How To Get Motivated As A Developer To Improve Your Team

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Hey folks, I'm just leaving the office here on Monday. Um, got to get back for the Dev Leader live stream tonight, which is every Monday at 7:00 p.m. Pacific on the Dev Leader podcast channel. And so the topic for today on this drive, not the live stream. Topic's going to be about um something from experienced dev subreddit. I think it's an interesting one. And the poster was saying, "How do you get motivation for uh you know, proposals for improvements if no one's actually asking you for them, right? So, you know, if someone like your manager comes to you and says, "Hey, like we got to you know, carry out this work. It's going to help improve X Y and Z." Like you might be motivated to do that because it's, you know, it's specifically being asked of you and you're motivated to do your job and like that makes sense.

But what about other stuff like you know like if you want to improve team process or you want to make changes to the code base in a positive way or suggest things that are slightly outside of you know what your tasks are to make things better. How do you get motivated to do that kind of stuff? And uh I think it's a really good question and I was thinking about how I want to kind of talk through this and think about it, but it kind of made me realize that there's probably a lot of people that this might sound kind of silly, but like they genuinely um haven't had the opportunity to work somewhere where they're like they're actually like excited about the work they're doing. And like I I realize as I'm saying it, it sounds kind of maybe kind of dumb, kind of silly to some people because maybe you're like, "Dude, yeah, like it's work.

It's work. I got to work. I got to do my job. I got to get paid. Keep got to, you know, keep a roof over my head." And like I shouldn't be expected to be excited or love it. And like that's totally fair. I'm not saying you have to, but I also think that I think that's part of it. I think that it actually is very difficult to get motivation for that kind of stuff because if you're not actually in like super excited about the work you're doing and I mean like genuinely like you're engaged, you you enjoy the work you're doing, you enjoy the problems you're solving, the stuff you're building, the challenges that come with that. If you're not excited about that, then like trying to improve the stuff around you is probably going to feel like pulling teeth, right? If you're like you wake up on a Monday and you're like, "Man, I got to go to work.

Like, this sucks." If if that's how you feel about going about your day, then I can totally understand that like it's going to be hard to get motivation to go make other things better. Now, with that said, one of the things I just said was that, you know, you're kind of acknowledging something sucks and like how how are you going to get motivated to do that? Well, I can see this kind of going two ways personally, and I'm sure there's more, but the two ways that I see this going are that if you want change, it's either because you are excited about what's going on around you, and I'm using the word excited, but I mean like energized, like you're engaged in the work, it's interesting, you enjoy doing it. Yes, you can enjoy doing work. I don't mean every single detail all of the time, but genuinely overall you have uh some enjoyment with it.

You're either excited and energized by the work. So the thought of making things better around you is also exciting even though that is more work or you are you're so bothered by the stuff going on around you that you're like this must change. It's kind of like it's the last straw. I can't take this anymore. something has to change. And um I don't know why, but the example that just came to my mind that's not related to software engineering for that kind of stuff is like for people that are trying to sorry this is oddly specific and not software engineering, but for people that are like trying to lose weight, for example, and get in shape, like sometimes it's really challenging for people to go change their life, to go make those lifestyle changes in a way that they need to do it for their health.

And I think a lot of the time people end up getting to a point where they're like, I I kind of hate everything that's going on so much that it's almost like I have no choice but to go make change, right? And I I realize maybe that's a little extreme, but like that's why I see it kind of going two ways is like one that you're excited by the change and energized that you want to improve things around you or the other way is that it's so it's like it's so uncomfortable for you that you're like the only way forward is to make change. Um, I would hope that for most people, for the majority of their careers, they're not in that one category of like everything's so terrible, I must change um things around me because like I feel like that actually sucks energy out of you.

And if you're already in that state, the reality is you're probably not super energized to begin with. And like, you know, are you going to burn out from that? you know, is it is that actually going to make things better? Like, I don't know. Uh, it kind of feels like it's a I feel like it's a crappy motivator. It might be a motivator. It might get you to take action, but it feels like a crappy one. I think for my my weight loss example, like that might be a good motivator because it's like the thing you need to get you to to take the action, but like I don't think it's sustainable in like your career where you're like I have to rely on things getting so bad that I have no choice. Like I don't know like with a like my weight loss example, it's like that might be something hopefully if you know you're in that situation that happens like one time to you.

You're like I'm going to change my life. This is my lifestyle change. You do it and then you stick to your lifestyle change because you've changed how you live. You change your diet, nutrition, your approach to to movement, exercise, and that stays with you. It's a one-time thing where it's everything's so that you're like, I'm making this change for the better. And like it's probably not going to be that way in your career where you're like, I want to, you know, something this process or this part of the code or whatever it is, you're like, I can't take it anymore. I'm doing this one thing because I need this change. And like it's the last thing that you have to do. like it's it's probably going to happen again where there's something like that. And so I feel like that's a like I said maybe like a bad motivator.

It might work but not something that you want to constantly rely on. So really like that kind of brings me to the the other class of thing here. And I Man, this guy's going so slow. I don't know why we're going so slow, but here we are. This person, too. Holy Okay. Um, are they going below the speed limit? I don't get it. So, the second class of thing was really like about being excited about the work you're doing. And I don't know where I'm headed with this cuz I feel like for the people that aren't excited about work and have never experienced work that gets them excited, like it's going to be a hard cell. You're like, who's this bald guy telling me I need to be excited about work and energized to go in and have a smile on my face? And like, I get it.

Um, you know, work's not going to feel like that for many people, unfortunately. Um, I do think that there are things out there for people that get them excited like that. And I I genuinely mean this. I hope that anyone listening to this or watching it, if you have not had that in your career, I genuinely hope that you get to experience that in your career. Um, I mean it because I realize it sounds silly, but like I think that's the kind of thing that like that transforms like how how you approach work. Um, it's the difference between just like slogging through work, getting through the day, uh, and like actually feeling like you're having a positive impact and like not just doing it because someone told you to do it, but because you're like, "Hell yeah, this is awesome." Like I'm having an impact. this is rewarding to me and obviously it's your job, you're getting paid for it.

I think there's something like that out there for everyone. I like to believe that. It might not be like factually true. Maybe there isn't for some people. I don't know. But I hope I hope that, you know, everyone's able to find that. And like I can say I can say personally like from my experience when I was going through university and I was doing my internships and stuff, I worked at interesting places and I had great people to work for and I like all through my internships I've talked about this in other videos. I I've kind of feel like when I reflect on it I'm like I don't really care. is a job and like I kind of regret it cuz in hindsight I'm like man like the people that I could have been learning from like there's so many so many awesome opportunities and I I certainly took it for granted and it's kind of embarrassing.

Um but like I didn't go through school uh and internships and and think like when I graduate I want to work in digital forensics and like that was you know that was something that I I planned for not at all and I mean it like I can say that doing that kind of work was so fulfilling and I never expected it to be. Uh but genuinely like no one no one made me work the hours I worked. No one made me do that. But I was genuinely like excited to go solve those problems. It was rewarding. They were hard challenges. That person was coming up way faster than I thought. We did it though. Um, yeah, no one made me do that. That was just because I actually enjoyed it.

And I realize it sounds silly, but one of the things that's really cool about being in situations like that is that you get very motivated to improve things around you because you're like, I really have like I have this thing that I really enjoy and like why wouldn't you want everything around it to be better? You absolutely do because if you have something that's really awesome and there's like you can kind of see some things creeping in and you're like, "Oh, that's a problem or like this is going to be an issue or like this is not really effective or whatever sucks or these interactions we have, you know, they suck." Like those are all things where you're going to be like, "Well, that's affecting this thing that I really like." and you're going to be very motivated to do something about it even though it's extra work because you want that thing that you have that's good to be protected.

You want it to stay good. And that's why like if you don't have that, you're like, "Okay, I do this work in this space. It's it's kind of meh, whatever." Like sometimes it's maybe kind of cool. Other times it's pretty I hate it. And like, yeah, there's a lot of, you know, inefficiencies or yeah, like this team dynamic sucks or yeah, well, like you name it, whatever problem. But like, I don't know what you want to go spend, you want me to go spend more time and make that better? Like, I don't I don't care. Like, I can't be bothered enough to go do that because it's just extra work. And like, what benefit do you get from it? Oh, maybe. And then this is where you start having these things that can get like, you know, the carrots dangled in front of you like, well, you know, if you want to get promoted, you got to be doing some extra stuff and like really showing that you're going to improve the team around you.

And you're like, okay, but now I have to find like these external motivators to make that happen. And like I feel like again, that only goes so far. Don't get me wrong, like it can work if someone's like, "Hey, like I I'm just going to use promotion or rewards as an example. Someone's like, "Hey, you know, I really want to like get to that next level. I want to demonstrate that, right?" And like, "Okay, so I need to be looking at not just the work I'm doing, but how to have a broader impact across the team." Like, yeah, they might go, "Well, I got to get behind this. I got to get motivated to do it." And that's that's going to be the thing that pushes me there. But then like this is what I mean by not sustainable. You get promoted and then it's like well that's the new normal.

You need to be doing that kind of stuff in general. So now what? Like it's not a one-time thing like go do that and you're like hell yeah I got promoted. I never have to like kind of do that stuff again because it was just extra work. It's like by the way like this is the new expectation of you at this new level. So, if if the only thing that was motivating you was that that carrot being dangled in front of you for, you know, promotion, rewards, whatever, I don't know. Like, better hope the carrot's real real big next time and like keeps you motivated, but it's probably not. So, I think like, okay, so what do we what do we do with this information? How do we make it actionable? Um, I hope so far all of that makes sense. By the way, if you disagree with the things I'm saying, that's totally cool.

I'm trying to like I don't know, like simplify my perspective on this and that's why I kind of bucketed it into two categories of like change out of like necessity because it's so pain like I'm using the word painful. it's so painful that something's got to change or the complete opposite which is like I have something that is so good and I want to keep it so good so I'm very motivated to drive the change to keep it that way or to to improve it further. That's the the paradigm or the the view that I have on this so far. So what do we do about that? Well, I would say, and obviously easier said than done, but I would I genuinely mean it. If you're working in a space and you're like like I just I really don't like this space, but it pays the bills.

I would strongly encourage you um try to find some time that you can invest to go explore other opportunities. I realize what I'm saying. That's why I said it's easier said than done as my disclaimer. But I I just think about, you know, people that stay in one spot for a very long period of time just because it's like it's tolerable. I guess I was going to say it's comfortable, but like like if you don't even like it, like I feel like that's not really comfortable. That's that's tolerable. you're literally just tolerating however much you dislike what you're doing just to get paid. It just doesn't seem like a sustainable thing. And I don't know if you do that like that mental exercise where you imagine yourself at the end of your life reflecting on the things that you've done and it's like, yeah, I stayed in that one spot for 40 years and I hated every second of it.

Like really? I don't know. like we work for a long time. I would personally want to make sure that like if I can, I want my career to feel like highlights, like a highlight reel of like awesome things. And I I get that not every day is going to be the most awesome exciting thing. But that's what I would want. I would I would want to strive for that. So if you hate what you're doing, please try to carve out some time. however you can to go like how do you start to find the things that you love to do? That might just mean trying something else. You might not know until you go try it. I think for some people um I don't know like is there an intersection with one of your hobbies where you can especially if you're in software development, you have a hobby, can you like can you relate those things for some people?

Maybe I'm just going to make this up. Maybe you're like really into music and you're a software developer. Like is there something that you could do where maybe you're building software for I don't know like some type of uh physical hardware that does audio processing or something and you're doing embedded work or maybe you're building like a desktop software for um you know mixing audio or whatever else, right? like is there a way that you can apply your like your skill set to something that you really enjoy or you're really interested in? I always like I feel like it's not the reality because of things I've heard about this industry, but for me like I love video games in particular. I love role playing games. In my mind, I'm like, wouldn't it be so cool to go be part of a team that builds like a really awesome role playinging game, but from everything I've heard about the games industry is, it's terrible.

So, uh feel like my my dreams are are crushed. Um, but like that's the the the kind of framing that that I would encourage people to have is like I just wouldn't want people to be stuck doing something they hate because then you have these types of questions where you're like, "How is it possible I would ever be motivated to do other stuff to improve things around me?" And it's like, you're probably not going to be motivated to do it because you don't like what you do. I don't blame you for not being motivated. And like if it's not going to be attached to a promotion or something else that motivates you, like I don't know. Now, as I just said that, I was thinking about a conversation I had earlier today. There might be things like you don't might not have to change your whole job, but there might be things that you don't realize are very fulfilling for you until you try them.

And an example of this is like uh teaching or mentoring. Okay. So an example of improving things around you might be like helping others that are trying to skill up. Uh maybe they're um they're very junior. The example I'm thinking of is like from helping early in career individuals. So, Microsoft um we have what's called EMC, like early in career mentorship circles and it's like it's a very fulfilling thing to be able to like help people that are new and learning like it feels good and like no one's we're not getting paid extra for doing that or like it's not there's no other thing attached to it. Um, like I've done it every year at Microsoft except for this year so far. And the only reason was that at the beginning of the year I had this really big project and I said like once I'm uh had finished up my last um rotation of it.

I was like I don't have capacity to do it again. But like now I probably do. There's some other mentorship uh programs I think I might want to try instead. that like it's actually very rewarding. So, are there things where you could like try them out and you realize like, holy this feels really good like you don't the there is no like external motivator. There's no carrot on a stick, right? It's it's like I do this because it feels good to do it. It's probably I mean for most people probably not going to be the thing where you're like I changed our our build system because it feels good for me to do that. But I don't know maybe it does. Maybe you learn that you like love you know build systems and infrastructure and tooling and you're like I want to go do this like I want to go do this more and make that my role.

Like maybe that's a direction. But I think that at the end of the day, like finding those things, those opportunities, whether that's in your career itself or in these things where you're trying to improve stuff around you, when the motivation comes from within, like because of an interest or like it's genuinely like uh satisfying, fulfilling for you, I think you need to find those things. I just think that it's easier. You have a better selection of those things when you're doing work that you love to do. Trying to think of some like what's a good example of this? I at the forensic company I spent time like going to build automated UI tests. Do I love the UI? No. Do I love testing user interfaces? No, even more.

But like I took on like totally, you know, not because someone made me, took on a big effort to go do that because we had a really big issue with trying to migrate some code that was really old and every time they would touch it, they would break it and they couldn't write the tests on it because the code was too shitty. And I can say that because I wrote a lot of it. So the way to do it or to help, not the only way, but was to put these user interface tests over these paths to basically assert all of this behavior that was expected. And that way when people would go touch the code and it would aggress some feature they didn't know about, we caught it, right? And then the whole goal was that they would do this migration, they would uh modernize things and then they could actually write the code to be testable and then they could get rid of these UI tests.

That was the goal. It's not what happened. Um but again, like I did that because I was very like passionate about making the things around me better cuz I love what I did. So yeah, I just I don't know. It's uh I realize it's kind of weird if you haven't really experienced that, but maybe a good way to think about this is like for for those of you that have side projects, right? Like do you have a side project where you're like super stoked to go work on it? Or or do you know that feeling from a side project where you were super stoked? Maybe you're not doing it now, but you're like I can remember, you know, waking up and being like on a weekend and being like, "Shit, I really want to work on this cuz it's like it's exciting, right?

It's a cool problem to solve." And you're like, you're thinking about it when you're, you know, before you're like laying in bed trying to solve problems for it or you're like distracted like eating dinner and you're like, "Oh man, like I figured it out." Like that kind of excitement, that energy, it's it's literally possible to have it work. I just think that it's not common and that's really unfortunate especially because people don't go looking for it, right? They kind of just say like it's not really possible. It's just work and then and then you don't really have that that opportunity. So anyway, I think that's what I have to say about this topic. So, I wish everyone the best in finding stuff like that for them that is energizing for them. And a friendly reminder that if you have questions you want answered, leave them below in the comments.

My god. And um otherwise, you can go to codemute.com. You can submit questions anonymously that way. And I have other YouTube channels. So, I've already mentioned the Dev Leader podcast. That's where I interview other software engineers and I'm getting home so I can do my live stream on the Devleer podcast. There's also Devleer Path Tech which is where I do resume reviews so you can submit your resume for free to be reviewed and I'll do a video. It's all redacted. I don't show your private information and I will give you honest feedback about things to improve in your resume. And then finally, there's my main channel which is Dev Leader. That's where I have all my programming tutorials. So if you want to learn how to program in C using AI tools for helping your development process, go check out Dev Leader. So thank you so much for watching and I will see you in the next one.

Take care.