- Aim: increase efficiency, productivity, and overall happiness
- Mileage may vary depending on workplace culture, individual preference, etc
- mediation between personal goals and workplace goals
- Technologies and tools
- Culture
- Personal development
- The right technologies/tools for the job
- restrictions: legacy code, long-term maintenance, etc
- Toolset culture: cultivate your own dev support tools, or use well-known industry standards
- automate as much as you can
- encourage people to make (and share, and document) their own tools, or to improve existing ones
- allow people to use those tools they are most efficient in if possible
- Aim for maintainability
- follow best practices
- keep code well-factored and tested
- keep documentation up-to-date
- What’s your organization like? How many people are there, and how do they interact?
- variables: number of people overall, team size, spread/concentration of roles, etc
- Avoid silos
- Learn from one another: allow for the cross-pollination of ideas
- Interdisciplinary learning
- People come and go, and everyone has different goals
- Surrounding yourself with people who are better than you at something will help you get better at it
- Learn from everyone and everything
- Becoming well-rounded (eg having hobbies, doing sports) keeps your mind sharp
- development is a creative process
- Avoid burning out