DISCLAIMER : The content of this post totally my personal opinion. You are free to disagree and drop your opinion as comment.
I believe these thing may be because of lack of experience and these opinion may change in future when I learn more. This just explain about my expectations from a team which I am in.
[Image courtesy [pacificadventure.org](http://pacificadventure.org)]
Care about product not the amount of work
I have seen people who work for money and who work to build something. I like the latter ones. I am not sure whether the other people is because to they think they have personal life as well. but when working with a startup the people who care for the product is better match. They know what needed to survive and what should to go for next launch. They themselves prioritize the tasks.
The people who work for money is a burden for a startup. They don’t care about the market or the survival factors for a startup. Due to this they won’t prioritize their tasks and they just try to complete the tasks. Such people need a goos project manager who spoon feed them on what to do and how to do. Unfortunately a startup life is not like that. There won’t be any project manager or someone to tell you what to do or what to prioritize.
Take responsibility
I hate people to point fingers towards others. I know someone who find reasons to blame others even though the problem is with his own module/code. He blame packages he use, he blame race conditions which he was not warned about, he blame the inputs for the crash. To me its his responsibility to make sure it works and validate against invalid inputs.
I am not telling his code should be bug free. The bug free software is a myth. I am just asking him to take responsibility and say It’s my fault and I will make sure it won’t happen again. I just want my team to work towards it. I seriously hate to see someone pointing fingers to someone else even before he check the logs using his prejudgment (blindly).
Motivates yourself and the Team
Its really awesome to work with people who motivates themselves and the team. They always stretch themselves come out of their comfortable zone and do something which is good for them and for the team. May it will be a simple automation of some task, but they always find time for it.
Ask questions and clarify the spec
I really like to have someone there to question me on the decision I make. It just help me to think about my decision in deep and some discussions will make us think about new scenarios which never thought of.