To be or not to be (happy), that’s the question. In this article, I expose some thoughts about what could make a software developer happy in his work. I wrote this article with several targeted audiance in mind : Junior developers, Senior Techleads and H&R resources.

Are we (Software Developers) different from the other workers ?

Since one year, I am living in a funny small country called Switzerland and until that time, I have never been so baffled about Software developer (Un)Happiness.

Let’s imagine the place I am living (Switzerland) : a rich country proud of its culture; amazing landscapes, good food (or at least our neighbouring countries have the best one near), more than decent salaries, quite a bunch of international companies; mixity of culture and nationalities in some workplaces. By the way, if you are interested; please have a look to the great site of my friend (http://suissepic.com/).

Zermatt Swiss mountain (courtesy of suissepic.com)

Lausanne : view from ouchy

I won’t talk about human needs, Maslow pyramid and all the “Influencer” literature that is attempting to make you believe hard that tofu is the recipe to be happy (dumb link here).

I would rather attempt to describe what is the Software Developer Maslow Pyramid ? Why?