Jak być zarąbistym developerem w oczach szefa i ... klienta

JAK BYĆ ZARĄBISTYM DEVELOPEREM
W OCZACH SZEFA I ... KLIENTA
Wojciech Seliga
Spartez
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0
2018

ABOUT ME
➤ Developer for many years (started as a 6-yo
kid)
➤ Co-founder since 2007
➤ Regular (but not frequent) speaker for last 10
years
➤ Author of (in)famous “How to be awesome at
a Java Developer job interview” from Conﬁtura
2012
➤ Non-developer for about 5 years. People and
the business take 100% of my time.
➤ My perspective broadens and changes, I learn
new things, my thoughts evolve.
“Business People” Stereotype

SOME DEFINITIONS - THE CONTEXT
1.Modern software development company
2.Boss vs. customer
3.Being awesome

MODERN SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT COMPANY
➤ Operating in highly competitive environment
➤ Fast-changing, constantly adapting
➤ Fast-pacing, quickly reacting
➤ Focused on fast feedback loops and constant improvement
➤ How:
➤ Autonomous, creative people with great individual impact
➤ Cross-functional autonomous and empowered teams
➤ Decentralisation
➤ Lightweight processes

OLD WORLD - BOSS CHANNELED COMMUNICATION THROUGH MULTIPLE LAYERS
Proxies, Men-in-the-middle
e.g. KAM, Sales, Support, Analyst, PO
Users
Customer
RepYou
An Engineer
Your boss
Your company Customer

NEW WORLD - MULTIPLE DIRECT CONNECTIONS, DECENTRALISATION
YOUR CUSTOMER MAY BE
AS CLOSE TO YOU AS YOUR BOSS
CUSTOMERS OR USERS BECOME
YOUR BOSS.

BEING AWESOME
In the very competitive world means it translates to:
CONSTANTLY DELIVER
GREATER AND GREATER STUFF

WHAT A MODERN SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT COMPANY IS NOT
The Matrix, WarnerBros, 1999
PEOPLE != RESOURCES

SCALING ISSUES IN MODERN ORGANISATIONS
➤ Number of connections grows quadratically (Kn = n * (n - 1) / 2)
➤ Communication and coordination becomes unmanageable
➤ It quickly becomes a mess

SMART CREATIVES FOR THE RESCUE
➤ term coined by Eric Schmidt (former Google CEO and executive chairman) and
Jonathans Rosenberg (SVP Products @ Google) - in their great book
➤ the next evolutionary generation of “knowledge worker” (very diﬀerent to it)
➤ allows scalable partitioning of the organisation into multiple parallel streams

SMART CREATIVES
Not conﬁned
(by tasks, role, org structure, work hours)
Not limited in access
to information or resources
Not riks averse
Able and willing to disagree
Bored easily and shifting jobs a lot
Multidimensional
Deep technical knowledge
Hands-on
Business savvy
Analytically smart, comfortable with data
Curious
Self-directed
Having lot of own initiative
Creative energy
Communicative creative, funny, even charismatic
Thorough, knowing details
User smart
Open
Fire-hose of new ideas
Environmental Factors
Passionate

SMART CREATIVES ARE
EVERYWHERE
The less rigid society is, the more open access to information and
education is, the fewer sacred cows, the less borders and
limitations, the more direct feedback loops, the more smart
creatives develop

WHAT DRIVES SMART CREATIVES
learning new things
important achievements
interesting problems to solve
interesting life & people around
compensation only
company mission or vision
stability
perks

WHAT DO DEVELOPER CANDIDATES WANT MOST WHEN JOB SEARCHING?
https://research.hackerrank.com/developer-skills/2018/#insight5b

WHAT DO DEVELOPER CANDIDATES WANT MOST WHEN JOB SEARCHING? (PL)
https://research.hackerrank.com/developer-skills/2018/#insight5b

HOW TO FIND SMART CREATIVES?
HOW TO BECOME ONE?

HOW TO TEST IT AT THE INTERVIEW
➤ Our humble approach we use at Spartez is shared ahead (these are real questions
from our interviews; we learnt them from various smart people around and
shamelessly borrowed)
➤ It’s not about knowing interview questions, it’s about understanding the right
answers - and they are diﬃcult to fake.
Sample
Interview
Questions
marked with such icon

SEVERAL KEY TRAITS
FORMING A SMART CREATIVE

https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-1.html

Courtesy of Ray Kurzweil
and Kurzweil Technologies, Inc.
CC-BY 1.0

IHP - INTELLECTUAL HORSE POWER / A.K.A. RAW BRAIN POWER
➤ Does matter a lot; some threshold needs to be exceeded to be successful
➤ Some stuﬀ is achievable/conceivable only by people with the very top IHP
➤ Raw brainpower is the starting point for any exponential thinker.
➤ Intelligence is the best indicator of a person’s ability to handle change - but it
does not guarantee it.

➤ lets you rest on the laurels;
➤ may stop you from practicing learning and work habits - moderate success comes
too easily for very intelligent people
HIGH IHP MAY BE DANGEROUS

NEGATIVITY DESTROYS PEOPLE AROUND YOU AND YOUR OWN BRAIN!
“Shit, shit … everywhere” “Flowers, ﬂowers … everywhere”
PhotobyOliverWild,CCBY2.0
Photobyearl258,CCBY-NC2.0

BE LESS “NO” AND “BUT”
BE MORE “YES” AND “AND”

INTELLIGENCE ALONE IS
OVERRATED

SUCCESS
10% IS TALENT
90% IS HARD WORK

“Hard Work Beats Talent When Talent Doesn’t
Work Hard”
-Tim Notke
attributed to and popularised by Kevin Durant

ŁUKASZ KUBOT
➤ 1998 - 2018 - career
➤ Became ATP number 1 in doubles after
20 years of hard working
➤ Known from his persistence, hard-
working, dedication, professionalism
Photo by si.robi, CC-BY-SA 2.0

“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at
twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning
stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep
your mind young.
-Henry Ford

MINDSET
Your natural talent or qualities are carved
in stone.
You act within their boundaries.
Your abilities are fixed.
You operate with performance goals
FIXED MINDSET GROWTH MINDSET
You believe that the qualities that define
you can be modified and cultivated through
effort.
You can change yourself, you can adapt.
The more you are forced to adapt, the better
you do and become more comfortable.
You set learning goals.

GROWTH MINDSET
➤ Constant learning and improvement taken to the next level - as it has biological
permanent eﬀects on oneself
➤ Agile environment is a friendly environment for the growth mindset
➤ The perfect stance in the exponentially changing world
➤ Openness for feedback is key - this is how we can judge the outcome of the learning
➤ Requires ﬂexibility and adaptability

https://www.mindsetworks.com/science/
When students believe they can get smarter, they understand that eﬀort makes them stronger.
Therefore they put in extra time and eﬀort, and that leads to higher achievement.

IT WORKS FOR KIDS. CAN IT WORK FOR ADULTS?

IT WORKS FOR ADULTS TOO
Picture courtesy of Rob Masefield (masey.co), CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Sample
Interview
Questions
TESTING LEARNING HABITS
Q: What have you learnt in your current job? (and the previous job too)
Q: What do you hope to learn here at Spartez?
Q: What do you do to be up to date with new technologies?
Q: How do you decide what to learn and what to ignore?
Q: What and how have you learnt recently and why?
Q: What did you learn last month? (concrete examples expected)
Q: What did you learn last week?
Q: What have you learnt today?

Sample
Interview
Questions
TESTING GROWTH MINDSET
Q: What big trend did you miss about XXX (Mobile, Cloud, Agile). What
did you get right, what did you get wrong?
Q: What questions now do you have about this job and our company?
Q: What challenges do you expect to face in this job?
Q: How do you plan to overcome them?
Q: How do you know you are getting better?

“Good people always ask good questions.
-Lou Adler

SENIOR ENGINEERS
➤ Being senior is most of all about impacting and growing other people around
➤ building better environment for learning together (e.g. fail-safe, fast feedback
loops)
➤ teaching and mentoring others
➤ setting great example for constant learning and improvement
➤ Asking hard questions which trigger learning
➤ Senior role is not about doing the same stuﬀ just more or faster (linear growth)

Sample
Interview
Questions
LEARNING & TEACHING OTHERS
Q: What new could you teach me/us?
Q: Do it! You have 3 minutes.
Q: How did you change the way you work in last 1 - 2 years?
Q: What do you now do diﬀerently and why?
Q: How have you impacted the way people around you work?

YEARS OF SERVICE OR RATHER THE ENVIRONMENT?
➤ Years of service are not that meaningful
➤ The environment matters more.
➤ Growth mindset can be addictive
➤ 3rd league vs premiership league, Polish baseball league vs American baseball league
➤ Experience increases self-awareness and thus maturity
➤ It’s better to be the weakest person in the group than the strongest - levelling up
guaranteed
“If you are the smartest person in the room, then you are in the wrong room.”
attributed to Confucius

ONE YEAR IN A VERY DEMANDING, FAST-PACED
ENVIRONMENT, SURROUNDED BY GREAT PEOPLE
MEANS OFTEN MORE THAN 5 OR 10 YEARS IN
SLOW, LESS-DEMANDING ENVIRONMENT

Sample
Interview
Questions
TESTING EXPERIENCE / ENVIRONMENT
Q: What is your top professional achievement?
Q: Why did you pick it?
Q: Would you do anything diﬀerently, if you had been given a chance to go back in
time?
Q: What is your top strength?
Q: Tell me about a case where it showed.
Q: Describe SDLC you found to work best for you. What are weakest points of this SDLC?
Q: How would you improve it?
Q: Have you? How? If not, then why?
Q: What was the most diﬃcult decision you have ever made and how did you approach it?

RESPONSIBILITY
➤ Means making sure that the problem is solved completely. (not almost solved)
➤ Think about being a parent who almost brought their kid to school or almost fed
them.
➤ Responsibility drives attention to details - when details matter (they usually do).
➤ Half-products are worth far less than half.
➤ Ownership requires responsibility
➤ Responsibility allows empowering.

RESPONSIBILITY WITH DATA - ENGINEERING APPROACH
➤ Mindfulness, being honest with oneself
➤ Remember: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."
➤ Leveraging data, but not letting them control you
➤ If it’s obvious from data what to do, there is probably too late for any decision
➤ Dealing with data is science, not art

ABUSING DATA
44
46
48
50
52
06 07 08 09 10
0
20
40
60
80
01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11
Bigger Picture

NOT ENOUGH ATTENTION TO DETAIL
Customer Distribution [%]
Lost
10
Renewing
50
New
30
WTF?
Why it does not sum up to 100%?

FAILED EXTRAPOLATION
From: https://xkcd.com/605/, CC BY-NC 2.5

CORRELATION VS CAUSATION - A FREQUENT SIN
from https://chrisblattman.com/2013/05/24/correlation-versus-causation-in-a-single-graph/ (unknown license)

INTERPRETING DATA IS TRICKY
MISTAKES ARE COSTLY
ANSWER: SET HYPOTHESES AND
INCREMENTALLY VALIDATE THEM

PLEASE BE RESPONSIBLE WITH DATA
➤ Data cannot replace thinking
➤ Use your brain
➤ Use common sense
➤ Cross-check before making any
conclusion
BEFORE GOING BIG,
DO YOUR DATA RIGHT!

MOTIVATION / PASSION
➤ Intrinsic motivation FTW → the source of true passion
➤ Extrinsic motivation is fragile
➤ Curiosity
➤ Desire to change the world, industry, city, company, oneself
➤ Passion cannot be overrated! Especially passion for learning.

Sample
Interview
Questions
EXPLORING MOTIVATION
Q: Why do you want to join us?
Q: Why do you want to change current job?  
(and former biggest jobs - quick run through their job decisions).
Q: Why did you pursue software developer career?
Q: Why do you want to learn X?
Q: What are you passionate about and why?
Q: What have you been doing to cultivate it?

FORMULA FOR THE AWESOMENESS (A)?
➤ A ~ IHP
➤ A ~ Learning Mindset
➤ A ~ Experience in challenging environment
➤ A ~ Responsibility
➤ A ~ Passion
Question: the sum, the product, what are the weights or powers?

GROWING TECHNICAL SKILLS
ARE THE OUTPUT (BY-PRODUCT)
OF THE AWESOMENESS,
NOT THE INPUT

TAKEAWAYS - WHY ALL OF IT IS IMPORTANT
➤ We face exponential growth of the technology and very fast changing environment.
There are more unknowns than knowns.
➤ In such environment your boss (and customer) have to rely on individuals and fully
empower them to adapt, quickly react and scale their business (on each level)
➤ Vertical scaling of the organisation has its limits. Every boss to ask is a bottleneck.
➤ Smart Creatives let scale the business horizontally almost inﬁnitely. They become
mini-founders or mini-CEOs and can own their areas with little or no supervision.

SMART CREATIVES ARE NEEDED ON EACH
LEVEL OF THE ORGANISATION.
IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT CEO OR THE HEAD OF BUSINESS.

TAKEAWAYS - THE ROLE OF THE BOSS
➤ Good bosses delegate.
➤ Great bosses build environments when their people can take full ownership and be
independent. That’s the leadership through enablement/support.
➤ In a modern software development company bosses have to rely on the best
judgement of their people.
➤ In the right environment, great developers and great teams know more than their
bosses and should be able to make better decisions by themselves.

PARTING THOUGHTS
➤ Not everyone needs to be Smart Creative. Probably it’s not possible to build the
company just from them.
➤ There is whole continuum between ant worker and smart creative. Companies need
various people.
➤ However everyone needs to keep learning and adjust. Exponential evolution
constantly pushes us to the left, unless we constantly counter-act - learn and adapt!
ant worker knowledge worker smart creative
Forces of exponential evolution

wojciech.seliga@spartez.com
@wseliga
Q&A
We are
hiring
in Gdańsk!
Shameless
plug

PICTURE CREDITS, LICENSES
➤ question mark inside the head - http://pngimg.com/download/38177, CC 4.0-BY-NC
➤ man silhouette - http://getdrawings.com/man-silhouette-icon#man-silhouette-icon-5.png, CC BY-NC 4.0
➤ brain - courtesy of _DJ_, CC BY-SA 2.0
➤ exclamation mark icon - http://pngimg.com/download/38020, CC BY-NC 4.0

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