Things that Make you a Better Developer

Lets be honest, software development is hard. Specially at the beginning but for sure it gets easier with time and experience. I remember when I wrote my first line of code when I was 13 years old, it felt like magic displaying a "hello world" message in Pascal. But as you know, it rapidly scales in complexity. Today after 10 years of my first line of code I want to share what are the things that have helped me to become a better developer.

Prioritize your learning

As you learn more stuff you feel more confident but also you realize how much you don't know. Then you realize that it is impossible to learn everything. Each day a new framework comes in, a new language appears, Facebook develops a new solution for state management, and so the list goes on. So what is the point of learning just for the cause? My advice is to prioritize your learning on the things that will provide the most value for your career.

For example as a frontend developer it makes a lot more sense to learn about websites optimization rather than jumping to IOT (Internet of Things). I'm not saying that you should avoid learning other random stuff, just that time is limited and you have to decide what will benefit you more both in the short and long term. Also decide what things you have to learn to work on the things you enjoy!

On the other hand there is also a pile of basic knowledge that you should have and is not negotiable. This includes programming logic, algorithms, design patterns, software architecture, security, computers systems, database CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete). All of these create a fundamental base of knowledge that make you a better professional because you know how things work.

The last key point of prioritizing your learning is to build stuff. If you don't apply what you learn soon or later you will forget it. Be creative and find the way that you can use what you learn, the best way I've found is to create personal projects (the difficult part is to actually finish them jajaja).

Share your knowledge

Even if you are a beginner you have something to give. Maybe is your "trick" to center a text in a web page, but is valuable! Sharing what you know with others is learning twice. Never, absolutely never, refuse to help someone if you can. Don't be afraid of sharing your knowledge because you think it is so "basic", just because it is coming from you it has aggregated value. Maybe is your way of explaining or the creative examples you can give but only you have that special sauce.

There is a lot of ways you can share what you know. For example, opening a youtube channel, create a blog, uploading infographics on instagram, giving talks in communities and even volunteering in your college.

Soft Skills

Surprise! not all is about your technical knowledge. Soft skills have the same level of importance as technical skills. The greatest things in the world are not an individual effort, they are produced by multiple persons working together. It is logical then that we have to be good team players. But what makes us a good team player besides our expertise? Here is a list:

• Respect
• Responsibility
• Proactivity
• Humility
• Integrity
• Empathy
• Gratitude
• ...the list continues

The tricky part is that this skills are not easy to show in a curriculum, a recommendation letter or even an interview. But you won't let me lie that soft skills really stand up in your day to day work. It is so pleasant to work in an environment where values and teamwork is really present. Good companies focus a lot on how a person will fit in its culture and values.

I can say that soft skills are much harder to develop than technical ones and good managers know this. Your progress and growth in a workplace is highly influenced in your behavior and your relationships with people. Aim to be the one that everyone wants to work with.

Work-Life Balance

Having good time management with your work and life is really important not just to become better in your profession but also to have an integral personal growth. Life has things that matter more than code. Your relationships with family and friends, exercise and rest are important things of who you are. Someone once said that we are the average of the people we surround ourselves with.

We are human beings, our productivity as a developers is affected by emotions, amount of rest, motivation and health. Having those in a good shape keep us in the sweet spot to do our best performance at work.

Other

• Learn from your mistakes
• Practice a lot
• Be disciplined and persistent when things are not easy
• We can be experts on something but be beginners on other things.
• Have a mentor