rebootied

It’s rough. I worked in US game development for 8 years at five companies, and then over 10 more years in Japan at one company, before returning to US game development. From nearly every angle, developing in America is more rewarding than in Japan.

The salary is lower in Japan. I took at 15% pay cut from my US Art Director salary to take a corporate Director position. Some friends have taken closer to 50% pay cuts when joining a Japanese developer.

The hours are consistently longer in Japan. In 20 years, I’ve worked crunchtime in a number of companies; Japan demands more. A non-crunch workweek was ~50 hours but, prior to delivering builds, 60–65 hours was common, and we would be in 70~80 hours a week across 7-day-weeks for the last several months of any project.

Consideration from the company for the individual is largely unheard of in Japanese dev. It is culturally normal to see one’s efforts as part of the group’s, and this mentality of course carries into the workplace. It is critical to get tacit approval from superiors, because one is making a decision for the company as a whole, not just on one’s own responsibility.

On the positive side, my Japanese teammates were consistently hard working, diligent, faithful, and consistent. They would deliver on promises consistently, and largely communicated well when things were not going as planned. As a manager, I never felt left in the lurch. 

If these are all the ways you can go wrong, how can you ensure that a project actually goes right? First, you have to hire superstars. At Fog Creek, we tend to review about 400 candidates for every full-time hire, because the best developers can be 10 times as productive as the merely excellent developers.

Second, demand fine-grained time estimates from the developers. Yes, it's difficult for developers to predict how long it will take to build a new application. That's why they need to create a reliable blueprint before every project.

Once you have that schedule in hand, don't try to push up the deadline. If the project can't be completed in what you consider to be a reasonable amount of time, the answer is not to negotiate a better-sounding schedule. The answer is to get more resources, move back your ship date, or remove features.

As a project gets going, you'll at times be tempted to reassign work. But reassign it with care. It takes a long time for new developers to get up to speed on someone else's code. I think it's good to rotate developers through different jobs so that you don't have any irreplaceable individuals, but I do this cautiously and build an extra three weeks into the schedule for the incoming developer who's learning the new code, and an extra week for the outgoing developer who is teaching the code to the new person.

Finally, encourage your staff to work a sane 40 hours per week. Seriously. Except for occasional, very short bursts of activity to meet a deadline, we at Fog Creek work eight-hour days. In the technology world, it's better to view a big project as a marathon, and not a sprint.

Joel Spolsky is the co-founder and CEO of Fog Creek Software in New York City and the host of the popular Joel on Software blog.

I’ve been there, done that, however eventually and thankfully because of my training, I was able to say no to some of the most glamorous, enticing opportunities possible within my profession. I asked myself, “What would I have to give up to have this?” The cost was way too high.

There are other intangible enticements. I’d love to hear you input and perspectives as to what you think some of them may be. For example, what if you always wanted to work for one of the most visible, powerful firms in the world, knew you had to start in the lower ranks and pay your dues, and work night and day to grow within the organization? Is it to have a great life or impressive lifestyle? What will you give up to get what exactly, because in the realm of life, if you give up life, what are you left with when all is said and done?

Having fun and being pumped with your job is probably the biggest enticement of all. If you are having that much fun it can become addictive.