Sometimes, a job can be rewarding and enjoyable even if the actual day-to-day tasks aren’t quite as fulfilling or rewarding as you might wish. I’ve felt for a long time now that this is the sort of job that I have. Being a developer for a small software company is varied, interesting and just demanding enough to keep the brain active. The flip-side is that the individual days of work can be more repetitive and sometimes a bit flat.

All-in-all though, it is pretty enjoyable and the pay is good. Not that I’ve ever really had anything to spend it on. I’ve been working here for almost ten years now and, for the most part at least, I just plod on through. I suppose I’m now seen as some sort of senior figure in our small organisation and this is mostly true enough.

Whenever we get a new client, Andrew, the owner and chief executive of the business, calls on me to sit in on that first meeting. I’m considered the most analytical; best suited to figuring out what the client actually needs rather than what they tell us they would like.

Development is a tricky game. Clients inevitably have a view of their needs that doesn’t actually mesh with the reality of their situation. My first job, therefore, is very often to try and work out what they actually want and whether it is something that we can deliver within their budget.

Any commercial programmer will tell you that specification is everything. Before we start to write a single line of code, we need to know what we are actually trying to achieve. Much more importantly, that specification that we work from is what determines whether we think that we have finished the job or not.

We make the program work exactly as requested in the spec. If the client doesn’t like it at that point, then that’s their fault for not getting the spec right. Now, clearly, we don’t want that to be a point of friction and we therefore spend a seemingly inordinate amount of time making sure that both sides understand one another. Apparently, I’m very good at this bit.

Stepping out of the meeting room at the end of one of these conferences is, therefore a great relief. I’ve a tablet full of notes to help me get started and the beginnings of a hunger-induced headache because I’m now late for lunch. “Thank you again, Mr. Wilson. It makes a change to get a client who understands what we need from them at the start.”

“Not at all, Mark. I only hope that we’ve given you enough to make a practical proposal.”

“Oh, I’m sure that you have,” Andrew tells him. “As Mark says, a client who actually knows what they need makes our job so much easier.”

“I have no desire to appear pushy, but can you give me a possible time-line for making some progress?” Mr. Wilson asks both of us.

“Well,” I begin, “I’m going to try and get an outline specification done before I go on holiday. That will allow Andrew enough time to work out a proper proposal to give to you before I get back. Basic code completion should then be around six to eight weeks with a few more weeks for bug fixes and final testing.”

“Oh, so the app could be available for deployment by the end of summer?”

“I don’t see why not,” Andrew adds. “We have done broadly similar apps before, so there’s a great deal of library code already available. It will take time for you to get approval from the app stores, but that’s only usually a couple of weeks. Mark and the team have enough experience to ensure that it should be a formality.”

“Excellent!” We’ve made it to our small reception area and it’s time for another final round of handshakes. “Thank you both for your time this morning. I look forward to looking over your proposals.”

“Thank you, Mr Wilson,” Andrew tells him. “We’ll keep you up-to-date by email as we go.”

“Have a good day,” I add as he leaves the building.