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2. quality of developers: 3.5
3. cool technology: 3.4
4. overall: 3.4
5. development hardware: 3.3
6. cultivation of creativity: 3.3
7. taking responsibility: 3.3
8. internal team communication: 3.3
9. product quality: 3.3
10. source control: 3.3Many of these aren't too surprising. Developers don't like wearing ties, because restricting blood flow to the brain isn't conducive to, well, anything. And so obviously the best places to work have a casual dress policy, at least for coders.It's also not a terrible shock that developers think highly of other developers at these good workplaces, or that such employers have cool technology. Developers are at heart propeller heads, and in general they'd much rather work on whiz-bang technology than on pumping out tired business solutions that have already been implemented a thousand times before.It is rather interesting to note that good employers have many of the touchy-feely corporate culture things pegged, including cultivation of creativity and people taking responsibility for their actions. Nothing kills a developer's perception of their workplace more than an oppressive, unfair, or otherwise crappy corporate culture.So what about the lowest-rated aspects at the best-rated employers? Here's where the top employers fall down:1. team-to-team communication: 2.9
2. snacks: 2.8
3. reasonable workload: 2.8
4. issue tracking: 2.8
5. mitigation of risk: 2.8
6. prevention of crunch time: 2.7
7. development of Free Software: 2.7
8. hitting deadlines: 2.6
9. clear requirements: 2.6
10. automated testing: 2.6So even the best employers aren't immune from the standard software development problems so prevalent in this industry: Release cyles ending in crunch time and missed deadlines. There are many reasons why a release cycle can go south like this, but I'll give you a hint as to what might be going on in this case. What one item, if not present in sufficient dosage towards the start of a release cycle, dooms all the remaining development to missed milestones and last-minute surprises? Look at that list again. Yup, I'm talking about good, clear requirements. Without those, even the best employers risk tossing their schedules out the window.And for all the attention various popular development methodologies pay to unit testing and other automated tests, the best employers still haven't gotten that one quite down. This is an obvious area to work on, probably for all development organizations.Gummi bear flavors could use some work, too.In terms of platforms, the best-rated employers fare as follows:1. use of Free Software: 3.1
2. use of Windows: 3.0
3. use of GNU/Linux: 2.9
4. use of Mac OS: 1.8
5. use of Solaris: 1.6
6. use of BSD: 1.2Free Software isn't really a platform per se, but it is interesting to see that while not many of the best development shops actually develop free software, a whole lot of them use it. And though Linux claims a rather small percentage of the desktop market, it apparently has a strong showing among developers at the top employers.And as for programming language use at the best-rated employers:1. use of C#: 2.6
2. use of C: 2.6
3. use of Java: 2.6
4. use of ASP: 2.5
5. use of Python: 2.4
6. use of Perl: 2.3
7. use of C++: 2.3
8. use of PHP: 2.2
9. use of Ruby: 1.9
10. use of Objective-C: 1.4
11. use of legacy languages: 1.4
12. use of Lisp: 1.2One moderate surprise, at least to me, is that the hydra language that is Java/C# has apparently eclipsed C++ (no pun intended, honest). C is still going strong, and even Python is making a showing. Functional languages like Lisp are getting no love though.That's all for now, but stay tuned for next time: What the worst employers have in common!
blog - what the best employers have in common
posted by witten on February 06, 2007
The coders have spoken, and through the rigorous scientific process of anonymous forum posts, they've selected the best employers to work for: http://coderific.com/employers/bestSo what makes these employers so good? What traits do they have in common? What flavors of gummi bears do they have in their snack rooms? I could try to make some generalizations about these organizations, perhaps to shed some light on what makes them so kick-ass. Unfortunately, it would be simply irresponsible to attempt to draw conclusions about the employers on this site based on the small amount of data currently available.Fortunately, I've never been big on responsibility. So here goes.As of this writing, the average employer rating on Coderific is about 2.5 out of 4 stars. Not too shabby, considering. (In all data used here, employers lacking multiple ratings are excluded.) Now, let's break this down by the various aspects within each rating. Of all the ratings for best-rated employers, here are the highest-rated aspects:1. casual dress code: 3.62. quality of developers: 3.5
3. cool technology: 3.4
4. overall: 3.4
5. development hardware: 3.3
6. cultivation of creativity: 3.3
7. taking responsibility: 3.3
8. internal team communication: 3.3
9. product quality: 3.3
10. source control: 3.3Many of these aren't too surprising. Developers don't like wearing ties, because restricting blood flow to the brain isn't conducive to, well, anything. And so obviously the best places to work have a casual dress policy, at least for coders.It's also not a terrible shock that developers think highly of other developers at these good workplaces, or that such employers have cool technology. Developers are at heart propeller heads, and in general they'd much rather work on whiz-bang technology than on pumping out tired business solutions that have already been implemented a thousand times before.It is rather interesting to note that good employers have many of the touchy-feely corporate culture things pegged, including cultivation of creativity and people taking responsibility for their actions. Nothing kills a developer's perception of their workplace more than an oppressive, unfair, or otherwise crappy corporate culture.So what about the lowest-rated aspects at the best-rated employers? Here's where the top employers fall down:1. team-to-team communication: 2.9
2. snacks: 2.8
3. reasonable workload: 2.8
4. issue tracking: 2.8
5. mitigation of risk: 2.8
6. prevention of crunch time: 2.7
7. development of Free Software: 2.7
8. hitting deadlines: 2.6
9. clear requirements: 2.6
10. automated testing: 2.6So even the best employers aren't immune from the standard software development problems so prevalent in this industry: Release cyles ending in crunch time and missed deadlines. There are many reasons why a release cycle can go south like this, but I'll give you a hint as to what might be going on in this case. What one item, if not present in sufficient dosage towards the start of a release cycle, dooms all the remaining development to missed milestones and last-minute surprises? Look at that list again. Yup, I'm talking about good, clear requirements. Without those, even the best employers risk tossing their schedules out the window.And for all the attention various popular development methodologies pay to unit testing and other automated tests, the best employers still haven't gotten that one quite down. This is an obvious area to work on, probably for all development organizations.Gummi bear flavors could use some work, too.In terms of platforms, the best-rated employers fare as follows:1. use of Free Software: 3.1
2. use of Windows: 3.0
3. use of GNU/Linux: 2.9
4. use of Mac OS: 1.8
5. use of Solaris: 1.6
6. use of BSD: 1.2Free Software isn't really a platform per se, but it is interesting to see that while not many of the best development shops actually develop free software, a whole lot of them use it. And though Linux claims a rather small percentage of the desktop market, it apparently has a strong showing among developers at the top employers.And as for programming language use at the best-rated employers:1. use of C#: 2.6
2. use of C: 2.6
3. use of Java: 2.6
4. use of ASP: 2.5
5. use of Python: 2.4
6. use of Perl: 2.3
7. use of C++: 2.3
8. use of PHP: 2.2
9. use of Ruby: 1.9
10. use of Objective-C: 1.4
11. use of legacy languages: 1.4
12. use of Lisp: 1.2One moderate surprise, at least to me, is that the hydra language that is Java/C# has apparently eclipsed C++ (no pun intended, honest). C is still going strong, and even Python is making a showing. Functional languages like Lisp are getting no love though.That's all for now, but stay tuned for next time: What the worst employers have in common!