Developing software
Developing software is an interesting feat. It is quite different from supporting software, although I like that too. When you support software, the way it works is that there is a steady stream of bugs and problems that arise. You fix them, or you pass them on to someone else to fix them. It’s pretty simple, and fairly easy to tell how you are doing. With development, not as much.
At my company, developers are judged by the Big Deliverables. So a few times a year, each team will release new software. The software might have bugs in it; that’s okay. If there are bugs, it just means more pager time for the developers, but if there are no bugs, that’s too expensive and the project will never get released. So all projects have bugs. That’s true at other companies too, from what I gather. And then we put them out there and see how they work. Because the software isn’t shrink-wrapped, it’s possible to change it at any time, to tweak and fix stuff. It’s a lot of fun, but also a little silly. I like it.
Anyway, that’s my commentary on my job. I like the new position.