Oleg Dulin

The discipline of software maintenance

I hold a professional membership in the ACM and as a member I receive "ACM Communications" every month. That lets me keep an eye on the developments in my field. Occasionally a blurb pops up that grabs my attention. In the June 2010 issue (Vol. 53, No. 6) on p.7 a letter to the editors caught my eye. Donald J. Reifer writes about software maintenance:

• Support consumes almost as much effort as changes and repairs
  
• Maintenance teams focus on closing high-priority trouble reports rather than making changes
• Maintenance managers must determine what they can do with the resources they have rather than what needs to be done
• Maintenance personell is more experienced since they often have to work on outdated equipment and systems.
• Maintenance tools are inferior and most modern IDEs do not support the work

Software maintenance is a rather understudied and underappreciated area of software engineering. The engineer assigned to the task must exhibit attentiveness and humility not necessarily applicable to new development. Maintenance is a dialog with the person who implemented the system and is no longer around to help. It requires dealing with the authoritative reality rather than asserting a vision of it. It demands a more humble approach that is so rare to find in an industry filled with both barely competent and with grandeur seekers.

Best recommendation ever

The founder of a company I worked for (ConfigureCode) wrote the best recommendation for me on my LinkedIn profile that I've got so far:

Oleg was more than just our Senior Developer at ConfigureCode (and Opence). Oleg is one of those developers that goes beyond the code to understand architectures and business. He is capable of leading a team by example. His strong programming skills allow him to participate, mentor and manage developers. His insight into algorithms and new processes means he is not just coding he is thinking about better requirements which result in a better design.

I not only endorse Oleg but I would work with Oleg again. Oleg has great communication skills and is just an over all pleasure to work with. One of the differentiators I noticed with Oleg is that he is not just about software, he cares about the value of the product, the usability of the product and the over all cost of the product. So while a product may have useful features, Oleg is constantly thinking about so how will people use it and how will a company profit from the idea.

Oleg likes Belgium Beer.

I believe Oleg is more than capable of development, architecture and managing teams. If you have any questions please do contact me to discussion.

Thanks Vish! This is awesome! I really appreciate that. For more please see my LinkedIn profile.

Defining challenge

I define challenge as the level of capacity utilization at which employee's skills are used at 100% and he is motivated to acquire new knowledge. This, of course, means that one employee's challenge is a piece of cake for another.

In software maintenance challenge doesn't come in the form of new technologies or interesting new work. The challenge of maintenance is much misunderstood and neglected art of coaxing a legacy application to do new things. This requires a degree of understanding software engineering that is not always necessary when building new software. It requires care and attentiveness that is foreign to many in the field.

By this reasoning, software maintenance is not only more challenging than building a new system -- but it also requires a completely different level of competence.

On having a life

When I was single my days were simple. I got up around 7:30am, went to work, left the office around 6:30pm. Sometimes I would get absorbed in coding and stay in the office till 10pm. The evenings when I didn't have my NYU grad school classes I went to the Belgian Beer Bar on W4th and 6th.

My typical day now goes like this. I wake up a 5:00am. My wife and I try to get up before the kids so we can get some morning chores done. I shower, have a coffee.

My 3.5 year old daughter gets up 5:30am and for the next hour I help her get herself ready for the day.

At about 6:35am I remind my daughter that it is time to go to school and she needs to get herself dressed. We leave the house at about 6:45am. I drop her off at school at 7:00am and make sure she is all settled and is ready for her day.

Around 7:15am I leave the daycare and drive to work. Driving is not the most optimal way to commute, but it gives me the flexibility I need to balance my work and my life. I keep a folding bike in trunk. On a good day I get to Jersey City in about 40mins, on a bad day it can be about an hour. I park at an optimal spot in Jersey City that is conveniently located within easy reach to NYC or to many employers in Jersey City.

I am in the office usually by about 8:15-8:30am. My most productive time is in the first half of the day and I feel like I get the most work done then. Around 11:30am I get myself lunch. If I wait till noon I will be standing in long lines. I eat at my desk. I try to get as much work done as I can.

My family needs me. If I don't have to work late, I don't volunteer. I leave around 5:30pm, definitely no later than 6pm, but if I can get out before 5:30pm I do. I get home typically around 6:30pm to find my wife dealing with a whiny toddler daughter and an infant boy. I take over the toddler daughter management, help her finish her dinner and take a bath, and go to sleep by 7:30pm-8:00pm. I get about 10 mins of quality time with my infant son before he goes to sleep for the night. By then, I am spent.

I have a life now. I have a wonderful family and I wouldn't change a thing. The kids are only kids for so long.

Those of us in the technology sector see it all the time: co-workers who put in incredible hours coding away as though they have nothing else in their lives. And quite often, they don't.

I used to be one of those people.

[From Nick Bradbury: Don't Trade Your Life for Tech]

My ideal job

One is allowed to visualize ideal scenarios, and so I am going to describe what my ideal job would be like. Of course, there are always trade offs and many things to consider when selecting a job -- compensation, paid time off, work hours, career development, location, etc. It is never really possible to land a perfect job, but it is worth it to describe it.

I am a technologist and a problem solver. I solve technical problems. I build systems. I apply technology to fulfill requirements of a business model. Therefore, my ideal job would start off as being heavy on technology. Regardless of what they really do the company I work for might as well consider themselves a technology company. If they see no value in technology they probably won't see much value in me. Technology would have to be such a core aspect of the company's business that they couldn't possible survive without it. To some extent this is why I like working on Wall St.

I am a knowledge professional. I am not a call center operator. I am most productive when given a problem to solve, access to the resources I may need, and the freedom to seclude myself in a private office. The Bionic Office is ideal.

I am a responsible and conscientious worker. I can work without supervision at the office. I can work from home. I can work from a Starbucks locations. I will get stuff done. My ideal boss would not be standing over my shoulder, checking in with me, and assuming I am not responsible enough to manage my time and deliver. My ideal job would give me freedom to choose my own schedule and to work from home as often as I need.

I am a tinkerer and a fixer. I take particular joy in maintaining and improving existing systems. I also take pride in building new ones. I expect both aspects of my personality to be respected. If the company only has a career path for those working on new development and leaves maintainers behind then I would rather not be in a dead end role. But all new development projects eventually lead to maintenance -- meanwhile an engineer's career shouldn't end with the last stage of the software lifecycle.

I am a trusted advisor. Given all of the information I will make the right decisions and offer the best solutions. I don't like secretive clique environments where management makes decisions without involving the engineers.

I like a challenge and I often challenge others, including those in authority. I like to work in teams of intelligent people with whom I can share my knowledge and learn from. I like to work with curious people who care about their work, to whom technology is not just a job but also a key aspect of their lives.

I don't seek management as a goal. I am flattered when my expertise is recognized and I am asked to advise on technology matters or to mentor the team. I will gladly accept a leadership role that evolved organically from my role as a technologist in a team of like-minded and professionals. But advisory and mentorship is where I stop -- I don't get power trips from enforcement.

On the balance my present job covers many of these aspects. I've worked here for five years now and will probably stay here for the foreseeable future. That said, though, I find that in the name of building up my personal brand going on the record never hurt.

Why so many in IT are also into photography ?

I enjoy photography as a hobby. Why so many people in IT are also amateur photographers ?

Last year I read "Shop class as soul craft" which can help explain:

Any discipline that deals with an authoritative, independent reality requires honesty and humility. I believe this is especially so of the stochastic arts that fix things, such as doctoring and wrenching, in which we are not the makers of the things we tend. Similarly, in art that is representational, the artist holds herself responsible to something not of her making. If we fail to respond appropriately to these authoritative realities, we remain [ed: absent minded] idiots.

Indeed. Software engineering is such a discipline. My career, for example, revolves around taking responsibility for code that is not my own making. In fact, most of the code I've worked with is written by people that have long ago moved on to other things, jobs and careers. I happen to enjoy the "stochastic art" of tinkering with and repairing things -- even though it is not always appreciated.

Likewise, photography is a representational art that reflects my approach to work and career. At work and in my hobbies, I hold myself responsible for something not of my own making.

The Accidental IT Leader: Oh, Oh – What To Do When You Don’t Get That Promotion

In my morning blog scan I came upon this interesting post on the prospect for promotions in IT.

So let’s talk frankly here: no matter what level your IT career is currently at, you are going to be blocked. Just to make things even worse, the experts are telling us that we shouldn’t expect promotions to come back any time soon. So what should you do? Quit? In this economy? I don’t think so. Instead we should take a look and see if we can come up with a different solution. [From Oh, Oh – What To Do When You Don’t Get That Promotion (IT Manager issues) | The Accidental IT Leader]

Thoughts for recruiters

This year marks 10 years of full-time experience for me. If I include my part-time work through college and internships then I have 14 years of software engineering experience behind my belt. I worked for 7 companies. Three of them were startups, one of which I founded and another was a director at. The others were fortune 500 financial and technology firms.

One time that I did deal with a recruiter was to get a contract gig at a major bank -- but even in that case the hiring manager could've hired me directly if he could but his superiors made me work with a body shop. In other words, in that case the recruiter simply leeched my earnings off of me for no reason, no value added whatsoever.

When I did work with recruiters as a candidate without exception they all failed to understand my value proposition -- because they themselves are completely cluless and lack any experience in technology to pass appropriate judgements. I was sent to interviews that weren't fit to my goals or experience. Some jobs I was sent to interviews weren't even funded!

Every time I had to change jobs I was referred to a position by a friend already at the firm, or I knew the hiring manager. I expect that in the next 10 years of my career this pattern will remain and most likely my next job will not be found through a recruiter.

As a rule I presented more value to the recruiter than they did to me and they typically failed to realize it. I have a value proposition and a skill set that is typically recognized by internal hiring managers directly. This is not to say that I don't see the value in recruiters. I referred some of my friends to recruiters with limited success. I had productive conversations with recruiters and it helped me figure out the direction of my career. But I, personally, never got a job through a recruiter.

So, what would I like to see in a recruiter if I ever were to work with one ?

Well, first, stop talking like used car salesmen or telemarketers. Unblock your caller ID and stop leaving the same exact message on my cell phone. Do not call me at the office via our switch board. A special message for a guy named Steve who keeps leaving me messages -- when I told you to call me at 10am next morning you shouldn't have missed that, and please stop filling up my voicemail. Learn to respect my time and stop treating me like a used Toyota with a bad gas pedal. That would be a start.

Second, once we are past you talking like a used car salesmen tell me why I should work with you specifically. What have you done in the past that makes you qualified to identify good opportunities for me ? Recruiters are dime a dozen and I observed them jump headhunting firms like hopscotch. So why you specifically ?

Third, don't expect me to send my resume to you because I know you will spam everyone and their mother on Wall Street with it so I don't go getting a job on my own. Not gonna happen.

Fourth, describe to me specific positions beyond a 5-liner from the company HR. Try to understand my current job and explain to me why is that opportunity a good move. 

Fifth, most of you aren't qualified at all to discuss my experience with me. Most of you have zero technical skills and the reason you are a recruiter is probably because you failed as a developer. So the vast majority of recruiters can't possibly understand my skill set or experience and I don't see how they can possibly represent my interests to the hiring managers. In my experience I did a pretty decent job representing myself directly to the employers, so what is your value here ?

And finally, I have a pretty good job now. I don't expect to be looking to make a lateral move any time soon. I do a good job at work and my employer treats me well enough to my satisfaction.

I am sure one day I may have to work with a recruiter or two. Meanwhile your best bet is to maintain a dialog with me via LinkedIn. I have a busy life between work and family. I don't have time to return calls from Steves of the world who keep leaving me the same exact message. I don't have time to pick up calls from numbers I don't recognize or "Unavailable" while I am at work. And when I get home I want to spend time with my family.

Are great developers ever on the market ?

I disagree with Joel Spolsky. In his post on why great people are never on the job market he states:

The corollary of that rule—the rule that the great people are never on the market—is that the bad people—the seriously unqualified—are on the market quite a lot. They get fired all the time, because they can’t do their job. Their companies fail—sometimes because any company that would hire them would probably also hire a lot of unqualified programmers, so it all adds up to failure—but sometimes because they actually are so unqualified that they ruined the company. Yep, it happens.

It is true that organizations that fail do so largely because they keep hiring incompetent buffoons. However, calling developers incompetent because they were unfortunate enough to end up in a mismanaged company puts way too much responsibility on the technologists.

A bright developer may get lured into a mismanaged company by an interesting project just to find that project canceled a few months later and the whole team laid off. A bright developer may choose to work with his friends on a startup, then sell the company and move on to other things. He may also choose to work in consulting and go from a gig to a gig every few months.

Joel statement applies more to managers than it does to developers. Great managers are never on the market. They manage their projects well and their companies are profitable and successful. Bad managers don't manage their projects well and end up driving their teams into the ground. Developers are just engineers and that's that. Most of them do what they are required to do to meet a perceived need, and most developers do it well. It is managers that fail.

Re-educating myself

I signed up to take a few courses at NYU towards a certificate in "Financial Risk Management." This fall I will be taking an "Asset Securitization" course.

When I was doing my Masters at NYU I could've taken a few electives at the school of business but I chose not to. I was preoccupied with learning application server design and formal software engineering methodologies. At the time it was useful. In retrospect, though, I wish I had more business training.

So, that is why I swallowed my pride and decided to go back to NYU for some continuing education courses. I wanted to select a course of study that I would find interesting as an individual, something that would be valuable to my current employer and something that I could leverage in the future. "Risk Management" fit the description.