As many others careers there are tips or ways to get a better personal future, here i will tell you some tips that in my opinion are important to grow as a developer:
1.- Specialize
When i tell you that is a good idea specialize in something, i’m not saying that you must learn only one thing in all your career, no, that is a bad idea. I mean, companies search and pay more for people that know very well one thing, so is a good idea have a decent knowledge in a particular tecnology that a person who knows a little about everything.
2.- Practice
This is key, I mean it’s a very good thing to read books, see online courses, etc., but the important thing is to practice. If you only read books, it’s as if you did a practical job and you never handed it to your teacher.
3.- Personal Project
This point is similar to the last one, but i want it to split it, because this point for me is very important. A personal project is a way to practice our skills in something that is more funny and interesting. If you intend you can do a clone of some app that you like, like a social network, a blog or other thing.
4.- Read great people
You can read blogs, if you like JavaScript i recommend you to look at Ponyfoo by Nicolás Bevacqua, or Eric Elliott, or other expert people for the tecnology that you like. Twitter is other place to read fast information and learn. One perfect place to read and learn is Github, there you can read a lot of code and grow as a developer.
5.- Analyze before writing code
As developers we often fall into the error of writing code too fast, it is a good idea to analyze the problem before writing any lines of code. A good idea is to write code on a sheet of paper, because in that way you think much more.
6.- Refactor your code
It is highly recommended to refactor your code: it is a technique to restructure a source code, altering its internal structure without changing its external behavior. Because as a developer we spend 80% reading code and 20% writing it, and if we have a good code we save a lot of time.
Other thing is that often, we work with other people, and obviously is a good idea always write readable code.
7.- Meet people
Meeting new people is a great idea, because we establish a connection by winning contacts that can benefit us in future projects or jobs. It is also a good idea to talk with other developers to learn, also participate in meetings, presenter in a conference / talk and other things.
8.- Share you knowledge
When you are sharing your knowledge you are learning a lot, and is a great idea because you are helping other people and youself. You can create your own blog, create a educational Youtube channel, create a Udemy course or use Medium 😏
9.- Have a normal life
It is not necessary that you spend 24 hours in front your computer, you must clear youself, go to walk, see the movie that you want, play a instrument etc, do something else, because that is going to help your mind. There is a lot of information, don’t try to learn all, because you probably need 3534 lifes to do it, take advantage of Internet and other people.
10.- Enjoy
Programming is not for everyone, i mean, everyone can program? Yes, but, any can have a professional developer career? No. You must have passion and really want to learn and study, i said it in my last article: the tech world grow every day, so if you hate learning, you are out. So you must enjoy what you are doing, don’t study code only for money because that is incoherent.
