The end of the “country developer”

I think everyone should have an attorney. I can’t count how many times — buying a condo, signing an NDA, starting a job, signing a lease — when I would’ve paid a few hundred bucks to have an attorney read it and highlight any areas for concern. Not even a fancy specialist, either, just someone to (a) spot anything really awful I shouldn’t sign and (b) highlight the 1–2 important terms worth negotiating.

I asked for referrals and ended up with three sit-down meetings last year. None of them went anywhere. Coleman Cannon of Silicon Legal (who I’d recommend) figured out my problem: I was looking for a “country lawyer”, the legal equivalent of a family doctor, a go-to person for a variety of things. They might still exist in small towns, but not in San Francisco, he told me; the money’s in specialization, so we end up with specialists: labor, elder law, criminal defense. Obscure stuff gets done by small boutiques; “full-service” firms provide one-stop shopping by combining specialist practices under one roof.

I couldn’t help but notice the software development analog. 10 years ago, companies hired “developers” — country developers — it felt possible, even reasonable, to know enough to do any “developer” job well. Those days are waning; today it’s front-end developer, data engineer, operations engineer, test engineer, infrastructure engineer, and that’s not even counting the really obscure stuff like crypto, TCP stack tuning, or firmware development.

I’ve come to believe the practice of law predicts tomorrow’s day-to-day reality for software developers. Note I’m writing about what will happen, not what should happen or what I want to happen. I’m not crazy about working in a field as credential-obsessed as law, where people regard the practitioners as pond scum and degrees cost as much as a cheap house. It’s just hard to argue development is heading any other direction.

Some things I’ve noticed:

• AmaGooFaceSoftPle=biglaw. These companies are the Cravath, Wachtell, and DLA Piper of our industry. They pay the most, hire the most selectively, and are common first jobs for the career-minded.
• Some people stay in biglaw, others leave. Reasons vary; some tire of big-city life (South Bay commute, anyone?), others want to be close to family, want more meaning, or just prefer working at a smaller firm. Money is important, but not everything.
• The industry has a huge number of niche specialists. I’m sure there are lawyers who specialize in estate planning for immigrants, just like there are developers who specialize in restoration of corrupt databases.
• You can’t start a law firm without “earning your stripes”. This is very clearly happening in venture capital. “Worked at Google” or “Graduated from Stanford” are venture capital equivalents of “nobody got fired for buying IBM”.
• Hiring is a first-order business problem. It’s something executives do personally, not something outsourced to a vendor.
• Practice is very different in an industry cluster/big city vs. small town. Being a biglaw partner is a high-paying, high-prestige job, even as a huge underclass of backwater attorneys toil in small suburban offices doing real estate and wills for the 99%. The analog is west coast software companies vs. shops that make websites for local businesses.
• Apprenticeship is seen as a vital career stage you can’t skip. Mentoring the less-experienced is regarded as an important part of a senior person’s job duties.
• Careers vary in length, intensity, and focus. Some people take breaks to go into public service, others want to “make partner”, others just want to earn a living and maybe put their kids through college. The industry needs all of them.