2018, the Best Time to Make It as a Software Developer

by Nishtha Singh Marketing Manager

Software is eating the world, popular apps like Whats app, Snapchat have successfully turned startups into million dollar ventures. This has left most of us casting envious glances at modern web development tools, frameworks, and practices — dreaming of a working life filled with smart apps, augmented reality, virtual reality. I have been working as a software developer for many years. And it seems to be no surprise to find people with no prior exposure to programming, get hooked up extremely quick to the world of software development.

The tech industry has been craving for talent and it seems like the world needs professionals skilled at par. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t a huge number of candidates vying for available jobs. The sector may be fruitful, but every professional wants slightly more bang for their buck.

Breathe, Eat and Code…

For a software developer, programming and coding has always been and will always be their bread and butter. Writers who don’t write, cricketers who don’t practice each day won’t be able to go far in comparison to those who don’t stop. The Same concept is applicable for coders. If working at a software company is your dream then you need to live your dream that way.

Practice coding and learn everything you can about the programming languages you are working with. In addition to this, stay abreast of trends in the programming world. Instead of learning, it’s more about proving how much you want it with your actions.

It’s Ok to Cheat A Little!

Now I have found a majority of you under impression that developers are superhuman who do things all from memory. But a majority isn’t always right. In fact, the greatest software developers are usually the ones who endeavor hard to find the best resources and put all the pieces of information together and not those with the best memories. Which means, to be an amazing developer, you will require to cheat a little.

After sifting through the pile of google search results, I found 3 great resources that meet my criteria for coding:

· Stack Overflow – It is one of the most regarded programmer references where anyone can ask a question that will be answered by those with more skill and knowledge. The process on Stack Overflow is like the more questions you answer, the higher you will get ranked. This means that it can work as a great personal branding tool for experts. Turning into a place in which novice developers and industry experts can form a symbiotic relationship, the platform has secured its place as home base for the global developer community.

· GitHub- Many of you tend to solve a problem by looking for those who have built similar things and examine their code. Which is not correct. GitHub. Moreover, this online project hosting site features a source-code browser and in-line editing tools and of course a variety of open source projects to peruse. The cherry on top is GitHub's incredibly active and responsive community.

· Dzone- We all want to impress but a software developer has a lot to do than finding out answers to specific questions; this even includes being educated on the latest trends and technology. Another favorite source of mine is Dzone, here you will come across over a million of developers looking for a variety of disruptive technologies such as devOps, cloud tech, Agile tips to big data topics and so forth.

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My Experience as a Software Developer

Though my software development career began 15 years ago, but only in about last 7-8 years I saw a major boost in my career. Here I would like to share a few things I wish I would have known at the very first stage.

There is no “right way”

I wasted a large amount of time by falsely believing that there was an absolute “right way” in many aspects. After all these years, it seems like everything I once thought was correct at some point turned out to be wrong. Anyways, the moral of the story is you will come across a very few thing that is black and white. Most of your decisions will be based on the current circumstances.

Learning particular technologies

2018, the time to be the jack of all. I had mistakenly believed that learning a particular technology inside-out would be a good way to advance my career. Due to which I spend too much of my time by reading books cover to cover about very specific technologies like ASP.NET or Hibernate.

Well, it is important to know which technology to use but it isn’t important at all to be an absolute expert in that particular technology. I spent a good amount of time learning about too many technologies in detail and ended up either dying out or eventually abandoning myself.

The community is extremely important, do follow!

I always love helping my coworkers and have been very social at various jobs I held, but I never tried to reach beyond my company. And that’s one of the biggest mistakes made in my entire career. Besides, I also made the mistake of not thinking that I had something valuable to contribute.

If I could do it over again, I would have made sure to be much more involved in conferences and user groups earlier in my career.

I hope you will find the post helpful!

Author Bio:

Nishtha is working as a Presales Manager at TatvaSoft UK. She relishes writing about various technology trends, Digital Marketing, Management, Entrepreneurship, Startups and much more. Her aims to spread knowledge of the latest technologies through her online contribution.