Navigating the Early Dev Career I’ve been asked a few times by Junior Developers what advice I have for them. They normally see that I’ve programmed in numerous different programming languages and want to know how I got there. My advice is somewhat different than what you might expect. There are people that went to college, worked an internship, and landed a job with a major company. I decided not to take that approach. This is only my opinion and might not be the best solution for everyone. I believe this will best be received by people with an entrepreneurial
Tag: Software Developer
The Path to Financial Success for Developers Starting off as a developer, I know where you’ve been, where you are, and where you’re going. If you’re a junior-to-mid-level developer, you’ll read through this article and brush it off. After-all, you’re going to be a lifelong developer, learning new programming languages along the way from now till the time you retire, while working on open-source projects for fun, possibly making an app in the meantime, and growing old, rich and happy. It was nice to be in that stage; everything was fun. Work was not stressful and working till midnight was
What Truly Makes Developers Happy Wouldn’t it be nice if all developers were just happy at work? The chance of that occurring is close to zero, however, there are a few things that actually make developers happy. Clear Requirements You would think that the client would be ecstatic to provide you with exactly what they want. That’s never the case. Either they don’t know how to gather their thoughts correctly or they don’t want to pay for an expert to guide them through. What you receive most of the time is a loose collection of notes, scribbles, power point slides,
An Optimized Approach for Beginners You have friends that are developers or you just have that itch to start after seeing the developer lifestyle. It speaks to you and you’re eager to begin. You tell yourself that a month is enough to become proficient but you don’t know where to start. How Much Time Will It Take? Much more than a month; I can promise you that. This is what everyone goes through. For whatever reason, a large number of pre-programmers think that they can become developers in one month; some are more conservative and say three. Three months is
Tips for Developer Job Seekers You’ve applied to hundreds of places and nobody’s calling. What gives? You keep hearing that the market is hot, but you’re not getting any calls. You start questioning your abilities. Maybe you’re not as good as you thought you were. The imposter syndrome starts creeping in. Don’t be so hard on yourself; it’s not your abilities, it’s your resume. The Resume You’re proud of your resume, and you should be. You’ve worked hard to get your skills to where they’re at and you want people to know about them. You place your entire skillset on
Habits that Define Top Software Developers Observing the way that software developers work, you’ll notice a trend appear: each have deep routed habits. These habits are at the core of what makes a developer a quality software developer. 1. They Got Over the Fear You know the fear I’m talking about. The client calls late in the afternoon and their website is down. They’re losing thousands of dollars and need the application running now. They need someone to get in, take a look, and quickly modify code (if necessary) on the production side to get the app back up and
The Stability of Developer Careers I’ve seen this question rise in popularity in the recent months. It’s not just software developers that are searching for the answer, everyone is wondering if their field is recession-proof. Software Developers are people too, contrary to what everyone I worked with says (we’re not robots), and they exhibit the most basic human emotion too, fear. Fear that they’ll lose their job. Fear that this is the time that companies decide that they’re overstaffed and start cutting back heavily, indefinitely. So, is the fear real or are developer jobs actually recession-proof? Let’s Start with the
Triumph Amidst Challenges This is more probably of a cautionary tale than it is of a successful and optimized approach to becoming a software developer. My start was kind of rough, pretty brutal to be completely honest. If I had to do it all over again, I would take a completely different approach. The only reason that I became a software developer was because I possess the following qualities: patience and persistence. Background I was in high school when I first got introduced to computer programming. Prior to that, it was just normal computer curiosity. I spent time looking through
Books to Complement Your Skills The learning never stops as a software developer. If you’ve recently learned how to program, you may be asking yourself what else should you be reading. What else is there to learn? A lot more…trust me. Below are some of the books that I personally recommend for junior-to-mid-level developers to read aside from their regular programming content. If you know anything about me, you’ll know that I love Head First books. With the Design Patterns book, it’s time for you to broaden your thinking. For example, let’s say that you start writing code in Laravel. You’ll
Where Coding and Project Management Skills Excel I joke around with my wife frequently that project management is the answer to life. But I’m only half joking. Once you understand project management, you can apply it to anything to get yourself organized and stand out from the rest. One of the main reasons that I’m confident that I can land a job in most companies is for my project management skills. Understanding that most people do not know project management well enough is an advantage that I take everywhere with. I’ll start at a new job, organize the company within