Solidifying software development foundations — Calvin Hendryx-Parker // Six Feet Up

Quotes

• "Every team is at a different stage in life. And they need to all get on the same page. But suppose you can multiply their effectiveness as a team through better tooling, culture, processes, and an eye on innovation. In that case, you'll get a lot of return on that investment." - Calvin Hendryx-Parker

• "What is your team doing to cross-pollinate knowledge, innovate, or keep current with the current standards? And sometimes their answers are complete, and there's nothing. They've yet to do anything in those areas and are only focused on what's right in front of them. So much software development is a craftsman mindset, unlike a civil engineer-style mindset." - Calvin Hendryx-Parker

• "Sometimes software developers in these large enterprises lose sight of their end users of the software. If they're lucky, they only see a bug report, a triage report, or a spreadsheet with defects listed. There's no creativity in that." - Calvin Hendryx-Parker

• "What is foundational to the software development process? We've broken it up into four stages. And so, stage one is the initial stage of how you raise issues. Like there's culture, things to be talked about like table stakes, the level of engagement? - Calvin Hendryx-Parker

• They have to start with this kind of table stakes skills, where they can move to the next level. And the next level is when you get more into things like DevOps culture and see ICD pipelines, testing, and coverage. These other pieces must come afterward to accelerate the software development lifecycle." - Calvin Hendryx-Parker

• "When you set up and onboard a new developer? How many landmines are they going to trip over to get to be productive? Do you have coding standards? Do you have documentation and documentation of the process and code? Are these things baked into the environment you're entering as a new developer? Or is it all just tribal knowledge?" - Calvin Hendryx-Parker

• "Is there a growth mindset encouraged in the organization? Can you work toward building your replacements, the people coming up through the ranks? You don't want to be the smartest guy in the room and kind of be the know-it. I want everyone to accelerate their growth toward building better software, having fewer defects, better testing, and all the things that go into stage two and above." - Calvin Hendryx-Parker