…about the people you work and for whom you develop software for? Or how Allen Pike put it, do you deliver:
I think too often and too quickly we get lost in our own problems, be it code-wise or management-wise that we end up forgetting about the bigger picture. Software development, just like any product development, is ultimately not about the product itself, but about the customer and their interaction with the product.
For physical products the market usually regulates itself, because people will refuse or stop buying things they don’t like – can potentially and only temporarily be mitigated with deceiving advertisement. When you’re creating custom software for a company within the company, then the end product will be pushed onto employees, whether the software is actually good or not – there tends to be some political pressure on delivering useful things, but it’s not really comparable to a free market.
The re-payment of caring about others can sometimes take a while, but it usually comes in the form of trust and eventually new opportunities based on said trust.
I’m fortunate to work at a company with a lot of developers who do care, who tend to think a few steps ahead and consider where the true value lies. I’m even more fortunate to currently work on a project where we do actively ask for direct customer feedback, even if we can’t always deliver on all the points, we get to hear and understand the pain points and do improvements where possible.
Do you really care?