Trust. Everything you do as a developer requires trust. You have to trust your tests, your tools, your SaaS providers, your colleagues, and your management.

On the flip side, you have to build and maintain the trust of your users. It’s trust & performance, not SLAs or EULAs that keep customers coming back. And while it may take years to develop that trust, you can lose it in a second.

This is particuarly important for private, VC backed businesses. Public companies can often shrug off the effects of bad PR / breaching user trust (Equifax is still alive), but most startups can’t take a knock like that.

Keep this in mind during your job hunt: you can apply the basics of software development anywhere, so why not find a place you can trust? If your interviewers mention security and value driven product development, you’re probably on the right track.