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Discussion on: What is the minimum...

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Irkan Hadi

Senior developer here, short answer: learn programming logic (syntax independent) and then practice one or more language / tech-stack until you get good at it.

Long answer: It really depends on who do you want to call you a developer. Do you want to do it for yourself and freelance? then pick a tech stack and learn it and make multiple projects with it until you are good at it.

If you want to join a specific company then reach to them and ask them about what tech stack do they use and what kind of skills do they need and work on those

Truth is, there is no set-in-stone definition of what "developer" means, I know some people who code in VBA in excel and call themselves developers (I code in VBA from time to time as a business requirements) and other developers build end-to-end full-stack solutions (front-end, middleware, back-end), I do those as well. So really, it's a wide range.

And as you said, we can (and we do) google a lot, but some stuff like logic and how different components integrate and interact with each other is a skill that you need to learn since its not something that you can easily google and apply on your the fly (unlike syntax where you can easily check the online docs and get some insights and apply on the fly)

Also, you have to be prepared for a life of constant learning because even if you master a tech stack today, tomorrow it might be obsolete and you will need to learn new things. Development from 5-10 years ago is a lot different than what it is today.

Final piece of advice, start small and grow slowly, don't overwhelm yourself.