After the events and frustrations of the day and comparing that with the ideal . . . Creating Passionate Users . . . here's a list of what I need as a developer (as of this moment):
1. Basics/Mandatory
- The basic tools required to get the job done.
- One machine, Licenses for the software I have to use and a clear direction of what I have to do
2. Above and Beyond
- Someone to learn from (someone more senior and more of a rockstar to guide and mentor me)
- Training (books, conferences, classes - invest in me as an employee)
- The uber-tools to do the job - a tablet pc! a lappy (laptop)! a dual-core sun workstation! always the latest versions of any software I could ever want!
- Encouragement to go above and beyond - and Reward! (encourage me to do extra, refactor existing code, build a lucene based search engine to spider all our disparate intranets)
- Reward and Recognition - rank me properly (and others properly too) - and tell everyone else in the company that I kick ass (assuming I actually do kick ass)
- Respect - listen to and support me - allow me to be the expert!
It's not about bonuses or salary (although they're certainly nice), but instead it's about fueling my passion for what I do and enabling that passion to be effectively channeled into business objectives.