How to continue evolving as a software developer — even after you land your dream job
We might be living in the golden age of software development, as demand from employers only continues to rise, despite a pandemic that has seen a considerable slowdown in many different industries. The global developer population kept growing in 2020, by half a million, reaching a total of 24.5 million by the start of this year.
While developers are in demand more than ever, the industry is still highly competitive. It’s not just technical skills that employers are looking for — it’s a unique combination that makes a superstar.
But no one starts out a superstar. Superstars are simply people who chose never to stop evolving — even after they’ve landed their dream jobs. To help you embrace a growth mindset, we’ve laid out five steps you can take to make sure that you stay at the cutting edge, regardless of your career stage or current location.
1. Always be learning (new languages)
Continuous learning is a part of any industry, but it’s imperative in software development. While some developers aim to learn one new programming language per year, there’s no set hard and fast rule. Instead, ambitious developers should always strive to learn and strengthen their ability to pick up a new language throughout their careers.
The programming languages you choose to pick up should ideally relate to the work you’re aiming to do, and the fundamentals of learning languages matter most, no matter which language you’re choosing to study. Yet where do you begin?
UC Berkeley Extension (the continuing education branch of the University of California, Berkeley) compiled a list of the 11 most in-demand programming languages in 2021 which you can check out here.
In summary, they found that Rust, Python and Typescript all came out on top of Stack Overflow’s list for the most-loved languages in 2019 and 2020. Similarly, they discovered that Python, JavaScript and Go came out at the top three of Stack’s Most Wanted lists for both years. They’ve created their own ranking system and prioritised languages accordingly.
2. Improve your value as a contributor
Although technical skills are crucial, the software industry has increasingly become more collaborative, meaning that non-technical skills have become even more important. Developing interpersonal skills is one of the best ways to increase your value as a team player and a leader (whether or not you’re officially leading a team).
Soft skills can be defined as “desirable qualities for certain forms of employment that do not depend on acquired knowledge: they include common sense, the ability to deal with people, and a positive, flexible attitude.” But there’s nothing soft about them, as this post by Ness Labs illustrates:
“Hard skills are linked to your ability to do a specific task, while soft skills are about the way you do them. In the most basic sense, hard skills will get you the job, but soft skills will make you excel at it.”
Developing skills like communication, adaptability and time management is only becoming more critical, especially in a world transitioning more towards remote work and virtual collaboration, which changes the very nature of teamwork
3. Take on new challenges to get T-Shaped technical expertise
While software developers are in high demand, those in the highest demand are the developers who have a wide area of knowledge across multiple areas and have demonstrated experience and expertise in a specific area. This is often called T-shaped expertise.
While the phrase “T-shaped person” might have come about in the aughts by Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO Design Consultancy, or by McKinsey a few years earlier, the core idea, according to Forbes, is this:
“The vertical bar on the letter T represents the depth of your skills and expertise in a single field, whereas the horizontal bar is your breadth or ability to collaborate across disciplines with experts in other areas and apply knowledge to areas beyond your primary field.”
Jason Yip, Senior Agile Coach at Spotify, describes a T-shaped person as “capable in many things and expert in, at least, one.” So how do you develop that T-shaped technical expertise?
In this post, Yip talks about how “pairing leads to very rapid cross-training”, especially so-called “promiscuous pairing”. Take on new challenges with members of other teams where possible to broaden your experiences and expertise.
4. checking in with yourself
What might have seemed like a dream job at one stage of your life is not likely to always remain that way. It’s normal to outgrow the vision we once had for ourselves. Former Facebook software developer Ish Baid wrote about this eloquently in his post, “Leaving Facebook After 1.5 Years as a Software Engineer: when a dream job doesn’t feel so dreamy.”
He describes his experiences at the tech giant and what he learned from his time there - which he could never have predicted when he first applied. Looking back, he concludes:
“I’ve learned that a dream job is not to work at Facebook, Google, or any other company you could imagine. A dream job is doing something that lets you bring your passion to work with the people you want to be working with.”
What does this reveal about professional development? That you can’t always know what is going to make you happy until you try it, and that our careers are lifelong journeys that we’re not meant to figure out prematurely.
Whether it’s through working with a coach or embarking on self-reflection, it’s essential to keep checking in with yourself and ensure that you’re not in a position that a previous version of yourself wanted.
5. Attend meetups and webinars to embed yourself in the community
While you can try to do as much research as you can on your own about where the industry is going and what is around the corner, one of the fastest and most effective ways to spot these trends is through connecting with peers and those you admire in the industry.
Whether through in-person meetups, or online webinars, connecting with those people will help you gauge what you need to learn to stay ahead.
There are a variety of software developer conferences, many of which are virtual in 2021, as well as specialist on-demand webinars that answer questions like, “Has Agile Helped or Hurt Testing?”
Strong networking also starts with having a solid online presence and keeping your profile up to date on social media platforms like Linkedin, as well as optimising your online portfolio, whether it’s Github or an online personal portfolio showcasing your projects.
No matter how you choose to upskill and evolve as a software developer, taking those steps should help you move ahead even more effectively. And as Steve Jobs said: “We don’t get a chance to do that many things, and every one should be really excellent. Because this is our life. Life is brief, and then you die, you know? And we’ve all chosen to do this with our lives. So, it better be damn good. It better be worth it.”
