Java Software Factories: Part 5 - Mainstream Developers
Hiring a sofware developer is a high-risk decision. There are several things about the way software applications are typically developed that makes a difficult hiring decision almost like a game of Russian Roulette.
Hiring for a specialist skill is a typical weakness in the hiring process. The problem with this approach is that most skills are technologically obsolete in a few years. Hiring for ability to learn is more useful in the longer term, but much more difficult to do and requires a lot of disciple. Take a look at any typical programming job advertisement, and you'll see that that hiring for flexibily/adaptability is not how the job market typically works. It's all about solving a short term need. It's about "WebSphere developer with 4 years banking applications experience" rather than "Flexible developer with positive outlook and wide experience".
Java Software Factories reduces the risks involved in hiring software developers. If all the major architectural decisions, technology choices, and tools are predetermined, the chances of one individual engineer going off in a strange and wonderful, intellectually pleasing or technologically interesting direction are nill. So you can hire the creative developers since their energies will be channeled in the right direction (solving business problems, which usually means writing the business logic and focussing on the end users).
What's more interesting is the profile of most of the developers that can be hired. Because many of the harder technical decisions have been made before the start of the project by Java Software Factory architect, and tools are available to assist and control the developer output (the Java Software Architect configures the factory), it means that less skilled, more mainstream developers can be used. Senior developers will always be required to design the Java Software Factory, supervise and lead the mainstream developers, and maybe write the business logic.
There are not enough senior and experienced Java developers. That means Java needs the mainstream developers - it needs to be to attract developers from huge pool of Visual Basic developers. Java Software Factories is the way to manage it without them getting hopelessly lost from having to choose between dozens of application servers, many data presistence strategies, several presentation tier technologies, etc.
PJ Murray
CodeFutures Software