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Don’t Take That Developer Job Without Asking These 5 Questions
By Victor Glava, cofounder and CTO, OptionsCity Software
It’s a tough job market out there for young people, with estimates that 44 percent of college grads are underemployed. If you are a young developer, the market is certainly much better than that, but it is nonetheless still a challenge to find the right opportunity, one that will allow you to make a strategic impact, become a better developer and reward you for key contributions.
Thankfully, if you are one of those young developers who want to make a difference (and not just be another cog in the corporate machine), a little due diligence can greatly improve your chances of landing the right position with the right employer. The questions below are a great place to start:
1. How soon can I have an impact?
Many employers see you – the millennial – as an exciting, yet problematic hire. Exciting in that you want to make a difference and that you bring great curiosity and a diverse skillset, but problematic in that you may be less inclined to want to “pay your dues.”
Avoid those employers.
How quickly your work will have an impact does more than simply give you something tangible to point to. “Cycle time,” the time it takes from deciding to add a particular feature to when it is placed in front of customers, is key to success in a competitive marketplace, in creating great products and in maintaining developer morale.
I don’t mean you should turn down any job that requires grunt work – that sometimes is required as part of “getting up to speed.” Indeed, you should be careful that your desire to do meaningful work does not come across as arrogant or difficult. The bigger issue is whether your age and experience are insurmountable obstacles to making an impact.
2. What internal controls are in place?
If a company gives you ownership over code, you need to know it “has your back” if (more likely, when) something goes wrong. If you’re building production code with a short cycle time, that employer needs to have a framework in place to prevent problems and a culture in place that allows for continuous improvement and that keeps you from becoming a scapegoat.
By comparing prospective employers’ testing procedures and their commitment to continuous iteration and delivery, and finding out how mistakes have been handled in the past, you can learn the best place for your talents to flourish.
3. How is creativity rewarded?
Software engineering rarely gets the attention it deserves as a creative outlet. But every day, it is the creativity of the software engineer – not the marketer, accountant or lawyer – that produces solutions for real problems.
In fact, at OptionsCity we find that the most creative developers are 10 to 20 times more impactful than average ones.
Not every employer understands this, however. And in fact, most undervalue creativity’s impact on success. If you think your creativity is what separates you from the pack, ask the employer how it rewards developers for finding new and innovative solutions to problems.
If the employer can’t offer concrete examples on how it does that at present, it is perhaps best to continue looking.
4. How will you make me better?
The first days, weeks and months of a new job are a mixture of challenges and opportunities. But often, developers quickly fall into a rut and are given the same tasks over and over because they become known as the one person who is great with a particular technology or expert with a certain system component.
This is a trap and one that you must avoid.
Ask the employer about how the company will make you a better developer and how your manager will work with you on a career development plan. Acceptable answers range from a commitment to giving you a wide array of responsibilities to being able to participate in formal training in new technologies. Employers should also be willing to work with you on alternate career paths, if, for example, you would like to become more customer facing.
In short, you need to be getting better at what you do every day, or else you will fall behind the competition for your next position.
5. Who are your “Rock Stars”?
You can learn if an employer has a great working environment for developers by finding out the quality of those already on board. It’s not so much whether the CTO is impressive; it’s whether there are “rock stars" who don’t carry the CTO title. Are any of the developers leading technology user groups? Are there noted authors, bloggers or writers? Have they worked on amazing digital products in the past? Are they thought-leaders on new technologies? Do they contribute to industry conferences?
The presence of top developer talent indicates two big positives about a new job opportunity. First, and most important, it shows that the company is a place where the best and the brightest want to be, even if they’re not in charge. Second, it ensures a challenging and competitive environment where you can be sure you’ll be stimulated each and every day.
We no longer live in a world where people get a job out of college and retire with the same employer 40 years later. While workforce mobility is a net positive, it leads some people to be less judicious than they should be when looking for a new gig, thinking, “Hey, if I don’t like it, I’ll just find something else.”
That’s a trap, however, one that will lead to a disjointed and random assortment of jobs that will likely limit your long-term career potential. Instead, by approaching each job as if it could be your last, you’ll be much more likely to grow as a professional, allowing you – decades from now – to look back on a successful career made up of one accomplishment after another.
Victor Glava is the cofounder and chief technology officer of OptionsCity Software, a provider of electronic trading solutions for professional futures and options traders.
