Industry Forum

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Industry Forum

• Sean Landis
• Overstock.com

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About the Presenter

• Director of Software Development
• Previously Architect
• 20 years of experience
• Product development, IT, and Research
• Bachelors, Computer Science, U of Utah
• Masters of Engineering, CS, Cornell

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Agenda

• About Overstock.com
• False Expectations?
• Basic Skills of Software Development
• Pursuing Excellence
• Traps and Pitfalls
• Q A

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About Overstock.com
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www.overstock.com
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Interesting Overstock.com Facts

• One of the top 7 US e-tailers
• 4th best customer service in US 2 years running,
  according to the National Retail Federation
• Best performing mass market web site according to
  Gomez
• About 800 Million in annual sales
• 22 Million registered customers
• Actual peak load of 2000 requests/second
• Web site comprised of about 500 systems
• Catalog 25 Overstock, 75 partners (1000)

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Web Site Physical Architecture
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Web Site Technologies

• Java 5/6 No Java EE
• Jamon templating language
• Hibernate ORM
• Oracle 10g 10 node Real Application Cluster
• RESTful Web Services
• Oracle Coherence Distributed Cache
• Mercado Search Engine cluster
• Many others

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Other Technologies

• JavaEE, JBoss, JSF, SEAM
• Java Message Service (JMS)
• SQL, JDBC
• Ant, Maven 2, SVN, Eclipse
• All sorts of 3rd party integrations

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False Expectations?
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Cool Technologies?

• Dreams of working with the cool stuff
• Graphics, gaming, grid computing, etc.
• Good luck! Theres always a catch
• Few cool jobs
• Low pay thanks to high demand
• Required experience and qualifications
• Not always as cool as advertised
• Be flexible fun jobs are everywhere

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Ready to Develop?

• Many companies dont think so
• You may start in support, QA, or operations
• If developing, expect a short leash
• Earning credibility takes time
• Internships and employment pay dividends

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Will Advanced Degrees Help?

• Bachelors
• No big deal unless from a top university
• Masters
• Valued by industry
• Sufficient to differentiate
• PhD is great for academia research
• but only if it is relevant
• Diminishing returns for industry

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School vs. Business

• School is competition win/lose
• Business is collaboration win/win
• Requires you to shift perspective
• Senior project is great, but artificial
• The team controls everything
• In business, you control much less
• Many more constraints in business

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Basic Skills of Software Development

• What you need to succeed

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Professionalism

• The business comes first
• Understand the business processes
• Don't be afraid to ask questions, pair program,
  etc.
• Have the courage to take the time to do things
  right, and the judgment to know when to stop

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Key Behaviors

• Honesty
• Integrity
• Pride
• Communication
• Collaboration
• Curiosity
• Adaptability

• Energy
• Judgment
• Learnership
• Leadership
• Empathy
• Objectiveness

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Design

• Design is about balancing forces
• Meeting current needs vs. future needs
• Generality, esthetics, flexibility vs. deadlines
• Performance, scalability, etc. vs. complexity
• Learn how to find the sweet spot
• Learn to use refactoring tools
• KISS Keep It Simple, Stupid
• DRY Dont Repeat Yourself
• YAGNI You Arent Gonna Need It

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Coding

• Commit early and often
• Avoid loss of work
• Allow others to be up to date
• Unit testing Test Driven Development
• Finds problems early (thus cheaply)
• Helps you craft usable and reliable solutions

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Projects and Teams

• Communication is most important
• Collaboration next important
• Not us and them, but Its all us
• Must be willing to help and ask for help
• Understanding and fulfilling roles
• Shared responsibility and accountability

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Pursuing Excellence

• Reaching the top 5

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The Mythical 5

• Bruce Eckel claimed in his commencement address
  at Neumont University
• 5 of programmers are 20x more productive than
  the other 95
• The reality behind this claim is
• A small number of programmers are much more
  productive than the rest
• How do you get into the 5?

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Foster Key Behaviors

• Be passionate about your profession
• Develop strong communication skills
• Foster a realistic Can Do attitude
• Become a great collaborator
• Learn to see the Big Picture
• Identify the stakeholders
• Understand the business impact of decisions

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Continuous Learning

• Read, read, read
• Keep up to date with the latest trends
• Follow language evolution
• Use a variety of operating systems
• Attend relevant conferences
• Identify and study the leaders in your field
• Develop journeyman technical skills

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Technical Leadership

• Experiment with new technologies
• Learn a new technology and teach it
• Continually challenge yourself, do not be
  complacent
• Mentor others once youve got something to share
• Take on responsibility and be accountable

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Traps Pitfalls

• and how to avoid them

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The Job Hunt Trap

• A common theme in 1000s of resumes
• The first few jobs dont work out
• The wrong evaluation criteria
• Too much emphasis on
• The money
• The technology
• The hardware

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Job Hunt Use a Holistic Approach

• Who will you work with?
• Are they smarter than you?
• Are the employees happy or tired, committed or
  ambivalent, stressed or relaxed, etc?
• How are you cared for during the interview?
• Will you enjoy the work environment?
• Does the development process make sense?
• How are decisions made?
• What are the work hour expectations?
• Are the verbal commitments written into your
  offer?

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The Ownership Trap

• Dont take too much ownership in your work
• Excessive ownership can lead to
• Defensiveness
• Inability to accept criticism
• Resentment
• Fear
• Destructive team dynamics
• Low productivity for you and your team

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Ownership Let It Go

• Your work belongs to your employer
• This attitude allows you to
• Take pride in your work
• Be more objective, thus making better decisions
• Be detached enough to accept criticism
• Do what is right for the company
• Foster better teamwork
• Be more productive

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Working Harder, Not Smarter Trap

• Easy to find yourself doing 50 60 hr. weeks
• Some companies, especially startups, foster this
  behavior
• Leads to
• High stress, unhappy employees
• Destructive behaviors
• Burn out, poor retention
• Poor quality and low productivity

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Work Smart 40 hour Weeks

• Studies have revealed
• Higher productivity and quality
• Happier, more loyal employees
• Stronger, more sustainable teams
• But expect
• Occasional pushes
• To catch yourself working more than you should

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Snake Oil Trap

• Misinformation is rampant in our industry
• Marketeers sell hard to you and your managers
• Marketing disguised as information
• Examples TheServerSide.com and TechTarget.com
• Marketing disguised as technical conferences
• Developers generate hype (those 95-ers)
• Think the next big thing will solve their
  problems
• Most bloggers and experts arent experts
• Important technology issues arent discussed

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Technological Due Diligence

• Read but dont just believe
• Perform the needful amount of effort to determine
  the capacity for producing a desired result
  within your context
• Even hyped technologies have strengths
• Find them and be sure they match your needs

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Summary

• Set realistic expectations
• Develop the basic skills
• Continuously pursue excellence
• Understand and avoid the traps and pitfalls

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• Q A