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Matt Heusser: After Plexus, how long did you stay technical? When and why did you move into management? Tell us about your first trek up the career ladder.
Jim Showalter : I got interested in how products were used by customers -- there seemed to be a lot more to product development than just typing code into an editor. I started flying out to customer sites, working with their engineers, and spent more time consulting, training, and selling than writing code. At some point I realized that even the best individual contributor can only produce their amount of output, but a manager can coordinate a bunch of effort, and (it is hoped) be more productive than they could ever be by themselves.
Matt Heusser: You spent some time doing technical consulting before you got back to programming. What was that like?
Jim Showalter : It’s always interesting to work with actual customers. It’s the only way to keep development pointed in the correct direction. That job gave me a sense for end users that has stuck with me ever since. You go to a site thinking you know something, only to find out that the users are using the product in ways it wasn’t designed for, or that they’re working around problems you didn’t even know about, or some other surprise. At Intuit we actually welcome this kind of thing as part of our development process. It’s interesting to see the same embrace of serendipity in the Lean methodology.
Matt Heusser: When did you decide that you wanted to code again full time? What tickled your interest and how did you transition?
Jim Showalter : One of the best engineers I’ve met worked in my team at the company before Intuit. He was considering management, and asked me to describe the experience. I talked about planning, budgets, board meetings, etc. At the end he said: “So ... when we ship a product, you get to say ‘I facilitated that.'" And at that moment I realized I missed being an individual contributor!
Matt Heusser: Was it difficult to go back to programming?
Jim Showalter : For a while I was terrified. Technology accelerates at an accelerating rate, so being out of the game for while meant working a lot harder than if I’d kept my skills current all along. For eight months I didn’t do anything except code, 12-plus hours a day, seven days a week. When I felt comfortable interviewing, I applied to Intuit, brought some of the stuff I’d been working on, and demo-ed it. And one of the interviewers found a race condition! People ask why I hate bugs so much. That’s one of the reasons.