Scope of view grows with age?
April 22, 2008 by antoniooi
In the past few years, like those in the western countries, I still believe that I can do micro development until I retired. But recently, I started to realize that I was wrong. I realized that a person’s view point will be getting wider and bigger through his experience. The older he grows, the deeper truth that he can see and the more accurately he can anticipate for the future.
It has been more than a decade that I work in the software development industry. I have been jumping from one company to another, hoping to find a company that can allow me to introduce and implement best industry proven patterns and practices to their development team and build the first highly performing, agile architectural sound software product in the country. But so far, none of them can provide me this opportunity. The only company that allowed me to do this is NDT Software Consulting. But due to the unchanged local tradition and culture, my dream was just a very short one — 6 months.
After going through all these, I started to realize that the technical incompetency of local ISVs is not because of lacking of self-motivated and passionate professionals — it is very much depending on how the key person of the organization drives the company and therefore the industry. It is very much depending on how the top management capable of seeing the problems and realizing how these problems impact the future of the company businesses. How can a highly competent programmer fits into a software company, whose company’s priority is on business but not technical excellence? "By hook or by crook, this project got to be delivered by end of this month!", the boss said to the development team. The keyword here is "By hook or by crook…". This implies that the developers must focus on delivery AT ALL COSTS. So, this is how the quality ends up — high mainteance cost, high support cost, bad customer relationship, bad company image, high employee turn-over and so on.
So, do the local ISVs need high quality software architects and programmers? The answer is "No"! They need a highly influencial manager or CTO to drive the company to the right direction, and perhaps CEO and COO as well! After that, then only the good architects and programmers have the opportunity to come into the picture and have their right playground to play with.
The top management is the root cause. Therefore I told myself: I should go for the managerial post — no more architects or senior software engineer for me. I may not be able to reach there, but I will try to be there before I retire from this field.
ever considered to pursue your dreams outside Malaysia?
Unfortunately, my dream is not to fulfill myself; my dream is to change the mindset of the local ISVs so that there are opportunities for the local architects and programmers to get themselves up to speed with the first world countries. Advance countries have tons of people who are far better than me. They do not need me.