The Best Software Developers Never Say These 5 Things

The best developers never say the following.

Sure, there are other ways to separate the best from the mediocre. But if you’re looking for a quick way to spot an inexperienced coder simply listen for these aural tells.

Let’s take a look at them and find out why the software developer in your life doesn’t utter them.

I can do that

You’ll make your job seem too easy. The business will give you many new tickets to solve, which will be an issue for getting back onto raiding tonite.

Your colleagues will complain that you are making them look bad. It’s not a good look and come 360° review time they won’t give you favorable reviews. It’s not all great.

Positivity isn’t rewarded in software development

This is easy

When you say something is easy and you’re in a new position you’re saying something specific. You’re saying that the person who came before you is at least your equal. Do you think your skills aren’t entirely up to speed?

Perhaps you shouldn’t be working here after all

If you keep saying work is easy and you’ve been in a position for a long time, are you asking for more work? If that is the case, why don’t you create something to help the other programmers you code alongside? Why are you making the complexity of your coding an issue?

I start to think all code made by someone other than The Secret Developer is code created by monkeys

I love working to help the customer

First, you’ll need to think about which customer is being referred to. Is it the business customer or the consumer? An inexperienced coder will see everyone who touches their code as a customer.

If you really like helping the customer you’d need to understand that helping yourself (by writing maintainable code, for example) is actually helping the customer. Those who say platitudes like “I love the customer” are seldom capable of writing the best code. Period.

There is nothing more important than great code

I’ve just pulled that ticket in

Looking for more work? Want to be busy? Keep pulling in more tickets. Find more work to do. 

The less experienced find themselves overworked with what might be generously termed “busy work” which can be expanded to take up evenings, weekends, and holidays.

Your employer won’t thank you for doing more work. More experienced coders will whisper “side hustle” in the darkened corridors at work. What your employer will never recognize is that the lessons learned on side projects will benefit them directly as your experience level grows.

My side hustle? You’re looking at it

Please, Thank you

Pleasantries aren’t required in this game for the mediocre coder. They haven’t yet realized that the world is a small place, and you’ll need to keep working with the same faces not just in this gig but perhaps in future job opportunities. Relationships are at the heart of every successful project.

But saying please takes too much time

Conclusion

There are many ways to signal that you’re a pro developer. The best? Not what you say or don’t say from a listicle like this one.

So, what is it?

Let your code do the talking

The Secret Developer has no problem writing quality code