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The Software World
21 Ways to Maintain Developer Happiness in Your Team
That has nothing to do with salary or perks
I never heard of Developer Happiness until a few years ago. It never existed in my vocabulary, even though I was once a software engineering manager.
I did lots of stupid things in the past that I sorely regret. One of them is never knowing the importance of developer happiness. While it is true we cannot make everyone happy, there are a few items we as leaders need to consciously work on to upkeep developer happiness.
Note: I use the word “upkeep” instead of “create,” because developers are happy and motivated when they first join the company. It just needs to be kept up.
Here are a few ways I’d recommend:
1. Work On Meaningful Projects
Deep inside each developer’s heart is the desire to contribute to products that have an impact on the business. That’s what programmers are for, isn't it?
That’s the reason many developers like to work in big companies like Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook (now called Meta), etc. These companies produce products that almost everyone knows and uses. That’s the reason it is hard to get into these companies as the competitions are steep. Everyone wants a taste of working inside.
Not all companies enjoy that branding. But any company can still create technology that has a great impact on the developer communities. For example, Square and Airbnb often create open-source libraries that are used by many. Contributing to those open sources is a pride of any developer.
Again, not all companies can afford that. But that doesn’t cripple us from linking what the developers do from the business value of the organization. Constantly sharing with the developers how their works positively affect that market makes one proud of the work they are doing.
This even applies to developers who work on infrastructure and operation works, where their product is used internally by other developers. Their work may not see the light externally, but can often result in better productivity internally, and this provides much sense of satisfaction.
