It is Spring in Switzerland. We often have time for small talk because it is cold or rainy outside.
Quite a few of the discussions are about job opportunities and how interesting and motivating the current activities are.
I selected two articles to help everybody to decide if your software development job is worth the effort.
Go through the questions and ask yourself if the current product provides the current settings.
The Joel Test is slightly outdated. Keep his questions and do the following changes:
Can you replace CVS with Git to reflect the current state of the industry?
Move from daily builds to continuous builds at check-in.
Remember "Daily Builds are for Wimps".
Do not only fix bugs but also write the associated automated unit and acceptance tests. Remember Defect-Driven Development to guaranty your customer. He will never again see the same issue.
Check that your specification also has acceptance criteria which can be automated.
For Microsoft developers, are you forced to use TFS instead of tools of your choice, and why?
Are you testers and quality experts integrated into your Scrum team and sitting in the same room? Do you think about testers and quality experts of roles and not people?
Do new candidates code and perform a refactoring to achieve clean code during their interview? [1].
No matter how great the potential projects and teammates might be, I do not think you can do truly meaningful work in an environment where you, the developer, are not empowered to succeed.
If a company does not get that, then they do not get the software.
My personal list is:
Is respect a key value of your organization and your team?
Are you creating a meaningful product and improving the quality of life?
Are you working in an agile team, preferably a Scrum team?
Has your team a sustainable development rhythm?
Are you using good software practice daily, such as TDD, ATDD, refactoring, check-in in Git master, CI/CD, deliver each day?
Can you contribute to the open-source projects you are using during work time?
If you are developing in Java, are you using IntelliJ IDEA as your IDE?
Take ten minutes to decide if your current job is good enough. If not, it is time to regain ownership of your life.