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Discussion on: 25 Tips for New Developers: Advice from a (Mostly) Self-Taught Software Engineer

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James Hickey

I love points:

  • "Find your niche"
  • "Depth over Breadth"
  • "Get good at researching"

When I was starting out my first junior position I was really good at Regex. I ended up becoming the go-to guy for complex database migrations since I could convert a huge C# "script" into a really simple SQL script that used Regex to find certain patterns and convert them into the required formats, etc.

These SQL scripts would do the job in a fraction of time (like days down to hours or hours down to minutes).

Eventually, I became the go-to for front-end stuff.

Then other stuff after that.

One of the main things I've gleaned from my career is that you need to be the "go-to" for something in order to stick out.

Sometimes is just a matter of discovering a gap in knowledge on your team - and filling it!

As you said Ali, get the fundamentals down.

I'd add "...then find what gap exists in your team's knowledge and learn learn learn learn!"