AI’s impact: Transforming IT Developers to Engineers
This world needs more engineers!
It sounds like a concern raised during the Industrial Revolution in the nineteenth century, yet it holds the same relevance in the era of the digital revolution facing the world today.
As a project manager with a diverse background spanning engineering, design, marketing, and IT project management on global scales within international teams and clients, I draw upon various experiences to articulate compelling arguments on this one. My career journey, which also included music, acting, and teaching mathematics, provided valuable insights into the significance of multidisciplinary approaches to solving challenges and issues. Just as my most successful students excelled not only in mathematics but also in various pursuits such as music, sports, or art, the same principle applies to the realm of IT projects.
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic catalyzed an unprecedented surge in demand for digitalization and IT solutions. In that environment, IT companies have been urged for rapid response in hires and an enormous coding speed that resulted in the lack of quality and perfection in teams. However, as the post-pandemic landscape emerges, there arises a compelling need to transform the basic IT approach and cultivate enriched value for clients and IT roles alike.
Elevating the standards of daily development work is essential (but not exclusive) for teams and projects alike to gain new value for the clients and users. Transitioning from the conventional roles of junior, medior, or senior developer to the more encompassing engineering mindset is pivotal. This paradigm shift underscores the importance of infusing additional value into the people, business, products, projects, apps and features, thereby ensuring competitiveness and relevance in an evolving market with different requests than we experienced before.
While this discourse may extend across various IT areas such as project management, product design, product development etc., this article focuses merely on the development segment, encompassing code production, testing, and deployment processes.
In this transformative journey, the synthesis of diverse perspectives listed below emerges as a cornerstone for success in changing the paradigm of doing pure development and being a developer/coder, to engineering and being a modern engineer.
Engineering dynamics and approach
Engineers are engaged in the act of construction rather than pure coding or development. When contemplating the creation of an ideal family home, considerations encompass not only the physical structure but also its placement within the locality, the surrounding community, the neighborhood’s ambiance, the standard of living it affords, potential hazards, the expenses incurred, and the suitability for raising a family. Ultimately, the focus centers on the overall excellence, safety, and functionality of the dwelling.
Similarly, a comparable contrast emerges between the methodologies of engineering and pure development. IT engineers undertake a holistic approach, contemplating the architectural framework, the seamless integration of features or functionalities within the broader application ecosystem, the projected costs, user satisfaction, potential challenges, and risk assessment associated with implementing the solution. Conversely, developers concentrate primarily on the coding aspect, emphasizing the quality of the code and the fulfillment of acceptance criteria delineated in the user story.
Engineering engagement and development
Engineers are not merely executing and implementing tasks but are actively engaged in questioning and exploring various implementation methodologies and solutions. These inquiries often lead to divergent perspectives and innovative, out-of-the-box thinking, occasionally challenging the proposed consensus among product designers, project managers, product owners, and engineering leads during the development of features or functionalities.
The iterative process of questioning not only facilitates critical analysis but also fosters a culture of collaboration and constructive discourse within the team. It encourages the exploration of alternative solutions and promotes a deeper understanding of the underlying challenges and opportunities inherent in the project. By embracing this approach, engineers contribute to the evolution of the product development lifecycle, enriching it with diverse perspectives and novel insights that ultimately enhance the quality and efficacy of the final deliverable.
In contrast to engineers who question and explore methodologies and proposed solutions, developers often follow directives without probing deeper. While they request for the established clear acceptance criteria before the development starts to guide their actions and decisions, they often fall short in documenting the implementation approach and demonstrating the implemented feature to their peers. This divergence can lead to unanticipated challenges and project failures.
Simply executing orders without critical inquiry can compromise project integrity and success.
Therefore, fostering a collaborative and inquisitive engineering environment is indeed crucial for project success.
Engineering Versatility and Skillset
Engineers summarise the concept of T-shaped individuals, embodying a breadth of knowledge and skills spanning diverse domains while also possessing profound expertise in a particular area. Their versatility and proactivity allow them to navigate various FE and BE disciplines effectively, even in domains such as DevOps, product development, or security, where they may encounter unfamiliar terrain. Embracing a culture of open-mindedness, engineers readily absorb new insights and perspectives, recognizing the value of continuous learning for both project advancement and personal growth.
In contrast, I-shaped developers tend to specialize deeply in specific domains while potentially lacking exposure to other areas. Their focus is typically directed towards honing expertise within their chosen field, often leading to a narrower scope of (or no any) knowledge and lagging to entertain outside their basic domain.
Process adoption and data valorization
Engineers increasingly recognize the advantages of implementing structured processes and robust project management methodologies.
They grasp the significance of diligent planning, understanding the pivotal role that project data, encompassing estimations, work logs, and efforts, plays in informing future actions and optimizing outcomes.
Conversely, developers may exhibit reluctance towards embracing changes in processes, expressing reservations about the visibility of their work within the project and the additional responsibilities associated with reporting to project managers or engaging in tasks beyond the realm of pure development or coding. They may harbor apprehensions about deviating from familiar, entrenched processes, even when confronted with the shortcomings of existing methods or the potential benefits of newly introduced frameworks.
Experimentation
Engineers prioritize experimentation over-reliance on legacy experiences, recognizing that such conventional approaches may yield suboptimal outcomes. By embracing experimentation, they explore a spectrum of solutions, acknowledging that some may succeed while others may fail, yet each endeavor contributes valuable insights to the challenges they confront.
Engineers encourage a balance between innovation and tradition within their teams.
By fostering a culture that encourages calculated risk-taking and embraces the potential for transformative change, they harness the collective ingenuity to drive continuous improvement.
Conversely, developers are often drawn to familiar and established processes, preferring the comfort of the “safe zone” despite the potential for recurring mistakes, coding challenges, and stagnation in quality over time.
Embracing Failure
In the realm of achievement and fear of failure lies the contrast between engineers’ fearless pursuit of innovation and developers’ aversion to failure. While experimentation may occasionally lead to setbacks, the final output tends to be more refined and impactful. Engineers embrace failure as an aspect of the learning journey, leveraging each setback as an opportunity for growth, team-wide acknowledgment, and collective problem-solving.
Conversely, developers often recoil from failure, endeavoring to hide it rather than confronting and addressing it openly within the team. This reluctance to acknowledge failure can breed uncertainty and exacerbate challenges, hindering the team’s ability to adapt and evolve effectively.
This culture that values transparency, resilience, and continuous learning, can help teams transform setbacks into stepping stones towards innovation and sustained success.
Conclusion
This world needs more engineers! In today’s dynamic landscape, the demand for IT engineers is enormous. Engineers embody a mindset of inquiry rather than mere execution, embracing experimentation over adherence to conventional methods, and fostering innovation that accepts potential failure. However, this narrative overlooks other complexities inherent in engineering projects, including costs, expertise, project maturity, budget, and stakeholder involvement.
It is imperative for all teams, whether working in startup environments or established projects, to recognize the need for a shift in approach towards their work and attitude to create value-driven solutions for stakeholders and clients. While hiring growth-minded engineers may pose challenges compared to hiring developers, the ultimate benefit to the project outweighs the initial hurdles.
From a project management standpoint, the choice between a team of developers or engineers depends on the nature of the project and the leadership style employed. Nurturing an environment that encourages experimentation and fosters excitement among team members is akin to raising an adventurous child, which may pose challenges but ultimately reflects the difference between being a boss and being a leader in guiding both the project and the team toward success.