Steve mentions that he often refers to himself as a "data janitor": someone who is always cleaning up someone else's database mess.

How about "slave"?

I don't know about everyone else,...

You would be hard pressed to label me as a programmer. I'm definitely a software engineer. My duties include:

Requirements Engineering (Acceptance Test Driven)

High Level Design (Functional and Test...

The best thing you can do when you discover that you are in a bad work situation is to first, learn from it and second, start looking for another job....

Software solutions have become so complex that a software engineer often must help the business stakeholder understand what they really want. This is more of a social engineering task...

It is all a matter of negotiation and prioritization. However, these two concepts have no value when a line has been drawn in the sand.

By the way, TDD and...

We use test driven development, continuous integration, acceptance test driven requirements and SCRUM to develop our software.

Does all that help to make a project successful? Yes.

Does all that mean...

I really love what I do, even if I'm asked to do presentations or QA, which are not my normal tasks. Heck, I've even moved furniture (that's what I...