Upgrade to Pro
— share decks privately, control downloads, hide ads and more …
Speaker Deck
Features
Speaker Deck
PRO
Sign in
Sign up for free
Search
Search
Optimize for Developer Happiness
Search
Ben Balter
April 26, 2016
Technology
0
280
Optimize for Developer Happiness
Why how you work is as important as what you work on
Ben Balter
April 26, 2016
Tweet
Share
More Decks by Ben Balter
See All by Ben Balter
A community of communities: Empowering maintainers to grow communities around their code
benbalter
1
1.3k
Fostering a culture of collaboration
benbalter
0
230
Growing open source communities on GitHub around your WordPress plugin or theme
benbalter
1
250
It takes a digital village
benbalter
1
460
Open source workflows in highly regulated environments
benbalter
0
92
The technology is the easy part
benbalter
2
290
How to foster an open source culture inside Government
benbalter
3
2.4k
Open source inspired workflows for open (and closed) geospatial data
benbalter
0
150
10 ways people are (mis)using GitHub Pages for fun and profit
benbalter
6
640
Other Decks in Technology
See All in Technology
大規模サーバーレスAPIの堅牢性・信頼性設計 〜AWSのベストプラクティスから始まる現実的制約との向き合い方〜
maimyyym
9
4.5k
自動テストのコストと向き合ってみた
qa
1
230
技育祭2025【秋】 企業ピッチ/登壇資料(高橋 悟生)
hacobu
PRO
0
100
Adminaで実現するISMS/SOC2運用の効率化 〜 アカウント管理編 〜
shonansurvivors
4
450
ユーザーの声とAI検証で進める、プロダクトディスカバリー
sansantech
PRO
1
140
防災デジタル分野での官民共創の取り組み (2)DIT/CCとD-CERTについて
ditccsugii
0
280
2025-10-09_プロジェクトマネージャーAIチャンス
taukami
0
130
新規事業におけるGORM+SQLx併用アーキテクチャ
hacomono
PRO
0
220
ガバメントクラウドの概要と自治体事例(名古屋市)
techniczna
2
240
Vibe Coding Year in Review. From Karpathy to Real-World Agents by Niels Rolland, CEO Paatch
vcoisne
0
130
[Keynote] What do you need to know about DevEx in 2025
salaboy
0
170
AgentCon Accra: Ctrl + Alt + Assist: AI Agents Edition
bethany
0
100
Featured
See All Featured
Embracing the Ebb and Flow
colly
88
4.8k
Bash Introduction
62gerente
615
210k
Building Better People: How to give real-time feedback that sticks.
wjessup
369
20k
Design and Strategy: How to Deal with People Who Don’t "Get" Design
morganepeng
132
19k
Save Time (by Creating Custom Rails Generators)
garrettdimon
PRO
32
1.6k
A designer walks into a library…
pauljervisheath
209
24k
A better future with KSS
kneath
239
18k
Bootstrapping a Software Product
garrettdimon
PRO
307
110k
How to train your dragon (web standard)
notwaldorf
97
6.3k
A Modern Web Designer's Workflow
chriscoyier
697
190k
The Web Performance Landscape in 2024 [PerfNow 2024]
tammyeverts
9
870
Optimizing for Happiness
mojombo
379
70k
Transcript
! Optimize for developer happiness Why how you work is
as important as what you work on @benbalter
CONWAY'S LAW "organizations which design systems... are constrained to produce
designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations"
! Developer-centric development
! STARTUP the fairytale
Low value High value Startup Established firm Ideas Process
Low value High value Startup Established firm Geeks Suits
! What does your organization optimize for?
! Happy shareholders Successful software Efficient developers Strategic management
! Happy shareholders Good software Happy developers Happy Customers
! You can make software without MANAGEMENT
! You can make software without COMPLIANCE AND OVERSIGHT
! You can't make software without DEVELOPERS
! DEVELOPER HAPPINESS Optimize for and the rest will follow
! Developer happiness (Inside|Outside) the firewall
! Inside the firewall
! Traditional software development
! When outcomes can't be measured, institute process
! Daily, synchronous meetings to manually shuttle information around the
organization
! Decisions made in person, in hour-long blocks with
all stakeholders present
! Blocking, human-based processes
! Email as the least-common denominator
! Organizational knowledge lives (and dies) with employees
! bus_factor++
! Open-source development
! Transparency solves for process
! The constraints of open source
! Electronic
! Available
! Asynchronous
! Lock-free
! Prefer systems that naturally CAPTURE AND EXPOSE PROCESS
! Open source inside the firewall
! Open source is a PHILOSOPHY AND A WORKFLOW
not as an alternative technology
! How to WORK LIKE AN OPEN SOURCE PROJECT
! 1. Share to the widest extent possible
! Openness breaks down silos, reduces duplication, and minimizes on-boarding
time
! 2. Minimize developer friction
! Friction (n) the time it takes to go
from "I want to contribute" to "I have contributed"
! Common scripts to rule them all http://githubengineering.com/scripts-to-rule-them-all/
! PREFER CULTURAL CONSTRAINTS to technical and administrative constraints
! Non-blocking is better than blocking
! Never force a human to do what a robot
can
! ChatOps, DevOps, Hubot, and CI
! If you liked it you should have PUT AN
API ON IT
! Outside the firewall
! APIs make developers happy
! Openness makes developers happy
! Two caveats
! 1. Open up almost everything
! 2. Openness is about more than just throwing 0's
and 1's over the firewall
! Treat your data with the same respect that developers
treat code
! Open source, inner source, APIs, & open data all
foster communities around shared challenges
! Be the hub, not the single point of failure
(or innovation)
! Adopt an expanded definition of stakeholders
! Ensure all stakeholders have the opportunity to contribute
on equal footing
! Decentralize governance
! Minimize information imbalance
! 1. Work in the open
! 2. Propose and discuss improvements in the open
! 3. One shared, public issue tracker
! 4. Minimize synchronous meetings (and memorialize them when necessary)
! 5. Extensive, automated tests
! How do you optimize for developer happiness?
! Inside the firewall systems that capture and expose process
! Outside the firewall treat external stakeholders as internal stakeholders
! No really, how do you optimize for developer happiness?
! TECHNOLOGY is the easy part
! Bureaucracy is an organism
! Inoculate with small doses of culture and innovation
! Involve all stakeholders early on
! Start small and go through the motions
! Create a "feedback" repository both internally and externally
! Open data Open governance Open tooling
! DEVELOPER HAPPINESS Optimize for and the rest will follow
! Optimize for developer happiness Why how you work is
as important as what you work on @benbalter