Kickstart Your Software Engineering Journey Software engineering is a fast-growing field, and there are many opportunities to get into it. But what does it mean to be a software engineer? What skills do you need? And how can you make sure the right path is taken? In this post, I’ll walk through ten ways that you can start with your passion for computers and get into software engineering. 1. Find out what software engineers do. Software engineers design and build software, but they’re also problem solvers, creative thinkers and communicators. Their job is to work in teams on complex projects
Author: Dino Cajic
When Problems Loom, Rise to the Occasion I’m sitting here with yet another thing to learn. When does it end? It never does. I’ve faced that reality years ago. Just when you think you’ve learned everything that you need for your job, a new system comes around, you find a new job with entirely new skillsets to master, etc. I work in the IT sector and the pace is outrageous. It may sound like a complaint but I personally love it. I love it because I don’t get overwhelmed anymore with anything that’s thrown at me. I see it
Navigating the Perils of Reactivity Why is it that individuals believe that panicking makes the problem a higher priority? If you panic every single time, the urgency seems less each time. How many scenarios can we go through before we realize that this is not the approach that you should take when problem solving? I understand that culture is developed. I’ve gone through plenty of them, and there’s one that I despise, and that’s panic culture. Unfortunately, individuals think that by raising concern and adding 10 exclamation points at the end of a sentence raises the urgency of the
A Roadmap to Achievement Who here has worked for a company where each functional department defines their objectives? The goals are set within small siloed teams. When asked how to improve sales, sales is the only team that’s looked at. Now, how many of you have worked for a company that defines short and long term objectives and then each team brainstorms on how to help with achieving those objectives? That’s the key to success. I primarily work in IT but always look at the business side first. If the projects that IT is working on do not align
Nurturing Leadership, Today and Tomorrow It always boggles my mind how many people in leadership positions clinch to their roles with no thought into ever leaving the company. Whether you own a company or are employed by one, succession planning is something that you should always be thinking about. What is the reason for not investing time in succession planning? I strongly believe that most people are afraid of the thought experiment. Most of the time, the individuals are employed by a company and they have no thought to leave. Convenience is prioritized in all of their actions. For example,
Factors That Prolong Software Projects I had a conversation today that was related to going 2 years over the proposed timeline. The question that I was asked was, “how does this even happen? How is it possible to go a couple of years over the proposed timeline when building software?” My response was, “it’s a lot easier than you think.” I went through a couple of scenarios with this group and I think I’ve finally made my point. I wanted to list out some of the key-points of our discussion. No Requirements One of the craziest projects that I’ve ever
The Cornerstone of Efficiency and Consistency How many times have we all been here? One individual knows how to go through the entire process (whatever that process may be) and that’s that. The information lives in their head. Sometimes it’s inadvertent and other times it’s intentional. After all, you can’t fire John if he’s the only person that knows how to do this, right? That’s more on the negative side. Most of the time, it’s just something that people don’t have time to create, or don’t make time to create. They’re busy with other tasks and don’t see the
Driving Innovation and Growth Too much business or too much technology. That’s what you’ll be presented with when getting introduced to individuals in the IT leadership space. Each have their benefits and each have their flaws. The ultimate goal is an individual with both technology and business sense, but it consistently seems difficult to find. I primarily interact with IT leadership positions that have either of the two qualities, but not both. It’s a difficult concept to explain to each since they’re so focused and set in their ways. It’s counterproductive to the organization to have either, unless the
Daily Progress, Lasting Results Why does this feel controversial to talk about? I know that it shouldn’t be, to encourage others to want to improve themselves, but for some reason it does. Now that I have that out there, let’s just dive into this. I believe the reason why people fail is because they start off way too aggressively with whatever they’re trying to improve, or they just don’t start at all. The amount of times that I’ve heard people say that they want to lose weight or get healthy and then immediately hit the gym for 3 hours
Small Habits, Big Strategy I just started listening to the Atomic Habits audio book and I can relate more than I’ve ever related to any book. It’s something that I’ve said to most of my friends and family but never put that much thought into creating a book like James Clear did. https://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Habits-Proven-Build-Break/dp/0735211299?&linkCode=sl1&tag=carmodguy-20&linkId=3aac9eccc986915a40595853e591f4bb&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl I’m frequently asked how I have time in the day to achieve as much as I do. I think, secretly, that most people think that I’m lying when I tell them everything that I’ve done throughout my life. Each year brings significant changes and people can’t