Upgrade to Pro
— share decks privately, control downloads, hide ads and more …
Speaker Deck
Features
Speaker Deck
PRO
Sign in
Sign up for free
Search
Search
Optimize for Developer Happiness
Search
Ben Balter
April 26, 2016
Technology
0
270
Optimize for Developer Happiness
Why how you work is as important as what you work on
Ben Balter
April 26, 2016
Tweet
Share
More Decks by Ben Balter
See All by Ben Balter
A community of communities: Empowering maintainers to grow communities around their code
benbalter
1
1.2k
Fostering a culture of collaboration
benbalter
0
210
Growing open source communities on GitHub around your WordPress plugin or theme
benbalter
1
230
It takes a digital village
benbalter
1
430
Open source workflows in highly regulated environments
benbalter
0
87
The technology is the easy part
benbalter
2
280
How to foster an open source culture inside Government
benbalter
3
2.4k
Open source inspired workflows for open (and closed) geospatial data
benbalter
0
140
10 ways people are (mis)using GitHub Pages for fun and profit
benbalter
6
630
Other Decks in Technology
See All in Technology
テストを実施する前に考えるべきテストの話 / Thinking About Testing Before You Test
nihonbuson
PRO
14
2.1k
Slackひと声でブログ校正!Claudeレビュー自動化編
yusukeshimizu
3
180
從開發到架構設計的可觀測性實踐
philipz
0
120
オープンソースのハードウェアのコンテストに参加している話
iotengineer22
0
650
CloudBruteによる外部からのS3バケットの探索・公開の発見について / 20250605 Kumiko Hennmi
shift_evolve
3
190
エンジニアが組織に馴染むために勉強会を主催してチームの壁を越える
ohmori_yusuke
2
120
DevOpsDays Taipei 2025 -- Creating Awesome Change in SmartNews!
martin_lover
0
160
Introduction to Sansan for Engineers / エンジニア向け会社紹介
sansan33
PRO
5
38k
他チームへ越境したら、生データ提供ソリューションのクエリ費用95%削減へ繋がった話 / Cross-Team Impact: 95% Off Raw Data Query Costs
yamamotoyuta
0
240
Swiftは最高だよの話
yuukiw00w
2
290
セキュリティSaaS企業が実践するCursor運用ルールと知見 / How a Security SaaS Company Runs Cursor: Rules & Insights
tetsuzawa
0
460
GitHub Coding Agent 概要
kkamegawa
1
1.7k
Featured
See All Featured
Rebuilding a faster, lazier Slack
samanthasiow
81
9k
Large-scale JavaScript Application Architecture
addyosmani
512
110k
Product Roadmaps are Hard
iamctodd
PRO
53
11k
Helping Users Find Their Own Way: Creating Modern Search Experiences
danielanewman
29
2.6k
Let's Do A Bunch of Simple Stuff to Make Websites Faster
chriscoyier
507
140k
Designing for Performance
lara
608
69k
VelocityConf: Rendering Performance Case Studies
addyosmani
329
24k
It's Worth the Effort
3n
184
28k
GraphQLの誤解/rethinking-graphql
sonatard
71
11k
Navigating Team Friction
lara
186
15k
GitHub's CSS Performance
jonrohan
1031
460k
Imperfection Machines: The Place of Print at Facebook
scottboms
267
13k
Transcript
! Optimize for developer happiness Why how you work is
as important as what you work on @benbalter
CONWAY'S LAW "organizations which design systems... are constrained to produce
designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations"
! Developer-centric development
! STARTUP the fairytale
Low value High value Startup Established firm Ideas Process
Low value High value Startup Established firm Geeks Suits
! What does your organization optimize for?
! Happy shareholders Successful software Efficient developers Strategic management
! Happy shareholders Good software Happy developers Happy Customers
! You can make software without MANAGEMENT
! You can make software without COMPLIANCE AND OVERSIGHT
! You can't make software without DEVELOPERS
! DEVELOPER HAPPINESS Optimize for and the rest will follow
! Developer happiness (Inside|Outside) the firewall
! Inside the firewall
! Traditional software development
! When outcomes can't be measured, institute process
! Daily, synchronous meetings to manually shuttle information around the
organization
! Decisions made in person, in hour-long blocks with
all stakeholders present
! Blocking, human-based processes
! Email as the least-common denominator
! Organizational knowledge lives (and dies) with employees
! bus_factor++
! Open-source development
! Transparency solves for process
! The constraints of open source
! Electronic
! Available
! Asynchronous
! Lock-free
! Prefer systems that naturally CAPTURE AND EXPOSE PROCESS
! Open source inside the firewall
! Open source is a PHILOSOPHY AND A WORKFLOW
not as an alternative technology
! How to WORK LIKE AN OPEN SOURCE PROJECT
! 1. Share to the widest extent possible
! Openness breaks down silos, reduces duplication, and minimizes on-boarding
time
! 2. Minimize developer friction
! Friction (n) the time it takes to go
from "I want to contribute" to "I have contributed"
! Common scripts to rule them all http://githubengineering.com/scripts-to-rule-them-all/
! PREFER CULTURAL CONSTRAINTS to technical and administrative constraints
! Non-blocking is better than blocking
! Never force a human to do what a robot
can
! ChatOps, DevOps, Hubot, and CI
! If you liked it you should have PUT AN
API ON IT
! Outside the firewall
! APIs make developers happy
! Openness makes developers happy
! Two caveats
! 1. Open up almost everything
! 2. Openness is about more than just throwing 0's
and 1's over the firewall
! Treat your data with the same respect that developers
treat code
! Open source, inner source, APIs, & open data all
foster communities around shared challenges
! Be the hub, not the single point of failure
(or innovation)
! Adopt an expanded definition of stakeholders
! Ensure all stakeholders have the opportunity to contribute
on equal footing
! Decentralize governance
! Minimize information imbalance
! 1. Work in the open
! 2. Propose and discuss improvements in the open
! 3. One shared, public issue tracker
! 4. Minimize synchronous meetings (and memorialize them when necessary)
! 5. Extensive, automated tests
! How do you optimize for developer happiness?
! Inside the firewall systems that capture and expose process
! Outside the firewall treat external stakeholders as internal stakeholders
! No really, how do you optimize for developer happiness?
! TECHNOLOGY is the easy part
! Bureaucracy is an organism
! Inoculate with small doses of culture and innovation
! Involve all stakeholders early on
! Start small and go through the motions
! Create a "feedback" repository both internally and externally
! Open data Open governance Open tooling
! DEVELOPER HAPPINESS Optimize for and the rest will follow
! Optimize for developer happiness Why how you work is
as important as what you work on @benbalter