Accepting the tough truth: I am not a software developer any more

Some years ago, I found it was fun creating software. I do not know if I am or have been particularly good at doing so, but it was fun nevertheless.

the excitement about doing something new

Through the years, it continued to be fun - a continuing journey to new languages, frameworks and exciting technologies overall. By the time something grew boring, you could move on and promote something new, whether it would be a new framework, application server or database. You can do that when working on short-term projects at a small and flexible employer.

When landing in a larger company, things changed, though. Legacy code where ever one looks. Outdated frameworks and libraries, application architecture designed for making a developer’s life hard and keep him suffering with every piece of functionality needed to be added.

transitioning from developer to project manager

I searched for ways to allow implementing change and bring back pieces of excitement to my co-workers and myself. I tried being a team lead first, project manager shortly after. I added a new dimension to my work - not only planning and presenting my own work, but being responsible for the work progress of the whole team I worked with. Exciting, but on the downside I saw my time firing up my development environment decrease, working on spreadsheets and presentations instead. Moving from creating to managing was a compelling task. I learned a lot and enjoyed most parts of the job - making and standing in for decisions, skillfully manipulating people to do what you consider is best to be done, keeping the team happy and the project going.

personal projects

When job focus changes, I tend to shift things I like to my free time and do personal (software) projects. But having 4 kids at home, time for such ambitions shortens or is placed to nighttime. The simple truth is: I keep all the tools ready on my personal laptop, update them, read books and blogs about interesting technology, but hardly ever code (or finish coding if I managed to start something). At most, I had 40 local repositories containing applications which hardly left prototyping status, because I could not motivate myself to do the more challenging stuff in the evening.

my company is going agile

The company I work for recently decided to implement agile software development practices and my path led me to become Scrum Master of a small team in an interesting project setting.

I was not sure if the role fitted me well, still having the self-reception of being a software developer (even though it rather was a self-deception), but it turned out to be a great experience to assist others to work as effectively as possible. Turning my back on technological decisions and trying to keep out of the concrete business requirements for the projects probably has been the hardest part so far. If having been a developer, one has the automatic reflex to think of how something might be built immediately after getting the requirements clear. Having myself backing away from this behaviour is a challenge still.

After several months having this role (and feeling good about it), I now am accepting I am not a software developer any more. Not at work, not at home (although the latter might change to some degree once the kids are growing older…).

Having this sorted out, I can start to improve my skills as a Scrum Master. I am thinking it is perfectly ok to focus on performing good in the job role one is currently given.