7 Mistakes That Prevent A Developer From Building A Successful Career
Learning from your mistakes is great. But it is even better to be able to learn from the experience of others. Especially when it comes to costly blunders that can ruin career advancement.
In the field of development, you need to stick to the golden mean. For example, it is not recommended to stay in one place for a long time, although it is also not advisable to change tools or employers too often. So the most important advice for novice programmers will sound like this - try not to go to extremes.
Now let's move on to a more detailed discussion of the biggest career mistakes developers make.
Mistake 1: Staying Too Long In One Job
Nowadays it is very rare for developers to work for 10+ years in the same company. On the one hand, such a situation would speak to the importance and value of the employee. But on the other hand, it's not that simple.
How long should one stay in the same job? Opinions are divided on this. Some believe that such "stagnation" becomes a cause of boredom and stagnation of both skills and wages. Such specialist risks lagging behind new trends and turning into an unclaimed, uncompetitive programmer.
Others rightly note that employers do not like those who in just a couple of years have time to change 2-3 jobs.
Mistake 2: Changing Jobs Often
But look at it this way: don't you change jobs too often? Why does it happen? Are you getting what you want?
You have to understand that firms spend a lot of resources training and developing employees. Therefore, it is not beneficial for employers to lose them quickly.
In addition, ideally, you should finish each of your projects to the end. That is, take part in the entire development cycle, including software maintenance after release and interaction with end-users.
When a person is constantly changing jobs, it looks alarming. When hiring, they usually assess not only the knowledge and technical skills but also the reliability of the specialists, their conformity to the corporate culture. So make it a rule to bring all the projects you start to the end, and only then move on to a new stage and try a different role.
Mistake 3: Moving Into A Position That Is Not A Good Fit For You
Before you move into a management position, think carefully about your decision and weigh the pros and cons. Management is different from programming and requires slightly different skills. Quite often managers, who yesterday were technical workers, do not cope well with the role of manager. They find themselves unable to establish cooperation between employees and cope with the flow of tasks, documents, and meetings. In this case, it would be much wiser to stay on top of development.
Mistake 4: Denying Help And Not Teaching Less Experienced Colleagues
Not the most obvious blunder, but worth mentioning. Many programmers are too focused on their own careers that they completely ignore the junior developers around them.
Meanwhile, mentoring helps you better understand your own work processes and cope with difficulties that arise. In addition, training trains you in people skills and effective interpersonal communication. Always remember that explaining anything to other people is a great way to deepen your own knowledge.
Mistake 5: Staying In Your Stack
A wealth of experience in one stack makes you a valuable employee and ties you securely to your current job. But does it help build a career? Maybe you shouldn't limit yourself after all.
Of course, no position in software development will allow you to use only one tool or technology until your retirement.
A Java developer with 10 years of experience who suddenly starts working on building an application using JavaScript will not write it the same way as a Python programmer with the same wealth of experience. All of the technologies you own have an impact on your decisions. Applying the OOP approach to loosely typed JS can be confusing because it forces the developer to make the language do things that are not inherent to it.
Every stack has its own culture, opinions, and views. By immersing yourself in them, you'll expand your capabilities and accelerate your career progression. Once you have mastered certain skills at a high enough level, move on. But don't assume that each next language is a copy of the previous one, just with differences in syntax. C# and Java programmers who try to make JavaScript into an OOP have done quite a bit of harm to their peers and companies. That's why multifaceted experience is so valuable and important.
Mistake 6: Neglecting Interpersonal Communication Skills
Interacting with people is an essential element of success in building a career as a developer. Most human activities are social in nature, including programming.
It happens that due to developed interpersonal communication skills, less experienced IT people are able to reach the heights faster. This may cause bewilderment, but everyone likes bosses who are distinguished by tact, skillful communication, patience, understanding, and wisdom.
So how to improve their communication skills? There are so many resources for this now: Internet materials, books, courses, senior mentors, etc.
Programming is only one part of development. It is equally important to be able to communicate with people and master the art of management.
Mistake 7: Failing To Plan Your Career
How can you move forward without a goal? Learn to set goals, dream, and plan, and think about what knowledge and skills you should acquire. Create such lists and update them annually. Knowing where you started and where you've been is just as important as knowing your direction. You also need to have a good understanding of where you do NOT want to go.
Ideally, you should find a mentor who already has what you're aiming for. Learn the secrets of success, and then transfer them to yourself and your career.
Bio: Rebecca Carter works at uk essay company as a content writer and helps students with their assignments. She has a Bachelor's Degree in Journalism and during her study developed an enthusiasm for writing articles about the latest trends in the digital world, as her hobbies are web design and SMM. When she is not writing Rebecca enjoys being in the mountains and volunteering.