Beautiful Teams

Chapter 5. What Makes Developers Tick

Andy Lester

We wanted to know what makes developers tick, and all signs pointed to Andy Lester. He's an expert in hiring smart people and building teams that work, and he's done a lot of writing and speaking about the topic. And, as a member of the Perl development team, he knows what it takes to build great software. We talked to him to get some insight into what motivates—and demotivates!—the people who build software, and how to help them work well together.

Andrew: What makes you know about teams, how software teams work?

Andy: I've been programming for 21, 22 years professionally, on some good teams and some bad teams. First off, I program for fun. I'm able to do for a living and make good money in what I love to do anyway. If I'm not having fun doing this, it's not worthwhile. And part of that fun comes from people I'm working with. Yes, it's fun to work alone, but the social aspect—both at work and on open source projects—is undeniable. The open source world has social aspects as part of the whole thing, because otherwise, you're just writing for yourself.

Andrew: Do you think that's a big part of getting a team to work better? That need for social fulfillment is happening with everybody on the team, and not just some people?

Andy: That's hard to tell. You go back to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and social is one of those things that's pretty low on the pyramid, meaning more basic. But what social means to some people is very different ...