What is an economic way of thinking for developers?

A developer should think of the value of their labour and how much surplus labour is being extracted. You can determine whether you’re better off working on your own project and receiving 100% of your works value or working on an established project that will pay more than your work could amass on it’s own. Furthermore, evaluating new job offers based on their level of security, growth potential, etc—based on your economic knowledge—is a good idea.

Last but not least, your economic ideals and positions will play a part in matters like licensing; e.g. you may want to be part of something that has a strong open source component/contribution level.

In my view one way of economic thinking for developers is to look at the specific value that their work delivers to the client or a specific business niche.

I see myself as a problem solver. Most of the time the solution is a system of systems with some programming included. The programming is a means of interconnecting the subsystems and coordinating their functionality.