Resume Driven Development

May 2022

Resume driven development is a quiet and growing problem among software developers. Although it is not yet a popular topic, the negative trend of RDD should be addressed early. Avoiding RDD will help companies and developers confront stagnation and create unique technology-based decisions that move business forward.

What is Resume Driven Development?

Resume Driven Development (RDD) is the unintentional practice of software developers to provide solutions using only the tools that were required to get hired.

If you haven’t applied for a job in the last decade, the process can be jarring. Developers often need to neatly describe their skillset through bulleted lists or selected checkboxes on applications. This process provides help for HR, allowing them to quickly review hundreds of resumes and identify candidates that match a Hiring Manager’s needs. However, the process often leads to hiring employees with a single-focus who only create solutions based on their pre-described skillset.

Mike Loukides discusses the cause of resume driven development in his article of the same name. Loukides explains that hiring managers often have trouble conveying the full ability of the type of developer they need to hire. As a result, they focus instead on programs they should be able to use.

By doing this, developers form habits of making decisions based on the programs they use instead of their full skill set. Projects then become optimized to fit the resume of an employee instead of the requirements of end-users.

What does this mean for your website or application?

Resume driven development may seem like a small concern, but it can add up to big challenges for companies when unchecked. Continuing to use the same technology stacks over and over can result in over-stuffed code, latencies, and slow systems. Similarly, only relying on the latest technology can create dependencies, messy code, and frequent bugs.

In his article on Medium, Lokajit Tikayatray explores the dangers of RDD for companies today. He explains that keeping up to date with the latest technologies is a good thing. He even recommends it as a way to help developers in their professional growth. But he also warns that those same technologies must be used in the interest of the organization and shareholders. He suggests that using new tech just because it’s new can lead to unmaintainable and obsolete code when resume driven developers leave.

How Coretechs Avoids RDD

As a custom software agency, our primary goal is to create unique software solutions for the companies we serve. We succeed in that endeavor by hiring developers well-versed in both current and new technologies. We focus on hiring not just for the technologies we work with, but for the problems our clients need to solve.

As a company, we look for team members who are passionate about problem-solving and excited about overcoming a challenge. We encourage our developers to try new technologies and learn new skills.

We focus on solving the problems of today and creating solutions for the problems we’ll face tomorrow.

Photo by Green Chameleon