10+ bad advice for developers from managers and seniors

Recently, we at Kaspersky Lab held an online meeting where technical managers and developers from the Mobile Dev team gave harmful advice about work and career. In particular, colleagues explained what needs to be done to set fire to a release and slow down one’s development, and what work signals to ignore in order to constantly live in chaos.

This post contains a brief summary of the broadcast in several key points. If you are interested in listening to a more detailed discussion and arguments of the participants, watch the recording of the meetup Here or in the widget below.

Bad advice. Work from here until lunchtime.
But seriously. In recent decades, the world around us has become more alarming and unstable, and IT technology is no longer a lamp-garage hobby…

In short, there is more stress, and in such circumstances, lone heroes will not be able to act as heroes for long. And that means, willy-nilly, we have to think about the so-called wellbeaming. Any of the numerous methods-matrices-principles that are close to you personally will be suitable here – and some methods and experience of using them are given in the report. 🙂

Bad advice. Stagnation is normal!
But seriously. You're lucky if your company culture has a role for managers to develop their colleagues and help them grow. And if there is an internal expert from whom you can get specific advice in the context of your company, then this is a career jackpot. Or you can even combine two experts: go to the internal one and attract an external one, analyze their advice and draw conclusions.

However, if the manager does not help and you have to go through this thorny path on your own (and there are not even internal experts), there is still a solution. Just ask higher grade colleagues on your team what they did and how they grew. The method is pragmatic and quite effective.

Bad advice. Don’t communicate with any of your colleagues – you’ll pass for smart.
But seriously. We engage in teamwork not because of someone's whim, but because a team can handle huge tasks much more efficiently than individuals.

It is obvious that lack of communication between developers in a team can lead to fatal mistakes by the developers themselves. Well, if you don’t communicate with the manager, he simply won’t be able to distribute the task correctly – but he could give it to the person to whom it will give the greatest boost (for example, you).

Bad advice. Neurons are evil, they will soon take away everyone’s jobs.
But seriously. Yes, neurons are already really good at writing code, but now developers are required to have high-level planning and the ability to design architecture (and also, of course, debug bugs behind the neuron itself :)). That is, not just code a feature, but first also dig out the original problem to solve which it is needed.

Bad advice. Never turn anywhere.
But seriously. “Broaden your horizons” – in IT these are not just words, everything is too dynamic.

You can choose other stacks and do things you've never done before from scratch. Or you can choose projects or even industries where your programming language is used, and thus get involved in something new with a high threshold of knowledge.

In any case, you will benefit: either you will be able to find a new stack that you like better and switch to it; or you will understand that your programming language is the best, and your love for it will grow exponentially. Or stop in the middle and master both – and then add a new skill to your resume and become an even more in-demand specialist. 🙂

More detailed answers, more abstracts and active discussions await you in the recording of the report.

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