Developer Archetypes - Which One Are You?
Photo by David Clode @davidclode on Unsplash
Over the years I have to admit one thing. I’m slowly becoming a cliché of a software developer. I’m starting to believe we are all degenerating into a cartoon version of ourselves, but which of these developers is most like you?
Come this way into the stereotyped world of developer archetypes.
The Perpetual Junior
This isn’t the same as a junior who has just started on their software developer journey. This is a junior trapped in that position for their entire career.
They might claim to have 3, 5 or 10 years of experience. However their experience is of repeating a single year’s experience over and over, they are never able to move to more complex problems and solutions. They’ll never move to be mid-senior, and they’ll never come up with cool solutions.
If this is you: Change your mindset. If you’re not always learning you might just end up as a junior who looks like this guy:
The Endorphin Chaser
The Endorphin Chaser is a coder who’s constantly on the hunt for that next rush of accomplishment. Solving a tough bug, pushing a feature to production, or getting a thumbs up on a pull request gives them a hit of endorphins that keeps them going. They thrive on the highs of quick wins and often struggle with the grind of long-term projects.
They often take this strategy to their diet too, self-medicating with chocolate and sugared drinks to get them through those long debugging sessions
If this is you: Remember that real satisfaction comes from steady, meaningful progress.
The Mediocre Coder
Give The Mediocre Coder a simple task and they’ll easily solve it. Give them a medium-level task and they’ll take an age to solve the issue and might need to come back to you asking for help. If you give them a difficult task, you might as well do it yourself.
If this is you: Keep pushing yourself to complete harder and more complex tasks. You owe it to yourself to become a better developer over time.
The Developer Who Blames Everyone Else
If there is a bug in this developer’s work, they blame QA. The tech debt in this code means there are problems. They aren’t able to come to stand-up as they need to fix someone else’s problem.
Everything is someone else’s fault, meaning they aren’t able to learn as much as they should be able to.
If this is you: Open your mind and use each and every mistake as an opportunity to improve.
The Never Go Home Coder
Some programmers grind solutions and throw time at issues until they are fixed. You can see some programmers who take this approach; they have an exhausted haunted look. Their code likewise is littered with the mistakes of a tired coder.
If this is you: Keep your mind clean and ask for help when you need to. Don’t be a martyr.
The Reckless Coder
This boy wonders rockets through their work, pushing code and getting it all done. If you’ve any questions they’re right there to help you, to get code into production. They seem like a great colleague, and everyone likes to work with them.
The mistakes only seem to turn up later.
If this is you: We all appreciate speed is important. However, so is accuracy.
The Debater
Always wants to discuss every solution. Not only that, but they also want to discuss the theory behind the solution. They’ll take up hours upon hours of time as they’ll be incredibly enthusiastic about programming and coming up with solutions for every problem in the codebase.
If this is you: Get on with it. We don’t all need to hear about this.
“The Friends At Work” Developer
Possibly because they don’t have friends in other areas of their lives this type of developer thinks you’re their best friend. Talking about coding, their experiences at the rock-climbing club (they weren’t popular), and more.
You want to go home? They’ll invite you to the bar. Sneaking out for lunch? They’ll come with you.
If this is you: Read the room.
The Insecure Programmer
This coder has insecurities. They might cry. They might be constantly worried about code review comments. They seem at constant risk of an emotional crash.
If this is you: Don’t bring your difficult personal relationships into the office, thank you.
The Competent Coder
It’s quite amazing that some programmers never get to this state. You should aim for this as a coder.
The only problem is your competency will soon be noticed and you’ll be promoted out of day-to-day coding and into people management.
If this is you: Keep on coding!
The most popular type of coder
It’s unfortunate that one of these coders is 10x more popular than the others. What is worse is that it isn’t the Competent Coder at all. Which one is it?
The Perpetual Junior.
People keep entering this profession without any interest in it. They don’t enjoy keeping up to date with the technological changes that are inevitable. As a result, The trainee keeps cropping up in my life. Sad but true.
Conclusion
Please do try to be a competent programmer. It’s the right way to go, meaning all of our projects might be successful. Wouldn’t that be nice?