing my experience with "hero software development" and a few ways to escape the mess that requires it.

On Hero Programming

Team-Building Exercise

For Team-Building this week, reflect on how often your team has to pull heroics to get stuff done.

Are people regularly pulling long nights or weekends?

Are things breaking in production on a daily basis?

Is being on-call feared above all else?

You must change something if the answer is "Yes" to any or all of the above. And soon.

While I shared some steps to start changing this dynamic in the article above, your teams' steps will differ. Use your retrospectives, work with your manager, and find a way to discuss the subject. If you can, find evidence for your perspectives (you shouldn't have to look too hard if it's really a problem) to avoid coming across as just a complainer.

But one thing you can't do is avoid the issue. Burnout, multi-day outages, etc., are just around the corner.

Here are some more resources from me to help you build better teams!

📕 Code Review Champion - My book on code reviews will help you become a world-class code reviewer. From giving kind feedback to navigating conflict, this book can help anyone wanting to sharpen their code review skills.
❓Questions for Devs - Building a team takes more than catching up about your weekend at standup. I've used these questions to build relationships with my team and push past the same old surface-level conversations.
📋 Pull Request Template - Maximize your efforts in pull requests by giving context right at the beginning of a new pull request. Copy and paste this template into your repo, and voilà!
📊 Code Review Metrics - Start measuring how your team tracks against a few common code review metrics. This python script will pull your GitHub pull requests and generate a CSV you can slice-n-dice to get the data you want. It also has graphs! As this is an open-source project, your contributions and feedback would be great!

Other Creators I Recommend

Building Custom SaaS Web Apps

by Thomas McGee

I’m a web developer by trade, but I’m a creator at heart. As such, I constantly find myself making, designing, and coding new things to make life easier for creators of all kinds. Whether it be Radarist for managing your projects and tasks or Startboard for easily organizing your web bookmarks—I’m here to make it easier for anyone to earn online.

Build It Better Newsletter

by Jonas Fleur-Aime

Creating great software is not just about completing new features faster, submitting more pull requests, or fixing bugs. Every Wednesday I publish tips and tactics to help you meet tough deadlines, tackle tech debt, handle scope creep, manage stakeholders, make sure you're building what customers actually want, and more. I'll draw on what I've learned after spending 15 yrs as a software developer, Engineering Manager, CTO, and startup advisor.

113 Cherry St #92768, Seattle, WA 98104
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Dan Goslen | The Team-Driven Developer