Healthy Developer

Are you joining a new company, team, or project? Do you want to make sure others respect you so you can use the technologies you want – and get your skills used?

Early in my career I thought the best way to do this was to impress others with my technical acumen. But I learned quickly that this only causes frustration and delayed me being accepted.

In this episode, I share stories and tips that will help you approach a new team with a positive attitude. You'll overcome walls people can put up and instead have others welcome your suggestions for improving their software project.

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TechRolepedia, a wiki about the top 25 roles in tech: https://thrivingtechnologist.com/techroles

The Thriving Technologist career guide: https://thrivingtechnologist.com/guide

You can also watch this episode on YouTube.

Visit me at thrivingtechnologist.com

In this episode, I want to ask you a question that might make you defensive: "Are you a perfectionist programmer?".

I can tell you, after many years of being a software developer, I've gotten much better at this. But one of the things I want to help you with in this video is to maybe think a little bit about how you work with others – and maybe make better decisions about what kind of expectations you have from software developers, technologists, and other people on your team so that you don't get into a situation where you turn people off and you can't really get their best work and cooperation because you might expect them to work exactly how you do.

Join my Patreon: https://thrivingtechnologist.com/patreon

Learn about one-on-one career coaching with me: https://thrivingtechnologist.com/coaching

TechRolepedia, a wiki about the top 25 roles in tech: https://thrivingtechnologist.com/techroles

The Thriving Technologist career guide: https://thrivingtechnologist.com/guide

You can also watch this episode on YouTube.

Visit me at thrivingtechnologist.com

Technology addiction hurts your software development career if materialism makes you chase shiny objects.

When I was a child, I used to like looking through the magazines my father got with all kinds of gadgets in them. As an adult, I often got caught up in obtaining the latest cars, guitars, or other material possessions.

And though you may have a handle on materialism in your personal life - it can become prevalent in a software development career.

We suffer from technology addiction when we get bored from repetitiveness - this is pretty obvious. But we also suffer from envy - and this is common because many companies don't keep their software developers growing.

We can also put on "rose colored glasses" and deceive ourselves into thinking a new framework, API, or other technology will solve our problems. Failing to master a language or technology puts you at a serious disadvantage in your tech career.

It's highly important that you develop the ability to match technology to the business. The only way this will happen, is if you both master your current tech stack - and develop an appreciation for what is unique in the business of your current software project.

Ultimately, you need to be able to deliver results.

Hiring practices in the industry make this an ongoing problem, but you can avoid some of the snares by thinking about the insights I share in this video.

Join my Patreon: https://thrivingtechnologist.com/patreon

Learn about one-on-one career coaching with me: https://thrivingtechnologist.com/coaching

TechRolepedia, a wiki about the top 25 roles in tech: https://thrivingtechnologist.com/techroles

The Thriving Technologist career guide: https://thrivingtechnologist.com/guide

You can also watch this episode on YouTube.

Visit me at thrivingtechnologist.com

There's plenty of "fake news" from the software industry, so beware of the DevOps lie.

There's a lot of confusion - just follow the money to see why.

In this video I help you discover the real answer to "what is DevOps?", and why it may not be working for you.

Though automated deployment technologies, cloud infrastructure, and other "fun" tools are exciting to talk about...

...DevOps is really about getting people to work together.

I hope this episode helps you understand the core reason why DevOps came to be, and how it's a subset of Continuous Delivery.

Though both of these terms ultimately seek to allow your company to release quicker (and more often) - I've seen them fail when gone about the wrong way.

You can help your company achieve the promises of DevOps by following the tips in this episode.

If you can help others answer the question "what is DevOps?" correctly - you can help your company achieve the cross-functional teamwork necessary.

Join my Patreon: https://thrivingtechnologist.com/patreon

Learn about one-on-one career coaching with me: https://thrivingtechnologist.com/coaching

TechRolepedia, a wiki about the top 25 roles in tech: https://thrivingtechnologist.com/techroles

The Thriving Technologist career guide: https://thrivingtechnologist.com/guide

You can also watch this episode on YouTube.

Related resources:

• "Continuous Delivery" (Amazon)
• "The Phoneix Project" (Amazon)

Visit me at thrivingtechnologist.com

Being on a software project death spiral can be extremely stressful.

It usually happens when your company is doing FAKE Agile software development.

People feel despair, and it looks like there's no end in sight?

In this episode, I share some practical tips to help you correct this situation.

Though it's never easy to recover from a death spiral, don't give up when there's hope!

Join my Patreon: https://thrivingtechnologist.com/patreon

Learn about one-on-one career coaching with me: https://thrivingtechnologist.com/coaching

TechRolepedia, a wiki about the top 25 roles in tech: https://thrivingtechnologist.com/techroles

The Thriving Technologist career guide: https://thrivingtechnologist.com/guide

You can also watch this episode on YouTube.

Visit me at thrivingtechnologist.com

When someone comes to you for an estimate of a software task, do you feel uneasy?

Programming estimation is a dangerous activity that should be approached with caution!

But people make estimating software tasks more stressful than needed.

In this episode, I share some tips that will help you have better success rates when estimating software.

Though you may not be able to get out of estimating altogether (#noestimates), you can minimize the damage.

Join my Patreon: https://thrivingtechnologist.com/patreon

Learn about one-on-one career coaching with me: https://thrivingtechnologist.com/coaching

TechRolepedia, a wiki about the top 25 roles in tech: https://thrivingtechnologist.com/techroles

The Thriving Technologist career guide: https://thrivingtechnologist.com/guide

You can also watch this episode on YouTube.

Visit me at thrivingtechnologist.com

It's bound to happen that at some point you'll be asked to do some work that you know will have a negative outcome.

How you say no on a software project can build resentment if you don't establish clear boundaries - and decline the request with grace.

In this episode I share some tips I've found work well for diffusing resistance to your desire to do the work some other way. When you understand the person making the request better, you'll do a better job aligning your message with their needs.

You will need to help them overcome the pressure they already feel to meet any commitment they already made to their boss.

Join my Patreon: https://thrivingtechnologist.com/patreon

Learn about one-on-one career coaching with me: https://thrivingtechnologist.com/coaching

TechRolepedia, a wiki about the top 25 roles in tech: https://thrivingtechnologist.com/techroles

The Thriving Technologist career guide: https://thrivingtechnologist.com/guide

You can also watch this episode on YouTube.

Visit me at thrivingtechnologist.com

No matter how experienced you are, sometimes your software tasks will be late.

How you handle this often has far reaching implications on your career and your health.

In this episode, I share some insights I've had from doing this well - and not so well.

Learning to be transparent, reset expectations, and refuse to be strong-armed into releasing low quality work will ensure you have a sustainable software development career.

You can also watch this episode on YouTube.

Visit me at JaymeEdwards.com

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Find me on Twitter as @jaymeedwards

Do the teams you work on have an "elite few" that are looked to for making technology decisions?

Are there times you wish people would work together more to drive software architecture?

In today's episode I share both good, and bad experiences I've had with team structures that effect software architecture.

It seems logical at first to only allow people with more experience to make these decisions about tools, processes, and frameworks. But only teams that have an inclusive technical culture bring out the best in people by giving them shared ownership over the process.

Included are some tips I've found useful over my career to speed up the rate of adopting new technologies as part of your product's stack - and making it everyone's job.

Join my Patreon: https://thrivingtechnologist.com/patreon

Learn about one-on-one career coaching with me: https://thrivingtechnologist.com/coaching

TechRolepedia, a wiki about the top 25 roles in tech: https://thrivingtechnologist.com/techroles

The Thriving Technologist career guide: https://thrivingtechnologist.com/guide

You can also watch this episode on YouTube.

Visit me at thrivingtechnologist.com

It's easy to blame your company when a software project seems to require so many hours, that you suffer from software project burnout.

And there certainly are companies that haven't figured out how to set deadlines in a way that expectations can be reset if things go wrong.

But you can also burn yourself out, if you don't set healthy boundaries.

I've actually worked overtime at the BEGINNING of a project! This would happen when I wanted to try and "make sure" we wouldn't be late.

Or sometimes when I was just so excited to learn new technologies I DIDN'T WANT TO STOP.

In this episode, I encourage you to do whatever you can to prevent working any sort of overtime. Even if you love working with software and technology, you need to consider the precedent you set.

If employers know you will sacrifice your well being to meet deadlines, it's too tempting for them to abuse again!

Join my Patreon: https://thrivingtechnologist.com/patreon

Learn about one-on-one career coaching with me: https://thrivingtechnologist.com/coaching

TechRolepedia, a wiki about the top 25 roles in tech: https://thrivingtechnologist.com/techroles

The Thriving Technologist career guide: https://thrivingtechnologist.com/guide

You can also watch this episode on YouTube.

Visit me at thrivingtechnologist.com