Software devs don’t realize the magic they wield

[adeline92]

For weeks we tried to sell a customer our CRM solution, and for weeks they pushed back.

Until I realized what they were scared of.

So I asked for their spreadsheet, wrote a script and loaded 10,000 rows into our database.

Done.

They were in disbelief, they thought they'd spend a month manually entering data. They thought they'd have to dedicate half the team to it.

We did it in 30 min, spent another 30 min verifying, barely one morning.

Magic.

Happy Friday everyone, time for beer.

 

[613jono]

@adeline92 Automation is one of the topics that got me interested in learning to code in the first place.

 

[crossreach]

@613jono You're doing it right

 

[reka]

@613jono This. And automation is seriously addictive

 

[marissa22]

@reka Factorio anyone?

 

[danddrussell]

@marissa22 thought I was the only one..
Its literally THE thing that made me want to follow dev/SaaS path.
Playing factorio made me realise everything could be fun once automated.

Glad I finally found someone in this sub that comes from factorio.

Dont forget brother, the factory must grow.

 

[gracccy]

@613jono You're not alone. That's why someone made this: Automate the Boring Stuff

 

[realm577]

@gracccy One of the best programming books in my opinion. Not as technically informative as a real textbook but so good at getting the reader hooked on building things

 

[chaseisme]

@613jono I am the senior developer in a company of 8 developers and everytime something goes wrong or they can't find the solution everyone knows I am the one to contact. I too started coding become at the time I wanted to automate tasks for ecommerce store. Never knew I would get soo far.

 

[rogerthai]

@613jono You mean you are too lazy to do it manually

 

[maddiealex8]

@rogerthai Well if it made jobs that paid well, nobody would complain. Maybe a few errors, but we've done this for a long time. Centuries ago

 

[zakaland]

@adeline92 Good job OP, you are probably better than half the "engineers" I've worked with.

 

[awakenthelost]

@zakaland What were the main problems you faced when working with tech people? I run a SaaS dev agency, so always looking for places my team can do better

 

[zakaland]

@awakenthelost Some problems flow downwards from management. If managers aren't experienced or empowered to hold team members individually accountable, the organization is wasting tons of money on everyone under them.

The reality is a lot of devs don't try and these managers exacerbate that problem. It overloads the devs that do try and kills their morale.

Developer wise, a lot of people learn really slowly, don't understand topics thoroughly, and don't integrate new information with what they already knew.

Recruitment is probably the biggest failure area. I know of very few companies that have good recruitment processes.

You can find good senior candidates if you don't screen with junior level testing tools, and your interviewers ask thoughtful questions. That is quite rare.

 

[adeline92]

@zakaland Recruiting is damn hard. Most ppl hire people they like instead of hiring for competence.

 

[antidanilevski]

@adeline92 It's a trade-off. A team that gets along will produce better results. And provided they have other technical skills, it should be possible to teach them the tech skills they need for the job (you'll have to do some onboarding anyways). So it makes sense why companies use "culture fit" as a high metric, sometimes trumping technical skills

 

[putting]

@adeline92 The mantra starts with ... "I dont care how talented they are ..."

 

[srividhya]

@adeline92 Especially true in large enterprise where D&I is the primary goal.

 

[farmsandfieldsmusic]

@awakenthelost Not enough time spend on maintaince. At least 1/3 of time should be spend keeping systems healthy, refactoring etc. Tech depth will kill your company.

Stupid feature bloat. People want all kind of stupid features, dont measure outcomes and dont remove what doesnt work.

Management adhd. Not enough time to finish anything. Strategy keeps changing. Doing the wrong thing well i better than doing nothing.

 

[saralynn1]

@adeline92 lesson learned - make it more clear this is possible upfront... e.g is it mentioned on your landing page somewhere?

and maybe look at making this a feature instead of a one-time script. Especially in the crm world more often than not customers are moving to a new platform rather than first time crm users. so likely a lot of people have existing data they will need to import.