Let me start out by defining exactly what I mean by a Successful Developer.  The ideal Successful Developer is one who is loved by management, users, and fellow developers.  I know what you’re thinking, how hard can this really be?  Well, take a look at your own career and think back on how much you’re really liked in these three areas...

Managers typically look for someone who can make them look good.  This isn’t meant to knock anyone who I’ve ever worked for, but rather a simple fact of life.  A developer who makes a manager look good is someone who knows how to play the political game; someone who knows when to open their mouth and when to keep it shut; and finally someone who under promises and over delivers, on time, always.

Well, this is possible I guess, but typically a developer who makes their manager that happy isn’t really a developer but more a Manager in training.  Sure it’s easy to quadruple your estimated effort, promise nothing, and meet the insanely high timelines you’ve set out for yourself but let’s face it, a good developer is the ultimate logical individual.  If it is going to take a good developer one month to do something they will tell you it will take a month... we don’t make things up, life is what it is, nothing more nothing less.

Users are probably the easiest to please.  As long as you’re completely honest and deliver what you promise to them on time they’re typically happy.  Although this is no simple task in today’s political nightmare we consider Software Development, keeping our promises are usually fairly easy, but usually lead to CLM’s (Career Limiting Moves for those of you not familiar).  Again, Developers are very logical people so telling the truth usually comes naturally to us, but makes enemies with those who don’t want the truth.

Now, this is by favourite category because it is the most often forgotten.  I was once told by a lead that he was not here to make friends, that business is business and personal lives are personal lives.  Although this true we have this thing called the community who we have to report to as well.  If I constantly make promises that other developers cannot keep, I make enemies even though I may have believed the task possible. 

At the same time, I have to include myself in this category.  That is, I have to consider how many times I’ve sold myself out because I made a promise, and found myself working countless extra hours on my own time just to make that ridiculous deadline that was imposed on me.  The next time you find yourself on the tail end of a 12 hours shift staring at your keyboard wondering why the keys can’t type themselves take a second to ask yourself just how happy you are with yourself... I bet you’ll be pretty irked about it.

Then there is the maintenance factor.  That so often overlooked “extra” cost that I have yet to find a project team who actually cares about it.  The fact of the matter is simple a project team is there to developer a set of features, on time, and on budget... they don’t care if it takes someone two or three times longer than it should to make modifications after the fact, their success is based purely on their delivery date.  Well, I guarantee you that for every line of code you write someone at some point will have to maintain it.