Hi John, I don't know if you check here yet or not, but if yes, please give me an advice.
I am an amateur back-end developer, I started programming by self-training with an unrelated university degree. I'm 35 and I'm working as a developer for about 7 years with some experience with C# and Java for different companies. But after all the years now I realized that I'm not professional yet and I am still evaluated as a junior developer. I know that all of my knowledge is superficial. Seems my work experience is not 7 years, it's 2 years.
I never could deepen my knowledge because I always had to work and make money for my family and in this way, I was just doing simple things, and after a while, I realized that I could not make any progress in terms of my career and even financially.
Now I want to move forward, but I don't know how and I don't know the path. I'm confused and frustrated.
For example for Java, should I start to review the Java Core and continue with other aspects? What about the professional experience that I don't have.
I will be so grateful if you can guide me in this.
Rather than a bio, I'll direct you to my AMA: https://dev.to/johnmunsch/i-have-been-a-professional-developer-for-31-years-and-im-53-now-ask-me-anything-5dlf
I've always found that I got knowledge which was more than just surface level from one of three ways:
Teaching others. There is no way to have just surface knowledge and be able to teach other people. They will force you to go deeper because their questions, their confusions, their mistakes will make you have to dig way deeper for an understanding of the material than you ever would have had otherwise.
Fixing someone else's problem. When somebody comes to you and says, "Help," and you are trying to help them, you will go past the surface to fix that problem for them.
Working on something you love. Is there some aspect that you really really enjoy? DevOps, data mining, visualization, front-end work? If there's something there, you can get a lot of mileage out of learning any of those in depth and if it corresponds to something you care about it will be 95% easier to do it.
Is there any way you could do something like mentor someone else (helping), offer to help somebody get rid of a problem, or get tasked with a project that corresponds to something you really like doing?
Those might help. The only other thing I can suggest, and this is what I usually suggest to people who want to learn something, is there a project that you feel passionate about building but which you can also use as a way to fill in some of the knowledge you don't feel like you have now? Because only something you really want is going to help you power through the tough parts.
As for the specifics of Java and what you feel is your missing professional knowledge, part of me feels like this is partly self confidence, part may be realistic, and part may be self expectations which might be a little too high. If you're looking to change things, try interviewing for a few jobs and see how others view you. Hand out a resume and get some feedback. We hired someone last year just because we liked how keen he seemed to be to learn and grow. He didn't have great knowledge or experience but we felt his enthusiasm could help a lot and we're really happy with the choice we made.
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Hi John, I don't know if you check here yet or not, but if yes, please give me an advice.
I am an amateur back-end developer, I started programming by self-training with an unrelated university degree. I'm 35 and I'm working as a developer for about 7 years with some experience with C# and Java for different companies. But after all the years now I realized that I'm not professional yet and I am still evaluated as a junior developer. I know that all of my knowledge is superficial. Seems my work experience is not 7 years, it's 2 years.
I never could deepen my knowledge because I always had to work and make money for my family and in this way, I was just doing simple things, and after a while, I realized that I could not make any progress in terms of my career and even financially.
Now I want to move forward, but I don't know how and I don't know the path. I'm confused and frustrated.
For example for Java, should I start to review the Java Core and continue with other aspects? What about the professional experience that I don't have.
I will be so grateful if you can guide me in this.
Yes, I am still here, [plug] I just posted yesterday about some of my video series :) [end-plug].
I've always found that I got knowledge which was more than just surface level from one of three ways:
Is there any way you could do something like mentor someone else (helping), offer to help somebody get rid of a problem, or get tasked with a project that corresponds to something you really like doing?
Those might help. The only other thing I can suggest, and this is what I usually suggest to people who want to learn something, is there a project that you feel passionate about building but which you can also use as a way to fill in some of the knowledge you don't feel like you have now? Because only something you really want is going to help you power through the tough parts.
As for the specifics of Java and what you feel is your missing professional knowledge, part of me feels like this is partly self confidence, part may be realistic, and part may be self expectations which might be a little too high. If you're looking to change things, try interviewing for a few jobs and see how others view you. Hand out a resume and get some feedback. We hired someone last year just because we liked how keen he seemed to be to learn and grow. He didn't have great knowledge or experience but we felt his enthusiasm could help a lot and we're really happy with the choice we made.