Developer Responsibility Beyond Job Role

Sitting on a villa with the guys, we were discussing our teams and colleagues. It’s a natural process because it’s hard to share these things at work—someone might tell or pass it on, people get offended—but here, we are friends from different companies. A safe environment was formed to release pent-up emotions. One of the striking topics was the reluctance of developers to see and do anything beyond their "immediate" zone of responsibility. And I want to spin this thought a bit more with you.

All characters are fictional, any coincidences are accidental. It’s just hard for me to make examples that aren't about frontend developers.

Suppose we have an employee—Alex. Alex joined the company to work as a frontend developer. The team is writing a new application, and at some point, there is a need to set up its deployment. The team doesn't have its own DevOps, and there’s no way to ask another one, so it becomes necessary for one of the developers to figure it out.

Alex doesn't want to do it. It’s not his job; he came to work as a frontend developer, and such tasks are outside his zone of responsibility. The logical path, as it seems to him, is to refuse to learn a new field and strictly limit his responsibility to the framework of his role. But let’s break down the options he has. For simplicity, let’s look at them like this:

Everyone in the team refused to do the work

Everyone was in solidarity with Alex, and no one took responsibility for this process. As a rule, a company doesn't lack people in a certain role for no reason. Usually, it's due to limited resources, which means the business will need to replace someone. Because without this step, the product simply won't be able to work properly and make money. Whether Alex falls under this blow or not depends on many factors, but it is still one of the possible consequences. At best, someone else will be replaced, and Alex will continue going about his business.

One of the developers agreed

Someone from the team agreed to take on this responsibility. Let's assume it was Alex and look at the consequences of this decision using his example. By studying and setting up the process, Alex will gain:

New knowledge that he can use in the future;

A deeper understanding of how the product works, which influences code decisions;

Increased job security within the team, because Alex now possesses competencies that no one else has;

Visibility of Alex's contribution in the eyes of the manager and the business.

That’s already not bad, but it can be even better. After all, we all go to work for money, and new knowledge and responsibility should convert into it. Depending on the manager and Alex's relationship with them, such an outcome may be more or less likely. Therefore, in general, before agreeing to new duties, Alex should discuss the following things with the manager:

How the new responsibility will affect the current tasks Alex is performing;

What deadlines and resources are allocated to figure out the new topic;

What form of reward should be expected for this in the future.

Depending on the answers, Alex can decide whether the game is worth the candle for him. If the agreements are not honored, it will also be an additional sign for Alex as to whether he should continue working in this company or not.

Let me remind you that Alex can refuse, and then someone else from the team will get all these benefits, taking this opportunity for growth for themselves. Unfortunately, such opportunities are rarely infinite: sometimes it’s not just a lack of suitable tasks, but also a lack of financial resources, which we mentioned above.

The example is intentionally simplified. In real life, things are usually more complicated: you can get out of the situation in other ways, for example, by hacking together a deployment or asking an AI, and then setting it up properly later. A manager might not be able to guarantee a specific reward for the work done. Such nuances occur quite often in practice.

This text, of course, is not about deployment, but about the fact that the picture we live and work in is often more complex than we think. It contains both more risks and more opportunities. And these are opportunities for your growth both as a professional and as a person, which extends beyond work.

When such opportunities appear before you, think about what benefit and in what way you can get from them, rather than only about the negative things it might turn into for you. And the more responsibility you can take on and handle, the more you are valued as a professional.

P.S.: Just don't confuse responsibility with time spent working. They very often do not correlate with each other.