In the year or so since I joined Atlassian as CTO, I’ve had the privilege of helping our 5000+ developers experience more joy in their work. In truth, the goal isn’t joy for its own sake. The original idea was to improve efficiency across engineering. But there’s no point trying to make developers more productive by setting targets for them or pressuring them to take shortcuts that will come back to haunt them later. I believe the changes we’ve made are changes that any engineering org can benefit from, so I’m sharing them here in our latest blog. I’d love to hear from other engineering leaders or front-line developers as to what has been improving developer joy in your orgs lately. https://lnkd.in/giHYeN7q
Very well said. Developer's productivity is directly proportional to the organisation's growth.
Interesting, joy based on flow for productivity gains. But maybe could go one level deeper.
Rishi Saraf
1y
Great writeup Rajeev. It clearly tells productivity is not just a function of an individual but how an organization operates. Organization tool set , empowerment and culture affects efficiency of developers. To boost productivity first steps is to use metrics and surveys to find what is affecting productivity. Then make a goal to improve them one by one.
Jeffrey Shih
1y
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Alexys Flores Rajeev Rajan I appreciate you both sharing this. The insight on tapping into more productivity with the "lifestyle" approach rather than a "single project" approach is super useful. I've noticed it in my life too, but not in that way. Thanks for the add!!
NT was a monorepo based on VMS. You had the opportunity to read a great novel while it was being drafted. Do Atlassian Engineers have that experience? As customers, we see unwritten drafts and chapters abandoned mid-sentence, when we contribute are often ghosted by ghostwriters. I know there was a leadership vacuum. I felt it and challenged it when I was there, and I hope you can bring some of the magic you’re pining for.
Agree with many points in this well written document about driving the Vision to unlock developer Joy. Developers should take pride and ownership when they work on specific features/API's, add comments, write clear documentation and understand 'Why'. I personally got a 'Thank you' message from a developer in 2014 for the code i have written in 2006, specifically mentioning comments and documentation that helped him complete his enhancement quickly. So take pride at your work and when you get those messages from strangers in your professional career, you will have a joyful day reminding you about your past and smile on your face.
Rajeev Rajan, I can tell you what are missing: 1) Promotions: worthy devs are promoted less comparing with PMs and managers, that is demoralizing to junior devs. 2) Technical education: there are seldomly any company organized technical education. That is the reason I created [email protected] discussion group to share my work with thousands of developers. Add these two, your developers would be much happier.