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Do you hate developers?

over 3 years ago from , Founder

Hi DN, web dev here!

I was wondering if any of you have horror stories from working with developers on past projects?

Or have you worked with any developers who made your job easier? What were they like?

I'm looking for how I can improve, and maybe your stories can help other developers improve too -- so tell us your stories and don't hold back!!

Thanks in advance :)

3 comments

  • Richard BallermannRichard Ballermann, over 3 years ago

    "Hate" is a harsh way of thinking about this, so I'll just say that the kind of developer I enjoy working with is one who works hard to respect the design they've been asked to implement. They are conscious of design details and work to get as close to what they've been shown and they ask questions when they need more info. They're open and willing to go over their work in order to fine tune and they don't get annoyed when you want to tweak things to get it just right.

    Working with a dev who just sort of speeds through in order to get it done without showing much concern for how closely they've matched type sizes, margins, spacing, etc. is painful. This is where you end up doing countless rounds of review because they overlook minute details and don't take much care in doing a precise job. You eventually start holding their hand through the whole thing and everybody ends up frustrated. Usually the end result is far from perfect.

    I'm sure this is where a lot of developers should not pretend to be front-end devs, because if you really can't be bothered to care about how something looks or behaves visually then you really shouldn't be in charge of that task. One giveaway for this is when a developer says they hate CSS, good luck in that scenario.

    2 points
  • Dan BDan B, over 3 years ago

    By the way: the fact that you're asking that question already deserves a kudos. So I'll start with that :thumbs-up:.

    I've had the chance to hire/work with a decent amount of developers for my previous startups…

    The #1 trait of the most impactful developers is my opinion is…

    …Caring for the end user & business goals.

    It's surprisingly rare.

    Technical challenge are very compelling. I also dev so I totally understand the weird intellectual satisfaction of blazing through code.

    But having everyone aligned around customer delight & business goals is essential.

    Across any discipline (including Design), it's by far the most important thing because that switches the discussions from "dev vs design vs marketing vs sales" to "how can we make this delightful for our users while moving the needle for the business".

    That's the foundation.

    (Oh and from there a great UX and a nice UI can emerge—but the other way around rarely works.)

    0 points