So Matt Makai has been in town the last few days, as Memphis is the latest stop on his Coding Across America tour. He was kind enough to speak at our Python Meetup on Monday, and has been hanging out since. It’s totally awesome what he’s doing, and if he’s stopping by your city you should take the opportunity to meet him and chat.
We had a great conversation yesterday about the nature of achievement and how in some ways it’s completely different for folks I’ll loosely describe as “makers” vs. folks in a more traditionally corporate profession. I spent my pre-startup years in corporate finance–it’s really hard to get too much more corporate than corporate finance–and achievement in that field was mostly measured by how quickly you got promoted, how close you were to managing, and, once there, how high up you got on that management ladder. The whole goal as a “finance guy” was to stop being a finance guy, and the achievement system was almost always inward facing. It was all about moving up inside the company you were working for.
For (most) makers (loosely defined as developers, designers, and other product creators), the difference couldn’t be greater. First of all, most makers don’t ever want to stop being makers. Even if the job also eventually encompasses management duties, the act of developing or designing a product is what’s really exciting to most developers and designers. My cofounder Brad actually left an earlier job because a promotion to management prevented him from being able to make things. That’s anecdotal of course, but I’d bet it’s probably pretty common. Even more interesting is the fact that professional achievement is oftentimes completely unrelated to the work you do inside the company you work for. For makers like Matt and Brad, professional achievement and professional self-worth is tied to things like learning and staying up to date with new technologies, contributing to open source projects, growing blog readership, presenting at conferences and meetups, and gaining respect from the developer community outside of work.
I think this is a big reason Kufikia has gained a lot of interest among developers. As part of the bigger professional development picture, it gives ambitious engineers a chance to learn, to be mentored by folks who know what they’re doing, and to connect with folks who have common interests. Exposure to new opportunities is an after-effect, but it’s a good one too.
As part of the bigger picture, thinking about how makers look at professional development as it relates to career satisfaction is hugely important for companies who hope to hire them and–especially–retain them. One of the biggest differences between developers and the corporate types is that for developers there really isn’t a well-defined “moving up the ladder” process. Sure, things like promotions are still important, but giving developers the kind of work that satisfies their curiosity, and giving them the opportunity to achieve some of the external goals I mentioned earlier are, I think, just as important. They’re certainly much more important than they might be for someone who’s interested in moving into management.
I’m not so sure much real thought about professional development happens very often these days–especially in startups. Granted, in some ways it’s silly to talk about where folks want to be in five years if there’s a good chance the company they work for will be dead or acquired in that time frame, but I think it’s still important to talk about professional development at a high level and at the very least get a feel for whether your employees are motivated by external recognition, internal recognition, a combination of the two, or something else entirely. One of the best ways to retain folks is to make sure they’re continually challenged and stimulated by the work they’re doing.
What are your thoughts? Do these kinds of conversations happen in your company? Would love to know what you think!
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