An individual can change an organization - Notes on software development

One of the biggest lessons I learned early in my career was from DrewDeVault at Linode, 10 years ago. He was one of the youngest developersin the company (only I was younger, at 20, at the time) but he caredreally strongly about thinking through architecture and code decisionswhen the culture at the time was, and I love those guys, a littlehaphazard.

Drew had no special position. We all had the same title,"Developer". But he argued so persuasively and so doggedly even whenthe entire organization seemed against him and somehow he eventuallytransformed the entire engineering organization.

That's supposed to be impossible! It was entirely new to me. That youdon't need to wait behind people with more experience to make theright decision. That you can be part of making the right decision if youcan find the logic and the will to do it.

It isn't that simple of course. Politics is politics. But there areplenty of companies with people who will make a good faith effort todo what makes sense but might, without someone's unasked-for effort,do not what makes sense but what is popular because what's popularjust kinda seems easiest. And I always like working for thesecompanies, and for the most part have been able to identify themduring the interview process.

I learned from Drew to put limited value in seniority. I learned thatit's ok to debate. I learned to be prepared and to try to present thefacts. I learned to be persistent when I wanted change. I learned thatwith these skills, it's possible for an individual to redirect thepath of an organization.

It took a while longer (and me driving one or two people on my team toquit, to my great regret) to learn when to do these things and whento let things go. Still, this lesson from Drew on what's possiblealways stands out in my memory. Thank you, Drew.

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