Four types of software developers

Four types of software developers

A non-scientific & very opinionated guide

To help you navigate your team members’ personalities, we have a quick guide for you. People are different and we should embrace it. We get it, you get it, everybody gets it!

You all get it!

In this article, we generalize, categorize, and put people in little boxes. Generalizing can be useful and somewhat funny, but proceed with caution. It is important to notice that as human beings we constantly evolve and flow from one type to another. Sometimes we might belong to a few types simultaneously. Pick up that grain of salt and let’s go! Without a further ado let’s uh, do it!

1. The Energetic Type

The Energetic Type

Typically full of enthusiasm and energy, especially after having one cup of coffee too many... Their energy fluctuations are similar to that of Bitcoin price - skyrocketing after bottoming down, just as you thought it couldn’t get any higher. They have the highest average number of time entries logged per day, switching from one task to another quicker than Chuck can blink. If only that time tracker allowed for toggling a few time entries simultaneously...

Common traits & tips:

Their productivity is tightly correlated to their energy levels. They’d create dozens of tasks on a spur of the moment and clutter your backlog, if you’d only let them. Focus their endless flows of energy in the right direction and it’ll do wonders. They might seemingly not get anything done for a week, only to announce on Friday afternoon that the project’s ready for shipping! Pairing them with The Hipster Type without parental supervision can result in the unexpected, to say the least. One of those projects you swipe under the carpet and pretend never to have seen it.

2. The Bootstrapper Type

The Bootstrapper Type

Strap your boots! ”I have already mocked most of the api and the front-end. We should be able to ship the MVP in three hours. Two and a half, if we skip the coffee break. Hey, The Perfectionist Type, why are you leaving the room?..”

Common traits & tips:

Gets the project up to speed in no time! This usually impresses the clients but might set their expectations about shipping time and project’s cost a little too high so tread carefully. Pairing with The Perfectionist Type works best, as they balance each other out. The Hipster Type is most helpful at this stage to set the project up with the latest tools, while The Bootstrapper Type pushes for getting it out there. However, The Bootstrapper Type and The Energetic Type combo might do magic.

3. The Perfectionist Type

“If I could only add one more level of abstraction! What deadline? Yeah, let me refactor that controller one last time. I spent three days thinking over it and I think it might improve it a bit. Oh, look at it, it’s so beautiful!”

The Perfectionist Type

Common traits & tips:

It’s not easy to get them to ship a feature as the strive for constant perfection seems to be more important than the software they’re writing. It helps to keep reminding them about what the client cares about foremost, and to split the tasks into small chunks to get them going. But once they do deliver, man oh man, hand over those handkerchiefs...

4. The Hipster Type

The Hipster Type

AI, Algorithms, Big Data, Kubernetes. Oh, we’re building a simple stock management software? We should definitely build it on Node.js, implement load balancers and move these modules to microservices Also, PHP is dead.

Common traits & tips:

Easily distracted with the new stuff. Works well with other types of developers as a supplement to the team, their main function being keeping them up to date with the latest of the latest. The Perfectionist Type can’t keep up with the pace of change and it’s advised not to pair them working alone on a project.

Conclusion

Navigating through a jungle of your team can be difficult. Yet if you get it right, a small group of people perfectly synced, working towards a common goal can accomplish wonders! Whether you are a project manager, software developer, designer or all in one - you need to deal with other people on your team. How you do it is what makes for a great working place. As Ray Dalio says; “1+1=3. Two people who collaborate well will be about three times as effective as each of them operating independently,”. It’s all about understanding each others’ strengths and making the most out of it.


We are a small team ourselves and luckily for us, we understood the power of it early on. We created Moku to keep our team up to date and motivated - a task not easy to accomplish, especially when working remotely. Try Moku FREE for the first month, and save 42% on another!

If you know what I mean