How to Add Value As a Developer
Being a developer and being well compensated for sure is a good feeling.
There is the idea that your salary is proportional to the value you're creating.
In one of the issues of his Pragmatic Engineer Newsletter (must read), Gergely Orosz wrote about the fact that high salaries in our industry are not necessarily based on value we create but also on how much it educate and train a person to do the same job.
Supply and demand, economics 101.
An online marketing manager can create much more value and double his star up's user base in a short period of time while earning less then you.
So just being there and writing code is not really realizing your full potential.
Let's take a look how we can add more value as developers.
Add Layers of Value
Let's take a mid size feature you're tasked with and see how can increase value you can add.
The end result of your work on the feature will probably be some code that you write.
You can increase the value of this code by adding layers of value.
It happens on 3 levels.
- Technical
- Product
- Business
1. Technical
This is the foundation you need to master first.
At this level you want to take the feature you developed and add more value on a technical level.
- Add tests
- Add documentation
- Add useful comments for other developers
A short guide on how to run your feature locally will help your colleagues work on it later on. 30 minutes of your time spent now may save hours or days a few weeks down the road when someone else will need to expand it and you're on vacation.
➡️ Boom 💥 you just added value.
How to get better at it:
- Learn something new every day
- Share your knowledge
- Ask questions
2. Product
Once you feel comfortable with the first level, its time to expand further.
Here your goal is to understand the product you're building, the users and their goals.
Now, when working on your features, try to see it in the context of the whole product and its users:
- Why is this feature important?
- How will it impact users?
- Will you architecture help the app load faster?
At this level, your opinion an voice matters.
Don't just take the requirements from product and start implementing them. You're closest to the code than anybody else.
You might propose to slightly change the scope of the feature, which will in return cut the development time.
➡️ Boom 💥 you just added value.
You might rething the architecture you initially planned. It will add a week of development but will make the new feature work twice as fast.
➡️ Boom 💥 you just added value.
How to get better at it:
- Look beyond your own projects
- Learn how to pitch your product
- Log in and use the product yourself
- Learn what other teams are working on
Let's move on.
3. Business
Can you answer the following questions?
- How does your company make money?
- Are you profitable?
- If you are funded, how much runway do you have?
- What is the most important thing NOW for the business? User acquisition? Product adoption? Churn?
By understanding the business better, every decision you make as a developer can have direct impact on the bottom line.
The same feature you're working on, along with your proposed product changes from step 2, is suddenly a part of something bigger.
At this stage you start to think more like a founder or a product manager.
With your unique technical knowledge and business understanding you can start proposing improvements and features and help prioritize them.
➡️ Boom 💥 you just added value.
How to get better at it:
- Google startup metrics along with MRR/ARR, Churn, Gworth Rate
- Listen to what your CEO is talking about repeatedly
- Write down the company goals for the year/quarter - set a reminder to review them once a week.
Result
Instead of just focusing on writing the code of your feature, you are adding layers of value.
- Technical value through clean code, documentation, testing
- Product value through
- Business value Helps your company make money.
That's all for this One on One. 1 tip at a time to Level Up as a developer.
See you again next week.
Whenever you're ready, I'd like to help you Level Up personally:
- Join my LinkedIn community (1456 followers) here
- Schedule a free one-on-one with me here
- Ask me anything via email here
Cheers,
Ilya