Let's start with the obvious—software engineering isn't just coding. Yeah, no-brainer, right? But let's be honest, it's quite easy to forget in practice. We're all guilty of doing so. After all, what could be better than sinking into your comfy chair, slipping on noise-canceling headphones, looking at your 4K monitor, and diving straight into code using your favorite editor and a custom mechanical keyboard? This is the absolute best part of our job, isn't it? If you got chills and/or smile on your face you know exactly what I'm talking about.
Unfortunately, there has has never been a job in history that consists only of fun parts (well, that's why it's called a job and not fun to begin with). Software engineering is no exception. More often than not, software engineers are labeled as self-preserving introverts (thank you, Hollywood for cementing that stereotype), while it's not wrong, it's not exactly accurate all the time. I'm an introvert by nature, but software engineering actually taught me how to switch gears and be more social, because, surprisingly enough, software engineering is a pretty social activity. Usually we don't just sit alone in a creepy dark room full of servers, wearing sunglasses, smashing all the buttons at once, and magically generating random green characters on the screen for no reason (BTW, the famous green code from the Matrix is actually just Japanese sushi recipes from one of the movie designer's cookbooks at home). Instead we usually work as a part of a team where each member contributes their pieces of the puzzle that eventually come together as a finished product. At the time of writing this article (03/23/2025), I've been professionally coding for more than 8 years, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it's that effective collaboration between teammates is absolutely critical (whether they're developers or not).
When you become a software engineer, you immediately find yourself engaging with multiple audiences. The trickiest part? These audiences are totally different from one another, and each requires a unique approach. Disclaimer: Unlike some, I'm not against higher education like colleges and universities because they provide a valuable set of skills essential for a professional career (TODO: this deserves a separate article). However, this particular skill isn't something you can learn in a classroom. It’s something you develop through real-world experience—by recognizing patterns, adapting to different situations, and figuring out what works best in each context.
Throughout my software engineering career, I’ve worked in almost every type of role—full-time and part-time, on-site and remote, at startups and enterprises. I’ve been part of large teams, small teams, Scrum teams, and completely independent teams. I’ve worked as a solo developer, junior/middle/senior developer, managed development team(s) as a principal software engineer, collaborated across departments, and navigated both fast-paced agile environments and structured corporate settings. Each situation was quite different in terms of understanding and managing my audience; however, certain patterns consistently apply to any situation.
My goal for the rest of this article is to narrow them down to the most common ones.
First, let's list the main roles you might interact with (the list might not be perfect as different companies can have different structures, roles, policies, etc.).
- CEO/CTO
- Engineering Managers
- Product Managers
- QA Engineers
- UI/UX Designers
- Support Teams
- DevOps Engineers
- Clients
- Users (sometimes users and clients are the same, but not always)
- Other Developers
- Other Roles
As a developer, you need to understand how to interact with these roles; however, there are only a handful of positions that can be considered as your core audience; they have special front-row seats to your performance.
These are as follows:
1. Users
Whenever you write code, you always do it for someone. It could be:
- A public-facing application used by customers
- A library consumed by other developers
- A back-end service facilitating machine-to-machine communication
- Even if you're creating an application for yourself, you still have a user/client/customer—yourself
2. Other (peer) developers
Alright, this is a major topic and deserves a whole separate article (TODO: expand on this in the future). However, let's cover the most important and critical aspects:
🔥Red hot take alert: software code isn't primarily for computers.🔥
In fact, it's not for computers at all. A computer can't "read" and "understand" anything of your JavaScript, Java, C#, Python, or any other programming language. It needs to translate your code into machine code—pure binary instructions that the CPU can execute. This translation happens through compilers, interpreters, or virtual machines, depending on the language. If software code was intended purely for machines, programming would be a completely different ball game. It would be easier for machines since we'd be writing in the lowest possible level form, but it would make developers' lives miserable (try writing enterprise applications using binary instructions).
Programming languages have become increasingly human-readable, and for good reason—software code is primarily for human beings. It makes even more sense if we consider that a CPU doesn't care about your naming conventions, code formatting and structure, comments, and plenty of other things that are absolutely essential for us. A CPU just needs correct instructions to execute them. Human beings are different—we don't just follow instructions blindly, we do so much more than that. Poor coding practices can confuse other developers, make tasks take significantly longer than necessary, or even lead to bugs and long-term technical debt. This is why active collaboration between developers is critical. By agreeing on standards and conventions, teams can reduce confusion and prevent issues down the line. Whenever you write code, always consider the developers who will review, maintain, and extend it in the future—including your future self. Even if you're the only developer in your team, you still need to be as diligent as possible for two possible reasons:
- At some point you'll have to maintain your own code. If it's poorly written, you'll find yourself having a hard time even understanding it later, let alone maintaining it. What starts as a minor inconvenience can quickly turn into a nightmare.
- Your team may grow. New developers might join the project, and the last thing they'll want is to maintain a messy codebase. Worse, you'll be the one having to explain every ugly part of the codebase, which is especially fun when even you don't remember why you wrote it that way.
We can go on and on about this topic, but the bottom line is this: your fellow developers (including your future self) are your audience. Respect them by writing clean, maintainable code that makes their lives easier, and they’ll do the same for you.
3. Computers
They weren't included in the list above because they aren't human team members, but, in a way, they are part of the team. We've talked so much about how developers must communicate effectively with each other and collaborate across different roles. But at the end of the day, everything comes down to coding, doesn’t it? Once all discussions, planning, and decisions are made, a developer has to sit down (or stand up, lie down, or even walk—if your name is Linus Torvalds) and write the required code. Coding is essentially a text-based conversation between a man and a machine. Yes, we mentioned that code is primarily written for developers to understand what software does but it’s equally important to remember that machines are the ones that actually execute the logic. And just like humans, machines have limitations. It’s our job as developers to understand and work within those constraints. This includes, but isn’t limited to:
Memory Management and Optimization—understanding how your code interacts with memory (heap vs. stack, garbage collection, pointers, memory allocations, etc.).
CPU Cycles—the code should be written in a way that it doesn't use too much of the CPU's resources. Computationally heavy algorithms and inefficient code may result in drastic performance degradation.
Low-Level vs. High-Level Abstractions—higher level abstractions are specifically designed for developers to allow them to focus more on logic rather than technical aspects.
Concurrency and Parallelism—efficient use of threads and asynchronous programming.
Dependencies—using external libraries and 3rd party services efficiently without referencing unnecessary stuff.
Proper Error Handling—ensuring the system can handle errors without affecting user experience.
Security - preventing vulnerabilities.
Energy/Data Efficiency—optimizing code as much as possible to lower energy and data consumption. This is especially important when developing mobile apps or embedded systems.
Scalability—as a developer, you need to make sure your app can handle increased load.
And many more important aspects.
Coding isn't just about a developer giving instructions to a machine—it's a two-way conversation. The machine actually talks back and helps you write better software. In this sense, coding is a collaborative process between you and your machine. However, this collaboration doesn't happen by default. To make the most of it, you need to:
Use the right toolset—a well-configured IDE or code editor with the necessary plugins enhances productivity. CodeLens is a perfect example of how the machine provides real-time feedback to the developer.
Master debugging—effectively diagnosing and solving issues is key to understanding how your code interacts with the machine.
Leverage observability tools—monitoring application performance, tracking metrics, and analyzing logs help ensure stability.
Handle production issues correctly—since debugging directly in a production environment is usually not possible (or advisable), proper logging and monitoring allow you to diagnose and fix issues remotely.
By setting up the right tools and workflows, you turn coding into a true collaborative process between developer and machine.
To summarize, as a developer, you must respect and prioritize your core audience—the front-row spectators whose experience rests entirely in your hands (quite literally): users, fellow developers, and computers. Their success, efficiency, and satisfaction depend on the quality of your code, making it essential to write software that is intuitive, maintainable, and optimized for both humans and machines.
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