Empathetic developers build for the user, customer, and future maintainers, while apathetic developers build for themselves. An apathetic developer silently constructs a ceiling over your product's quality. Everything else about your company might be exceptional--your culture, process, product-market-fit--but working with an apathetic dev results in mediocrity. The table illustrates why.
| Empathetic Dev | Apathetic Dev |
|---|---|
| Continuously tries to better understand the user & customer | Stops trying to understand once he has enough info to get started; makes costly assumptions |
| Measures success by the value she provides users & customers | Measures success by how easy she makes her own work |
| Stops once code accomplishes intent (make in-app purchases easy) | Stops once code accomplishes requirements (make in-app purchases possible) |
| Makes his code easy to figure out for others | Makes his code easy enough for himself to figure out |
| Keeps systems as simple as possible | Allows systems to become unnecessarily complex |
Forget the years of experience, fancy portfolio, and raving testimonials that a hot-shot developer has. If he doesn't give a shit about you, your product, or your users, don't hire him. Ask yourself these questions to assess a developer's empathy for your project:
- Have they asked about your business model, customers, goals, or challenges?
- Have they done any research of their own?
- Do they know who the users are?
- Do they focus only on the technical problems and miss the bigger picture?
- What opinions do they have about your industry and company?
- What motivates them to work with you?
