It’s common for software developers to feel misunderstood and discriminated against by non-developers for unknown reasons. We crafted this post to give you an unbiased perspective of what the real issue usually is to help clear some of the common miscommunications, myths, and misunderstandings between developers and non-developers. Some of these misconstructions have often led to far-fetched stalemates and missed opportunities. You can pass this guide on to a close friend who’d like to develop a good working relationship with his other developers.
Why It’s Hard For Non-Developers To Work With Developers
Every software developer has felt misunderstood by non-developer clients or colleagues at some point in their career. Thanks to the availability of easy-to-use tools and effective software development strategies, it’s much easier and more reliable for non-developers and developers to work together seamlessly. But why do developers find it hard to work with their non-developer colleagues?
Developers Are Different
It’d be interesting to note that developers like working just from anywhere, even when under no supervision. For instance, you’ll be surprised to note that the IT staff in your organization will execute some of their duties and responsibilities by working remotely from their homes to beat deadlines, even during weekends.
An engineering team of a company will be comfortable hacking away on their laptops right outside the office’s parking lot when their building has been evacuated and a fire alarm goes off! Typically, other employees will go home or rush to attend to their errands.
Strong Passion
Software developers are more passionate about their jobs vis-à-vis their counterparts’ motivation levels. A developer has acquired a lot of experience using intuition when making critical decisions.
Sometimes they know what might go wrong with an application and how to correct it. It is essential that people have an excellent intuitive feeling about what is right or not sounding right when analyzing plans, ideas, code implementations, performance metrics, etc. An accountant, a sales marketer, or a PR officer in an organization won’t be as passionate about their job’s duties and responsibilities as a developer.
That is not to say that it is a measuring stick for different levels of dedication and competence in the workplace. Because it isn’t always possible to understand precisely what will happen with the system if all decisions were to be made logically, teams must have people with good intuitions that will allow them to make decisions based on their excellent intuitions.
Interestingly, some programmers we interact with are ordinary people who inadvertently found themselves in the programming world. They are doctors, lawyers, journalists, accountants, etc., who gradually nurtured their programming careers to become professionals through inspiration. Some of the graduates in this career acquired their developing skills through boot camps! This is usually not the case with other careers.
Attention to Detail
Developers love to pay attention to fine details, a skill that is declining these days. Trying to abstract the details of programming problems helps developers to write programs that are easier to understand. Writing software is a complex undertaking. A lot of the small details that go into it are extremely important.
So many different things must work perfectly for a system to work smoothly. It only takes one disastrous (even unimaginable) edge case to ruin everything developed. Sometimes all it takes is one lousy bug to ruin the whole thing, and sometimes it takes much less.
Being accurate and thorough when building software is highly valued. In the process, non-developers tend to feel like most developers are antisocial and belligerent beings who prefer keeping to themselves. Interestingly, their introverted nature is one way of trying to be as precise as possible by weighing out all options meticulously.
Understanding that being reclusive is not a sign of selfishness or rudeness will go a long way in helping you understand and easily start working seamlessly with your developer co-workers or employees.
How Hard is the Work of a Developer?
It isn’t easy to learn to program, but if you spend time learning how to do things like that and doing it regularly, you’ll become a competent developer and get your first job without studying computer science. Quite often, it seems as though you’ll learn everything you need to know in the course of your studies, but that’s not true. It can take you up to five years or more.
So, start from the beginning and focus on the important things. To graduate with a computer science degree, you’ll need 3.5 years and seven semesters for BSc and 1.5 years and three semesters for MSc. Sometimes it can take longer if you don’t pass specific exams and have to retake them.
The positive thing about these five years of serious studying is that you’ll learn a lot of programming languages such as MATLAB, C, JavaScript, C++, Java, Python, PHP, and HTML & CSS. You’ll be taught different things about the basics of computer science, software engineering, databases, algorithms, data structures, compilers, and networking.
In fact, you can start working after two to three years into the course as an intern in an IT firm to hone your new programming skills. In a nutshell, being a developer is not that hard or challenging as long as you’re a good planner, motivated, passionate, and spontaneous.
Is Software Dev Stressful?
You may feel stressed out a number of times when you try to create software, and while every time it seems a little different, the feeling remains the same. Remember that the world is yours! If you stay patient and try hard enough, you’ll learn how to code and eventually get your first software developer job. It’s not true that you can’t find a job as a beginner in programming. You just need to keep trying. Some companies start summer internships when students have more time to work.
You might have project managers who want you to add more content to their sites or do things that will cut costs (or make changes to their budget). People may try to get you to accept whatever the company wants you to do, but you still want to keep trying all the new features that are out there. If you begin to feel stressed out, you won’t be able to work as efficiently as you would like, and you will feel worse. If you are feeling stressed out, you must understand which stressors are most common to identify which ones cause your stress and manage them so you can stay sane and productive.
Wrap Up
Once you’ve mastered the necessary languages, you’ll need to be consistent and persistent in future development projects. Furthermore, since technology is an ever-evolving environment, you must be a very proactive individual who keeps learning and evolving with the new industry trends to survive. When you feel strong enough to develop some websites and have created some good personal projects, and you understand basic concepts like solving an HTTP request, creating an N+1 query, and using indexes in a database, you can start searching for your first software developer job.
