A day in the life of a dot net developer

So what’s an average day like in the life of a dot net developer? Let’s find out. I come to the office, switch on my system, hit the keys on the keyboard and there – I start with writing the code. That’s the short version.

Here’s the expanded version.

I usually report to work at 8:45am, and then spend 15 minutes in the Coffee room, having breakfast or just chit chatting with my colleagues.

9:00 am: As soon as I get to my desk, I switch on my pc, log in and check for emails, sometimes there are hardly any mails (and that makes me soooo happy :p) and sometimes… Heaps!!!! Sigh!! :'(. Daily status reports, bugs, design discussions, and other related stuff are all communicated via email.

10:00 am: I am officially ready to start rolling. Pick up coding where I left off yesterday or work on some of the problems sent to me by email. “Where did I leave off yesterday?” Sometimes you don’t remember where you left off yesterday which is more problematic. Handling multiple tasks is part of the job [When you are into the IT field, multi-tasking should be your forte and if it’s not, you ought to make it ;-)]. Take periodic breaks, including checking email, surfing the web for more information on a problem I am facing, discussing the problem with other developers  and so on.

12:00 pm: 15 min Coffee/Tea break, and then immerse myself into coding piled up from yesterday’s work for a good 2 hours before lunch. Once a week we have our project status meeting for the entire development team. Here, we discuss our respective project progress, some design details, release schedules, etc.

2:00 pm: Yay.. Lunch! My co-workers and I, we all eat together. The best thing at OPSPL is that we have flexible timings for taking our lunch break. We intend not to talk work related stuff at the lunch table, but…but… but conversations drift towards what we’re working on.

3:00 pm: Coding. Again, I take periodic breaks when I need one, I browse through daily news or chit-chat with co-workers. A typical day depends on what phase of the product development cycle you are in. Phase -I – is the design phase. There are lots of meetings (can be up to 30% of the time) to discuss the design specs, functionality, etc. Phase -II – usually has very few meetings and a lot coding. Phase -III – the delivery stage, this phase makes you wait beyond your normal working hours, you know, Overtime? – Late hours as we meet deadlines. I also spend a lot of time fixing bugs, compiling code, etc.

5.30 pm: Tea break time, chat with colleagues again. Then again more coding and bug fixing.

6:30 pm – Home time! Often I end my day by logging into “Project Tracker” to fill in the tasks handled for the entire day.

Everyday has its own challenges and new ideas and it’s fun working like this. All thanks to OPSPL. 🙂

This is my typical day as a dot net developer.

Is your day anything similar?

– Arti Vengurlecar