Sometimes Joel just hits the nail on the head. His latest posting talks about folks who are proactive doers and thinkers versus order following automata. And in our industry, he references Eric Sink on software developers vs programmers. Every employer wants to hire smart, driven people who think and solve problems for themselves. If employees can’t think for themselves, or are not permitted to think for themselves, then the highest level of "thinking permitted" management in the organization becomes the lense through which all growth opportunities are evaluated.
I’ve met a lot of smart programmers who have just one fatal flaw — they expect management to tell them what to build. Tell us what you can build that will help solve the customers problem. Then we can all have a conversation about what we should build.
Alec Saunders is the Vice President of Developer Relations for BlackBerry make Research in Motion. This is his personal blog, with his personal viewpoints. Prior to this Alec was the CEO and co-founder of Calliflower — the easiest way to hold a meeting, online, on a conference call, or on the go. A double-decade veteran of product management and marketing, he spent nine years at Microsoft where he helped launch Windows 95, the first two versions of Internet Explorer, the Universal Plug and Play initiative, the push into home markets, opt-in email marketing and what might well go down in history as the very first direct email list ever.
