Last week, I started working on my part-time contract with LeanDog. In the 3 days there, I’ve been privileged to work with a great team (Mike Lutton, Tim Conner, Bill Holmes, Huey Petersen, and Doc Norton). These are just some of the things I’ve observed so far.
Team Collaboration
As I mentioned above, I’m working with an awesome team. We have different backgrounds and can feed off of each other’s past experiences and strengths. It was great to feel a good chemistry with the team early on. But we’re not the only team on the boat. They have other teams for other projects, and it’s great to see those teams working together and bouncing off ideas as well. Yes, even though there are language differences (Python vs. Ruby vs. .NET vs. Java vs. others), we can still learn quite a bit from each other. Working on a boat surrounded by such diverse talent and collaborating with the groups – it’s been a great experience so far!
Pair {Anything}
This past week, I’ve been exposed to all sorts of experiences that weren’t afforded to me in other jobs. Since I’m still learning the ropes of the project and still the new kid, I’ve been able to pair with one of the guys in trying to work with some stuff. We’ve had pair testing, pair troubleshooting, and have decided that you can probably pair on any task.
But wait… our team knows no limits. While pairing works, sometimes, you need to solve a problem or learn a technology as a team effort. This is when Tim Conner’s “quinting” comes into play – 5 of us, 1 codebase, all figuring out the joys of Gherkin and SpecFlow.
And now a pic of quinting (thanks to Mike Lutton!)…
Understanding TDD
In my past job, they talked of TDD as a goal, but never something that was really well-explained. Thankfully, most of my friends have been exposed to TDD, and I’ve actually listened to them, even at times when I would ask “Why should I write more code?”. If I’m asking “why”, I’m either not convinced of something or really am curious to know why to use something and will “why” my way to an explanation that makes sense. All of the things they’ve told me really made sense this week when I saw unit tests. Everything just clicked and made sense. There were even times when I looked at a test and realized “That shouldn’t be behaving like that.” Having been nervous about TDD and then just dropping into that environment – I’m very happy in this setting.
Feeling at Home
It’s nice to go into a place and feel at home, even as a contractor. In many places, I’ve seen contractors treated as outsiders, locked with more restrictions than the average employee. I’ve seen companies treat contractors as second-class citizens at times. And those are the companies I remember… so that I never contract with them. While working on board, I don’t feel like an outsider… I truly feel like a LeanDogger, and that helps me take pride in working for them even more.
Going Forward
I’ve known many of the guys at LeanDog for awhile, as they are well-known in Cleveland’s tech community. LeanDog hosts many user groups and is involved in a variety of the tech events here – including Ignite Cleveland and Cleveland GiveCamp. I’m looking forward to helping these guys and their clients out where I can. It’s good to finally be working alongside these guys!