{"id":1836,"date":"2016-08-12T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-08-11T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wwwneu.strehle.de\/tim\/weblog\/archives\/2016\/08\/12\/1596-2\/"},"modified":"2016-08-12T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-08-11T22:00:00","slug":"1596-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/weblog\/archives\/2016\/08\/12\/1596-2\/","title":{"rendered":"To my new colleague"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our company, Digital Asset Management (DAM) vendor Digital Collections<\/a>, is looking for a Web developer<\/strong> based in Hamburg, Germany. Of course there\u2019s a conventional job offer<\/a> over on the company Web site, but since you and me will be working closely together, I\u2019d like to add some thoughts \u2013 nothing official, just my personal opinion. Don\u2019t let it scare you away; I\u2019ll be your colleague, not your boss! (If you want to know who this weird guy is, here\u2019s more about me<\/a>. Sorry I\u2019m writing this in English; my blog has some international readers, and you\u2019re used to reading English anyway.)<\/p>\n

First of all, I\u2019m happy you\u2019re considering to join us<\/strong>! Web developers are highly sought after these days, at least here in Hamburg. We\u2019re competing with companies much cooler than ours: Our office isn\u2019t trendy, many of us are middle-aged, there\u2019s not many perks except for free coffee and drinks, a fruit bowl, and the occasional home office day (good hardware ain\u2019t a perk anymore). I guess we\u2019re paying well, but I don\u2019t really know. So what made you check us out?<\/p>\n

I hope it\u2019s because you like what we\u2019re doing<\/strong>: We\u2019re building Web-based DAM and Content Management systems for people who make and publish creative content \u2013 our systems are the home and hub for their photos, videos, newspaper and magazine articles. In the coming years, you\u2019ll be a DAM and CMS programmer more than you\u2019ll be a PHP or JavaScript developer \u2013 and you\u2019ll be a bad one if you don\u2019t (learn to) love it. (Shouldn\u2019t be hard if you ask me. Ain\u2019t creative content much more fun than online games, ad systems, or dull back-office apps? Read up on DAM<\/a> if you\u2019re new to it.)<\/p>\n

Our company is rather small, so your ideas and enthusiasm really matter<\/strong>. You can work across the \u201cfull stack\u201d of development tasks if you want to (architecture, APIs, backend, frontend, UX, long-term product development, short-term custom project development). You\u2019ll help shape the product, not just code what the boss tells you to. Your responsibility doesn\u2019t end with you handing over well-written code; you \u201cown\u201d all aspects of that feature you wrote, including how it delivers value to the end user.<\/p>\n

At our company, there\u2019s wonderful people and things we excel at, some mediocrity, and a few stupid traps we fall into again and again. (For example, we\u2019re not doing \u201cagile\u201d well yet.) You\u2019re expected to speak up<\/strong> if you see one of us (including our managers and CEO) plan or do something stupid! We\u2019ll enjoy the good times, and patiently yet tenaciously change the rest for the better.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll love our amazing customers<\/strong>, who you\u2019ll be in direct touch with sooner or later. Given that our customer base is spread all around the world, it\u2019d help if (unlike me) you\u2019d be willing to travel occasionally when sales or project people need some technical backup.<\/p>\n

Your current technical skill level (n<\/em> years of experience with technology x<\/em>) is less important than your ability to keep learning new stuff<\/strong>, thoroughly but quickly, and autonomously. I hope you love playing with shiny new things, but have already learned the lesson to cut through the hype and be conservative in bringing them into production. You strive to become a master<\/a>, yet value simplicity and know your YAGNI and KISS. (See my reading list for younger programmers<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Empathy is your most important skill<\/a>. I expect you to be friendly, positive, professional at all times, valuing and understanding every person you interact with. (In other words, \u201cno assholes\u201d.) Empathy is not just vital for getting along well with others, but also for designing good user experiences (UX). Our main mission is to build products and services that make our customers\u2019 jobs easier, and to do so in a way that is pleasant for everyone involved<\/strong>. You love the product we want to build, not the one we already have \u2013 so when soneone criticizes what you built, you don\u2019t get defensive. Instead, you\u2019re thankful for the opportunity to improve the product together.<\/p>\n

You love to communicate well (bonus points if you\u2019re blogging, or generally good at writing). Honesty is a must: Never try to hide your mistakes<\/strong> or weasel out of taking responsibility. Being open about where you failed, then doing better next time, is the best way to build trust.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m glad we\u2019ve met \u2013 now let\u2019s get started, there\u2019s a lot of work to do! See you soon,<\/p>\n

Tim<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our company, Digital Asset Management (DAM) vendor Digital Collections, is looking for a Web developer based in Hamburg, Germany. Of course there\u2019s a conventional job offer over on the company Web site, but since you and me will be working closely together, I\u2019d like to add some thoughts \u2013 nothing official, just my personal opinion. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weblog"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1836\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.strehle.de\/tim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}