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How To Be A Great Developer - All Things Open 2016

funkatron
October 26, 2016

How To Be A Great Developer - All Things Open 2016

#ATO2016

funkatron

October 26, 2016
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  1. HOW TO BE
    A GREAT DEVELOPER
    ED FINKLER
    CTO - Graph Story
    [email protected]
    @funkatron
    funkatron.com

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  2. THIS IS A
    TEXT ADVENTURE

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  3. 20 YEARS OF WEB DEV
    LONE WOLF & TEAMS
    REMOTE AND OFFICE
    $$$ & ACADEMIA
    PHP PYTHON JS DEVOPS

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  4. HAVE FREQUENTLY
    BEEN CALLED A
    “WEBMASTER”

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  5. TECH SKILLS
    ARE OVERRATED

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  6. •PRACTICE EMPATHY
    •PRACTICE HUMILITY
    •ALWAYS BE LEARNING
    •AVOID TRIBALISM
    •BETTER YOUR COMMUNITY

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  7. PRACTICE EMPATHY
    •Empathy is the ability to understand
    how a person feels, and why they may
    feel that way.
    •Empathy is your most important
    skill.
    •Empathy makes you more likely to get
    what you need.

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  8. PRACTICE EMPATHY
    •Practice it with everyone you
    interact with, and everyone who
    interacts with your work.
    •Always keep two groups in mind: the
    users and the rest of your team.

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  9. PRACTICE EMPATHY
    •Solve the user’s problems, not
    yours.
    •To solve their problems, must
    empathize with them.

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  10. PRACTICE EMPATHY
    •Make choices with teammates in mind.
    •Anticipate questions and confusion.
    •Think weeks, months, years ahead.

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  11. PRACTICE EMPATHY
    •Don’t assume people know what you know.

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  12. PRACTICE HUMILITY
    •Humility goes hand in hand with
    empathy.
    •You’ll always be learning and
    improving. Accept and own-up to
    mistakes.
    •The less you fear being wrong, the
    more confident you can be.

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  13. PRACTICE HUMILITY
    •You’re wrong about many things.
    •So is everyone else.
    •Allow others to practice humility.

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  14. ALWAYS BE LEARNING
    •Be liberal in learning about new
    technologies and approaches. Be
    conservative in using them.
    •Any technology can be the right
    choice depending on the needs of the
    project and strengths of the team.

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  15. ALWAYS BE LEARNING
    •Set aside a little time each week to
    learn about new tech.
    •At conferences, try to catch one or
    two talks about technologies you
    don’t know much about.

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  16. AVOID TRIBALISM
    •Refuse to participate in tribalism.
    •View absolute statements with
    extreme skepticism.
    •Build communities with what we have
    in common. Embrace diversity. Help
    people feel safe.

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  17. AVOID TRIBALISM
    •Dismissing a technology without a
    sound, reasonable argument is prone
    to error.
    •Be extremely careful about
    participating in X vs Y arguments.

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  18. AVOID TRIBALISM
    •Reserve your loyalty for people. Not
    brands. Not companies. Not
    technologies.
    •Fashion-driven development will fail
    you.

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  19. BETTER YOUR COMMUNITY
    •Make people’s lives better with your
    skills.
    •Make the community around you
    better. You don’t need to go to some
    Magic City of Tech Genius to do
    important work.

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  20. BETTER YOUR COMMUNITY
    •Share what you learn with the people
    around you. Ask them to share what
    they have learned with you.

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  21. BUT I’M A SUPERVISOR!
    •Values of a hierarchical org
    distribute from the top down.
    •Great developers need a great org to
    support them.
    •Leadership has a huge influence on
    the quality of life of employees.

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  22. BUT I’M A SUPERVISOR!
    •Your job is to support and empower
    the people you supervise.
    •You aren’t more important than them.
    You just have a different job.
    •A huge part of your job is making
    sure your team members feel, and
    are, understood.

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  23. BUT I’M A SUPERVISOR!
    •A lot of the people you lead are
    scared, burned out, struggling.
    •You must promote mental wellness.
    OSMIHELP.ORG
    •Listen, understand, help, empower.

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  24. Q+A
    ED FINKLER
    [email protected]
    @funkatron
    funkatron.com
    http://www.kreativekorp.com/software/fonts/c64.shtml

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