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Practical Tips for Minding the Details

Summary

In this episode of Developer Tea, host Jonathan Cottrell explores the importance of minding the details in a developer’s work. He frames the discussion around the simple challenge of focusing on details for the day, emphasizing that details matter most to the people impacted by your work: co-workers, customers, and managers. The guiding principle for attending to these details is empathy—understanding the pains, incentives, and hurdles of those you work with and for.

Cottrell provides targeted, practical advice for developers at different career stages. For job seekers, he suggests paying meticulous attention to grammar and presentation in all communications, following up after interviews with detailed summaries, and expressing gratitude to those who help in the hiring process. These actions demonstrate professionalism and care, potentially making a candidate stand out in a competitive field.

For working developers, especially those working remotely, Cottrell offers tips on improving virtual communication. This includes testing and optimizing Skype call quality, muting when not speaking to reduce background noise, and positioning camera feeds to maintain eye contact and appear attentive. For all developers, he recommends eliminating distractions in meetings and using descriptive Git branch names and long-form commit messages to improve code collaboration and clarity.

For senior developers and engineering managers, minding the details involves consistency—being on time for one-on-ones, providing thoughtful feedback in pull requests, and taking time to remember personal details about team members. Cottrell concludes by encouraging listeners to spend an extra five minutes each day focusing on the details in their interactions, reinforcing that this mindful practice can have a significant positive influence on those around them.

Recommendations

Tools

  • Manifold — A sponsored service that provides managed cloud services and a marketplace for integrations like authentication, messaging, and monitoring. It helps developers save time by using existing solutions rather than building their own, and offers a free tier with a $10 credit for listeners.
  • Git — Mentioned as the version control system where developers can mind details by using descriptive branch names and long-form commit messages to improve code clarity and collaboration.
  • Skype — Referenced as a common tool for remote developer communication. Tips are given for optimizing call quality, audio, and video setup to improve meeting professionalism and attentiveness.

Topic Timeline

  • 00:00:00 — Introduction and the challenge of minding details — Jonathan Cottrell introduces the episode’s theme: a simple but not easy challenge to focus on minding the details in your work. He connects this to the thoughtfulness shown in gift-giving and sets the stage for discussing why details matter and how to be more detail-oriented as a developer.
  • 00:02:30 — Why details matter and who they matter to — Cottrell explains that details matter to specific people impacted by your work. He lists co-workers, customers, and managers as primary stakeholders. He emphasizes that empathy is the key tool for understanding what details matter to these groups—their pains, incentives, and hurdles.
  • 00:07:12 — Practical tips for job-seeking developers — Focusing on developers looking for a job, Cottrell outlines ways to mind the details during the hiring process. He advises paying attention to grammar and presentation in all communications, following up after meetings with summaries, asking for next steps, and going out of your way to thank people who help you, as these actions demonstrate care and professionalism.
  • 00:10:20 — Practical tips for working and remote developers — Cottrell shifts to advice for day-to-day developers, with a focus on remote work. He suggests optimizing Skype call quality by testing with a friend, muting when not speaking, and ensuring your camera setup makes you look attentive. He also recommends eliminating distractions in meetings and using descriptive Git branch names and long-form commit messages for better collaboration.
  • 00:14:06 — Advice for senior developers and engineering managers — For senior roles, minding the details is about consistency and personal connection. Cottrell advises being on time for one-on-ones, providing useful pull request feedback, and taking time to remember personal details about junior developers, such as their hobbies and life circumstances, to build stronger, more empathetic working relationships.

Episode Info

  • Podcast: Developer Tea
  • Author: Jonathan Cutrell
  • Category: Technology Business Careers Society & Culture
  • Published: 2018-12-03T10:00:00Z
  • Duration: 00:16:32

References

Podcast Info

Transcript

[00:00:00] I have a very simple challenge for you in today’s episode, and you know that simple

[00:00:10] does not necessarily mean easy, but the challenge is relatively simple, although it’s going

[00:00:16] to look different for each person depending on your context.

[00:00:20] My name is Jonathan Cottrell and you’re listening to Developer Tea and my goal on the show is

[00:00:23] to help driven developers like you connect to your career purpose and do better work

[00:00:28] so you can have a positive influence on the people around you.

[00:00:32] It’s December and that means for a lot of people that you are buying gifts.

[00:00:37] No, this is not an episode with advice on how to buy gifts, although there is one aspect

[00:00:43] of buying gifts that overlaps with what we’re talking about in today’s episode and that

[00:00:48] is details.

[00:00:51] That pay attention to the details are often described as thoughtful, and it shows that

[00:00:59] the person that is giving that gift put time and effort into that process.

[00:01:06] That’s about all of the gift giving advice that I can give you, but we’re also going

[00:01:10] to talk about minding the details in your job or in your work, in your development work.

[00:01:18] How can you take advantage of our appreciation for details?

[00:01:24] And what are some practical, straightforward ways that we can be more detail oriented?

[00:01:30] We’re going to talk about all of that on the show, but first I want to talk for a moment

[00:01:34] about why details matter and how you can kind of prime your way of thinking on this subject

[00:01:41] today.

[00:01:42] And like all of the other challenges on Developer Tea, you don’t have to always keep everything

[00:01:48] perfectly in mind.

[00:01:50] Certainly there are well over 600 episodes of the show, and on every episode there’s

[00:01:55] some kind of piece of advice that you can pull out, and there’s no way that you’re

[00:01:59] going to be able to practice these things every single day.

[00:02:04] I certainly don’t as a developer, as a conscious developer, that I hope that I am.

[00:02:09] There’s no way that I’m going to keep in mind all 600 good habits that we’ve talked about

[00:02:14] so far and counting.

[00:02:16] So instead of trying to accomplish it all, instead of always holding on to these good

[00:02:21] habits, I encourage you to focus on cultivating good habits one at a time, cultivating these

[00:02:27] perspectives one at a time.

[00:02:30] So for today, I want you to focus on this idea, meditate on the idea that details matter.

[00:02:38] Now if details matter, then they need to matter to someone or something, and understanding

[00:02:43] who or what those details matter to is kind of this first step in understanding how to

[00:02:51] mine the details better.

[00:02:53] So a list of some obvious ones, your co-workers, the people who are working alongside you,

[00:03:01] collaborating with you.

[00:03:03] These are the people that the details matter perhaps the most to because your work directly

[00:03:09] impacts their work.

[00:03:11] And in most cases, you can mine the details with respect to your co-workers, your collaborators,

[00:03:19] in a way that benefits all parties involved.

[00:03:23] Another obvious person or people, group of people, who the details matter to is the customers,

[00:03:30] the people who actually use the thing that you’re building, the end product consumer,

[00:03:37] Whoever it is that ultimately receives the product that you are creating, those people

[00:03:43] care very much about the details as well.

[00:03:47] Of course, another example of someone who would care about the details of your work

[00:03:52] is your manager.

[00:03:54] Your manager is going to care about the details of your work.

[00:03:59] If you’re a new developer, then these roles shift a little bit.

[00:04:04] If you’re looking for a job, these roles shift a little bit.

[00:04:08] Perhaps this list includes your hiring manager or a recruiter.

[00:04:13] And the way that you mine the details with each of these roles might be slightly different.

[00:04:20] Each of these people, each of these roles has different incentives.

[00:04:24] And even individuals within these roles may have different incentives from each other.

[00:04:30] Reflecting on the purpose of this show, having a positive influence on the people around

[00:04:35] you, it starts with understanding through the lens of empathy what those people experience.

[00:04:43] And when you mine the details on behalf of the people that you work with, around, and

[00:04:50] for, the guiding tool, the compass, is that empathy.

[00:04:56] Understanding what their pains are, understanding the things that they appreciate, the things

[00:05:01] they like, their incentives, and the hurdles that they’re facing to achieve those things.

[00:05:08] We’re going to take a quick break and talk about today’s sponsor, and then we’re going

[00:05:11] to come back and talk about some practical ways that you can mine the details as a developer.

[00:05:18] Today’s episode is sponsored by Manifold, managed cloud services, save developers time

[00:05:24] and effort.

[00:05:26] You know, it wouldn’t really make sense for you to build your own logging platform, for

[00:05:29] example, or your own CMS, or roll your own authentication protocol.

[00:05:35] You can save yourself a ton of time and effort when you use something that is already built.

[00:05:44] So the problem isn’t making a decision about writing your own authentication tool, but

[00:05:48] instead, which one should you use?

[00:05:52] Managing the right services to integrate and stitching them together.

[00:05:56] And then beyond that, managing access and the credentials between multiple projects

[00:06:01] and teams, managing these details alone is basically a full-time job.

[00:06:07] Manifold comes in to make your life easier by providing a single workflow to organize

[00:06:11] your services, connect your integrations, and share them with your team.

[00:06:16] Discover the best services for your projects in the Manifold marketplace, or bring your

[00:06:20] own custom integrations and manage them all in a single dashboard.

[00:06:25] With services covering authentication, messaging, monitoring, content management, and more,

[00:06:31] Manifold will keep you on the cutting edge so you can focus on building your project

[00:06:34] rather than focusing on problems that have already been solved.

[00:06:37] Once you’ve decided on the services you need, you can deliver your configuration to any

[00:06:41] environment and deploy on any cloud.

[00:06:44] Now, while Manifold is completely free to use, that’s a huge selling point right there

[00:06:49] for me.

[00:06:50] If you head over to Manifold.co slash DevT, you’re going to get a coupon code for $10,

[00:06:56] which you can use to try out any service on the Manifold marketplace.

[00:07:00] Head over to Manifold.co slash DevT, that’s D-E-V-T-E-A, to get started today.

[00:07:05] Thank you again to Manifold for sponsoring today’s episode of Developer T.

[00:07:12] In today’s episode, we’re talking about minding the details and the different roles of people

[00:07:17] who care about the details in the work that you do.

[00:07:20] I didn’t address it earlier.

[00:07:21] I have a little bit of a head cold, so I apologize for the slightly different sounding audio

[00:07:27] in today’s episode.

[00:07:29] But I want to jump in right now to some practical ways that you can mind the details.

[00:07:34] These are going to be some very simple tips for various parts of your work, ways that

[00:07:40] you can kind of be a little bit more detail oriented depending on the stage of career

[00:07:46] that you’re in.

[00:07:47] So I want to start with the developer who’s looking for a job, because this is perhaps

[00:07:52] one of the most important times that details matter, not only to your future employer,

[00:07:57] but to you, because the details can be what makes or breaks your employment opportunity.

[00:08:06] The truth is that hiring is a very difficult process.

[00:08:10] When you receive a handful of candidates or a hundred candidates, it’s difficult to

[00:08:15] determine which of those candidates should rise to that short list.

[00:08:21] If everything else is equal, the candidate that pays attention to the details is more

[00:08:26] likely to make that list than the one who doesn’t.

[00:08:31] So how can you mind the details as a candidate looking for a job?

[00:08:36] I’m going to go straight through this list of suggestions.

[00:08:40] Number one, at all points of contact, pay attention to things like grammar, spelling,

[00:08:48] and other areas of presentation.

[00:08:50] If you take a phone call with that potential employer, find a quiet space to do that in.

[00:08:56] If you do, for example, an on-site visit, or even if you just do an initial phone call,

[00:09:03] always follow up with an email detailing a summary in your own words of what happened

[00:09:09] during that meeting.

[00:09:11] This is your opportunity to show that your comprehension of these interactions is very

[00:09:17] high and that when you interact with employees in the future in a collaboration mode, that

[00:09:24] you would be able to retain information after that meeting.

[00:09:28] This kind of follow up also signals a sense of professionalism and care for the results

[00:09:35] of whatever that meeting was.

[00:09:38] Always ask for follow up information or next steps in case you miss something in your summary.

[00:09:46] Go out of your way to thank people who have helped you along the way.

[00:09:51] Whether that’s as simple as sending a thank you email to someone who coordinated your

[00:09:55] on-site visit, or sending a holiday postcard to the office where you did that kind of visit.

[00:10:03] Really anything that you can do to show that you care and that you care at a personal level

[00:10:11] about the people that you interacted with, this can go a very long way.

[00:10:16] All right, let’s shift gears into the working developer, a developer who’s writing code

[00:10:20] on a day-to-day basis, and that is the majority of your job.

[00:10:25] How can you mine the details?

[00:10:26] Well, a very simple example is the remote developer.

[00:10:30] Remote developers are largely interacted with over something like Skype.

[00:10:36] A very simple way to mine the details is to take a moment and figure out how your Skype

[00:10:42] connection looks.

[00:10:44] This is similar to taking a look in the mirror before you go into the office in a traditional setting.

[00:10:51] If all that people see of you is through that Skype call, then taking a moment to refine

[00:10:57] how that Skype call goes is worth your time.

[00:11:01] So an example of how you may do this, find someone either in your company or a friend

[00:11:07] or a family member and do a Skype call with them.

[00:11:11] Ask them how you sound, tell them to be as critical as they can in ways that you can

[00:11:15] improve the quality of the Skype call.

[00:11:18] This may take five or 10 minutes, but it could provide a lasting benefit, especially when

[00:11:25] you have meetings that are of critical importance to your job.

[00:11:29] During these Skype meetings or remote meetings, I encourage you to do things like mute yourself

[00:11:34] when you’re not the one talking.

[00:11:36] This helps the audio be significantly more clear for the other members on the phone call,

[00:11:42] and it avoids any kind of background noise distraction that may be occurring on your

[00:11:46] end of the call.

[00:11:48] Another thing that you could do in a remote call scenario to mine the details is make

[00:11:54] sure that your camera is always on and that you’re not distracted.

[00:11:58] You’re attentive.

[00:11:59] You’re looking at the camera.

[00:12:01] One thing that I do on my remote meetings, I move the screen, the window where the other

[00:12:07] person’s camera is, up towards the top where my camera is located.

[00:12:13] A simple problem that often happens on these remote calls is that people look like they’re

[00:12:17] distracted even if they’re not.

[00:12:20] The reason for this is because the camera is often located in a different place than

[00:12:25] the display of the other end’s camera.

[00:12:29] So imagine having an external screen, for example, where you drag the call over to that

[00:12:34] external screen, but your original screen is the one that has the camera on it.

[00:12:38] Well, it looks like you’re looking away from the meeting when in fact you may be staring

[00:12:42] right at the other person.

[00:12:44] So it’s very important that you mine these details because all of these kinds of communication

[00:12:50] points, they matter.

[00:12:52] For developers, both remote and non-remote, whenever you are meeting with another person,

[00:12:57] eliminate distractions as much as possible.

[00:13:00] In person, this may often mean closing your laptop unless you’re both looking at, for

[00:13:04] example, code on a single laptop together.

[00:13:07] A very simple way to mine the details as a developer is to name your branches, assuming

[00:13:12] you’re using something like Git, name your branches descriptively, and when you make

[00:13:18] a commit message, use the long form version.

[00:13:22] If you’re not familiar with this, and this is a very rare moment on developer T where

[00:13:26] I give you actual code, but instead of attaching the message when you run the git commit command,

[00:13:33] simply run git commit without attaching a message.

[00:13:37] This opens up your editor of choice and you can add your both short form and long form

[00:13:42] commit messages.

[00:13:44] The long form commit messages are your chance to explain what’s going on in this code.

[00:13:49] This is one thing that I’ve seen in common with almost every great developer, long form

[00:13:54] commit messages attached to the shorter form kind of summary commit messages.

[00:14:00] For senior developers and for engineering managers, mining the details is often about

[00:14:06] consistency, making sure you’re on time to one-on-ones, for example, taking the time

[00:14:14] to provide useful feedback in pull requests, taking an extra moment to re-familiarize yourself

[00:14:23] with the junior developer that you’re getting ready to have a one-on-one with, understanding

[00:14:30] their hobbies, for example, and knowing about their personal lives, and priming yourself

[00:14:36] and remembering those things, reminding yourself, even if you have to do it through some kind

[00:14:41] of note-taking system, doing that before you have a meeting with that person.

[00:14:46] And really, that’s good advice for every developer at every stage, understanding people at a

[00:14:52] core level, their likes and their dislikes, the things that they care about, the things

[00:14:58] that motivate them, simply being aware of those things.

[00:15:02] The stark contrast of this is not knowing someone’s name, not paying attention at all

[00:15:08] to their personal life, or not even knowing how long they’ve been working with this company

[00:15:14] or on this particular project.

[00:15:16] This list could go on to be quite long, and of course, we can’t cover every single practical

[00:15:22] way of mining the details.

[00:15:24] For example, we didn’t even touch on how to mine the details when it comes to your customers,

[00:15:29] and that list is incredibly long.

[00:15:31] But hopefully, this has been inspiring enough that you can go and find out your own ways

[00:15:36] of mining the details in your day-to-day work, and especially accepting that challenge today.

[00:15:43] Find a way to spend, I’ll even say, five extra minutes to mine the details with interactions

[00:15:50] that you have with your coworkers or your clients or your customers throughout your

[00:15:55] work today.

[00:15:57] Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode, and thank you again to Manifold for

[00:16:00] sponsoring today’s episode.

[00:16:01] You can get your $10 worth of credit by heading over to Manifold.co slash devt, that’s D-E-V-T-E-A,

[00:16:08] Manifold.co slash devt.

[00:16:10] Thank you so much for listening.

[00:16:11] If you enjoyed today’s episode and you would like to be challenged further as a developer,

[00:16:16] I encourage you to subscribe in whatever podcasting app you’re listening to this episode with

[00:16:20] right now.

[00:16:21] Thank you so much for listening, and until next time, enjoy your tea.

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