{
  "id": 10813369,
  "title": "How to work in a software engineering team (2022)",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/29/how-to-work-in-a-software-engineering-team-2022",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-09-29T22:34:26.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Lobsters",
    "slug": "lobsters",
    "url": "https://kimmosaaskilahti.fi/blog/2022/02/25/how-to-work-in-a-software-engineering-team/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Software development is a collaborative effort that requires teamwork. To be successful, you must approach your work with humility, respect, and trust. Working alone and polishing your code in isolation is not the way to go. Sharing your work early on allows others to provide valuable feedback, helping to avoid wasted effort and fundamental design mistakes.\n\nThe more feedback you receive, the lower the risk of wasted work. Sharing knowledge and expertise within your team increases the \"bus factor,\" which is the number of individuals required to be absent before your project becomes unsuccessful. Having teammates who can cover for each other ensures that your project can continue even if someone leaves or takes time off.\n\nCollaborating with others directly increases the overall wisdom in the effort, making it easier to solve roadblocks. Pair programming, where two programmers work together on a single codebase, is a common practice in software engineering companies. Programming is complex, and software engineering demands even higher levels of collaboration. Having a second set of eyes on your work is essential to maintain high code quality and ensure that your software evolves correctly over time.\n\nThe earlier you identify problems, the cheaper it is to fix them. This applies not only to individual code but also to the project as a whole. A tight feedback loop, where you write code, compile it, add tests, and compile again, helps keep code quality high and ensures that your software is developing in the right direction. Working alone is more risky than working in a team because you may waste a significant amount of time on the wrong path.\n\nWhen interacting with others, remember that you are not the center of the universe. You will make mistakes, just like everyone else. Remain open to self-improvement and genuinely care about the people you work with. Treat them with kindness and appreciate their abilities and accomplishments. Trust that your colleagues are competent and will do the right thing. Being open to others' perspectives and being OK with letting them take the lead when appropriate fosters healthy social interaction and collaboration.\n\nA positive attitude, free from arrogance, is essential. Avoid coming across as a know-it-all, even if you possess self-confidence. Instead, foster a collective ego by building a team that takes pride in its accomplishments. Give constructive criticism politely and learn to take criticism graciously. Understand the difference between constructive criticism focused on the code and personal attacks on the person.\n\nFailure is a natural part of the innovation process. If you're not failing occasionally, you're not taking enough risks. Embrace failure as an opportunity to learn and improve for future endeavors. Being open to influence is also crucial; sometimes, others might change your mind, and that's okay. To be heard, you must actively listen to others' opinions. Lastly, demonstrate humility by expressing vulnerability and acknowledging that you don't have all the answers. Googleyness, the set of attributes and behaviors that represent strong leadership and embody humility, respect, and trust, is essential for success in software engineering teams.",
  "summary": null,
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}