The Rising Power of Developers

msmoriarty writes "Google's Don Dodge, GitHub's Tom Preston-Werner, New Relic's Lew Cirne and others recently got together in San Francisco on a panel called 'The Developer is King: The Power Behind the Throne.' According to coverage of the event, the panelists all agreed that programmers — both independent ones and those employed by companies — have more power, and thus opportunities, than ever. Even the marketing power of developers was acknowledged: 'The only way to convince a developer is by giving them a demo and showing them how it's better,' said Preston-Werner. 'The beauty is, you plant these seeds around the world, and those people will evangelize it for you. Because another thing that developers are great at is telling other developers what works for them.'"

Comments

Pat on the back

[Noughmad]

Some rich guys got together, told themselves how great they are and how they deserve to be rich. News at 11.

Re:Pat on the back

[JaredOfEuropa]

Good point, but the problem is that very few people see the width of that spectrum. Sucks if you're a head chef but your boss can't really see how you're different from the burger flipper, except that you seem to flip more or bigger burgers.

That's why I call bollocks on TFA. VCs favour developer-founders now? It might be a good move but then again, it might not, and next month they'll favour people with neatly trimmed hair, just like last month they were favouring people with business experience. As for programmers, their power has declined. A long time ago (in tech-land terms), programming was a respected profession, not just amongst peers but also by the general public, and by those programmers' employers. That had already ended when I got into the game, but even back then, programmers did have a significant amount of influence on the design and parameters of the program. As a programmer I got to join meetings on product and service design with the CTO and marketing manager of a large mobile telco. Small projects were generally left to be managed by team leads who were also programmers. And project managers of larger projects often deferred to his developers.

Today, most larger corporations keep their programmers in the basement. The aspect of the job that involved contact with clients, management and business representatives is now handled by sales reps, project managers and business analysts. Most of whom have a very weak grasp of technology, I might add. The chasm between tech and business hasn't widened, but the bridges have gone and we're reduced to flinging memos across the gap. On top of that, now we're seeing heavy compartimentalisation of the work, by defining standards and procedures that attempt to turn creativity and flexibility into predictable monkey work. Now, standards and procedures aren't necessarily bad, and the field of software development can do with some professionalisation, but what's being introduced now moves us in the wrong direction. Even the master coders' jobs are being reduced to burger flipping, or at least managers are trying to.

it might be true, but not very convincing panel

[Trepidity]

A group of successful developers get together on a panel and, surprisingly, everyone on the panel agrees that developers are very important and goin' places in the world.

Re:it might be true, but not very convincing panel

[Darinbob]

Meanwhile, you get back to work and tell the boss that the new product feature is a bad idea, and you get told to shut up and keep rowing.

Re:it might be true, but not very convincing panel

[StripedCow]

Actually, when I read the headline, I was hoping this article was about programmers starting a union, to collectively fight things such as diverging programming ecosystems, software patent abuse, deliberately broken/abandoned APIs, walled API gardens, etcetera.

Power? For who?

[djupedal]

This is all about marketing power, and using devs as mouthpieces. Devs are always either agreeing or arguing, with the new ones either lapping up anything the older ones say or dissing them as crotchety and set in their ways. The only selling I see going on is on what resources to use and which to ignore, and there are always a basket of opinions going in different directions depending on which site you're on at the moment. If someone can find a way to milk them as a group, beyond, you know...developing stuff, then go for it, but to say they are king makers is a bit of a virtual stretch. Any marketer will see them as just another group.

Re:Power? For who?

[fat_mike]

No offense but the first rule of marketing for a software company is "Hide the damn developers and for the love of everything good and sweet do not let them talk to stockholders or customers!"

Re:Power? For who?

[Opportunist]

Yup. I noticed that devs tend to be truthful. Really insane bunch of geeks.

Ready for an H-1B increase?

[ebno-10db]

programmers — both independent ones and those employed by companies — have more power, and thus opportunities, than ever

Sounds like part of a campaign for an H-1B quota increase.

Yep

[ShooterNeo]

In the long run (read : I mean the next 30 years), every job in existence has a programmer involved.

Manual Labor? In the long run, it'll be robots that do nearly all of it, and software is the only real obstacle that stops us from automating more tasks.

Manufacturing? Software problem. Healthcare? Most of a doctor's thinking could be automated with existing software techniques. (sure, not the physical procedures part, but that's only a portion)

Of course, in the LONG, LONG run, someone will advance the art of software to the point that we have software that can write itself, and then we're all out of work...

Re:Yep

[Livius]

Luckily in 20 years it will still be 30 years away, which will give us a little time.

Re:Lies

[spiffmastercow]

I have never met a competent developer who had trouble finding work.

I HAVE met incompetent out-of-touch, burnt-out, full-of-themselves developers who can't find work. It's this second kind that think they're good but are not and who should be in another field.

As far as finding work goes, you're probably correct. I have, however, met a fairly large number of good developers who are 10x more productive than an average programmer, but have difficulty getting paid what they're worth.

Reality

[Baldrson]

My personal dilemma is that one of the few ways I can capitalize on my 40 years experience in computer programming is to make money training young people to go into the software profession.

Its hard to explain to folks who see my resume and employment status why I refuse to accept money to train train local young people.

First of all people aren't used to people with ethics. So they don't understand why I wouldn't want to take money from kids by leading them into pauperism.

Secondly they've been led to believe that domestic programmers with equal skills have an equal shot at the high income positions that are going to foreign aggressors. Its one of those things that's just too depressing to admit to one's self about the horror of the government's oppression of the citizens. This is especially true in rural areas where almost every family has a young man who has served in the military and either killed, or been indoctrinated that is is ok to kill for the government (if they, themselves haven't been permanently disabled if not killed).

all the power?

[alienzed]

I for one welcome our new developer overlords...

Re:We'll screw it up

[phantomfive]

No wonder people don't respect our field -- we don't respect it ourselves. ... We've taken the secrets and tools of our trade, open sourced them

I definitely don't respect programmers who think they need to keep their source hidden in order to stay competitive.

Re:We'll screw it up

[Zenin]

Here's the problem: Most all of what makes a good lawyer or doctor isn't at all about finding creative, novel ways to solve problems. Much the opposite in fact; Creative application of law or medicine is most likely to get you disbarred or thrown in jail. It's much easier to create a quantifiable exam when the subject matter is so well defined and creativity is shunned.

In software however, it's completely the opposite. Creative, novel application of existing technology and/or the invention of entirely new technology, is a good software developer's bread and butter. It's a big part of the essence of what makes them a good developer rather then a coding drone.

So how do you create an exam to quantify a good developer? By the very nature of what you're looking for the only "right" answers are "wrong" ones. But which wrong answer is right? That's completely subjective in an exam setting, however in the real world it's much easier to quantify: Your shit works and works well or it doesn't.

Re:Mod parent up

[Anonymous Coward]

Opposite anecdote: I live in a major city on the West coast of the U.S., and I've never had a period of the last 7 years where I couldn't get a six figure offer when I wanted a new job. And I didn't even have to move.

The lesson from your travels isn't that being a computer programmer is a bad gig. It's that you shouldn't move to a place where there is only one job. Move to a major metropolitan area, and you can earn a lot of money with virtually zero unemployment in the field.

Re:Lies

[Darinbob]

I have been out of work in the past for nearly a year. Lots of people claiming that they wanted to hire me, if only they had the budget. When the economy is bad and there are no job openings, it doesn't matter how competent you are. Maybe a lot of these new people haven't really been in a bad economy or downturn except the current one. Also the fads comd and go, if the current fad is web sites with scripting language of the day, and you don't know web stuff, then all those jobs pass you by no matter how good a programmer you are.

Some of the people that do the best with getting jobs are the dabblers, quickly learning the rudiments of something and then moving on in a few years when fashions change; client/server turns into palm pilot apps turns into web design turns into mobile apps, etc.

Also very important to finding a job, is to not be geeky and nerdy. You need people skills and that is not easy to learn for the borderline autism spectrum people who are great coders and hardware designers and mathematicians. You have to learn to NOT be yourself in an interview.

What an empty fluff piece

[msobkow]

Not one example of developers succeeding or what they might have done to stand out in a sea of offshore contractors, but a bunch of self-congratulatory pap about how successful their own businesses are. And not ONE developer in the panel -- all pompous management taking the credit for themselves.