Developers vs Programmers
June 14, 2005
I have always followed this and something that I look out in anybody interviewing with us. People who write code do not impress me – I need more! I want somebody who can write code, read code, write specs, do code-reviews, understand testing, give inputs to QA and understand customer’s problems.
This is, of course, something people learn with experience but I need to see an inclination to do so. A small company needs multi-taskers and not specialists. This is applicable to the present team as well as anybody who is looking to join us.
As Eric Sink says, most appropriately – We need ‘Developers’ and not ‘Programmers’. Thanks Eric – I am going to use these words more and more to describe what I have always done using sentences.
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5 Comments
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yups small organization needs fast learners and people who can work around problems,,those who can give solutions..
It is important to have multitasker in a start-up. It is these multi-tasking people that provide a bed-rock for solid foundation and fuel the long term growth of a start-up
Ankur, I think that applies to any company – not necessarily small companies only! My point was that – a big company may want to go for specialists because of various factors like size of product, etc. My emphasis is that the smaller companies need multi-taskers more than specialists.
Everybody needs fast-learners
Thanx Ashish, for explaning the difference between Developers and Programmers in such a precise way.I am completely agree with you and always try to follow this concept in my career.
Hi Ashish,
I am Rajeev working with a 500 people organization. I have seen my company grow from 15 to 500 and all the challenges we had to face. We also started with a couple of good quality products which were good technical products but the mistake we did was that we first developed the products and then tried to sell them in the market and so were not very successful. Later on we switched to services and now we are one of the leaders in product development meaning we develop products for our clients who then sell them in the market. So, the onus of selling the products is on our clients and our scope is just limited to delivering the product (and not projects).
I saw your invitation joining your company and you want “Developers and not Coders”, I appreciate this and it’s an excellent thinking to be quality conscious especially while hiring but my questions as a potential employee to you would be “what do you have to offer, why should one join Tekriti” I am not asking this from compensation point of view but in general. I couldn’t find anything substantial on your website which would attract the best of the talents to join Tekriti. Flexible timings, Free Lunch(breakfast/dinner), open environment, gym etc. are all common in Indian companies now and you need to offer something unique to attract people.
Just thought to share this with you. No intentions to offend anybody….
Regards,
Rajeev
mr_rajee100@yahoo.co.in