Software companies come in many sizes. There are small startups, medium-sized companies, and huge enterprises. As you might expect, startups are usually lean and fast. Big companies that develop large applications move much more slowly. Those might be systems developed for many years or decades by hundreds of developers. I’m talking about products like the Amazon marketplace, AutoCAD, or any operating system. These products take a very long time to release new features or fix bugs, considering the amount of engineers they employ.

Disclaimer: This blog post was written by a human, with no AI-generated text Have you ever considered the concept of the proof of concept? I bet you’ve been asked more than once in your career to prove something works before committing fully. It could have been anything - a change in UI, a performance optimization, or a new feature. The underlying contract is that if you prove the concept works, you’ll get the resources to develop the new thing.

Disclaimer: This blog post was written by a human, with no AI-generated text. An application’s code base is a living entity. It keeps growing, changing, and adapting. There’s always a new feature to add, more bugs to solve, and new bugs that are created as a result. As the teams grow, the code changes more often and there are ever more features, more issues, and more bugs. Thorough manual testing becomes impossible the bigger your application gets and as you ship more frequently.

In software, one developer can make a big difference. This is why hiring great engineers is so hard, and why programmer salaries are sky-rocketing. A high-performance software developer is an incredible asset in a team. A company is willing to pay them top dollar, and the competition to hire them is fierce.

We've all been Junior developers at some point. Do you remember that long ago? I sure do. I remember the excitement when I could make something work. I remember the fear when faced with a task I had no idea how to even start.