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Mark Vassilevskiy
Mark Vassilevskiy

Posted on • Updated on

7 Signs That You're a Good Developer

There's nothing unusual if you want to become a developer. Perhaps you'd want to create web applications, mobile apps, or even some sort of a game. However, the issue is whether or not you believe yourself to be competent enough. I attempted to explain some of the indicators that suggest that you're really a great developer or not.

Programming is a Profession That Requires Constant Learning

Thus, you can assume knowing several programming languages or having some experience in this field isn't sufficient to call yourself good at it. The only way you're able to understand if are truly talented enough for something is when you spend years working on projects and solving problems - just like any other developer out there does. If the outcome was great then most likely your skills are highly appreciated by others too!

In other words, if you can create a basic project like a calculator or even something more complicated in a Programming Language that you understand well, then you truly understand how it works, and this is critical.

You Have to Be Confident in Your Skills

In other words, before starting doing something you need to ask yourself, “Can I do it myself? Do I have enough knowledge and skills?” if the answer is no so you shouldn’t start to do this project. Also, you need to be able to build things alone, in a theoretical way, of course. That will make you think about your current experience and what you should learn.

Good developers are constantly able to accomplish what they set out to do, as well as produce high-quality results immediately and consistently.

Of course, working with your coworkers to establish the project is preferable, but there may be times when you’ll be alone with no one to assist you, therefore you’ll need to be able to work independently and have faith that you can accomplish this task on your own.

Of course, working with your coworkers to establish the project is preferable, but there may be times when you'll be alone with no one to assist you, therefore you'll need to be able to work independently and have faith that you can accomplish this task on your own.

Programming Isn't The Only Thing That They're Good at!

They usually have a wide range of skills and are interested in various other activities like music, movies, sports, etc. Consequently, they can easily communicate with different types of people which is always an advantage when working on a project with a team.

It also aids them in performing their job more effectively. For instance, you've been given a freelance order to create a completely Working Website for someone's service, such as a generator of images from sentences or an AI with a paid subscription and other features. So to complete the task, you'll need to understand this field well and not just how to make a beautiful navbar or animated scrollbar. I believe you see my point.

You Must Be Familiar With Your Tools

This quote is extremely relevant for this particular subject. Good developers not only possess great coding skills but also know their development environments (such as IDEs) very well and use all the shortcuts available to make their work faster.

Additionally, they understand the principles behind the code they write and why it works instead of just blindly following some tutorials.

Developers are self-taught

I assume you've heard this statement before, but do you actually know what it means? This term implies that the person never attended any special school or classes to learn Programming. Consequently, they just started working on projects and found themselves doing something new every day which developed their programming skills along with time.

Without a doubt having some sort of education in Programming is advantageous because there's lots of stuff to study in order to become great at it (similarly like when studying for an exam). However, if your primary goal is only becoming good enough then most likely developing these skills alone will be sufficient. Just remember about practicing every day!

You're Good If You Can Create Something

When I say creating, I mean Programming a piece of software, not designing it. There is an entire world outside Programming and creating websites or mobile apps which requires creativity as well (such as drawing).

However, we're talking about Programming now so if you can create something complicated without using any tutorials to assist you then this fact confirms that your skills are worth being valued by other people! It's all about challenging yourself because the more difficult task is solved successfully, the better developer you become! So don't be afraid of challenges - embrace them instead!

No Need To Read This Article

If you're already a good developer then there is no reason in reading this article! You know everything that was written here, or at least most of it because I'm sure some points are new to you. So congratulations on becoming awesome at Programming and discovering how important it is to be able to work alone without assistance (except when needed)! Good luck with your tasks, projects, and career progressions!

Latest comments (61)

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bigdjshadows profile image
bigdjshadows@gmail.com

Good developer will do things that people want. Here is Valve as example. People asked to ad custom games in dota 2 and they add and still update the feature. Here are some good custom games hawk.live/posts/what-else-is-there... and don`r forget to listen to your users

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jaycoolent profile image
Julius Jean-Baptiste • Edited

Yeah, I definitely don't agree w/ this. Even good developers get stuck. My specialty is native mobile app development and front end web development. But I may need help w/ my DBs/backend, cross platform, Machine-Learning, there's so many things in development that I don't know well. Unless you're a tech god who knows everything, everyone needs help at some point.

Development is a team sport. Even freelancing can be a collaborative effort. Failure is part of the business, and rejection is part of getting a new job/promotion or pitching a new project. Software engineering is huge space and even the best developers don't know everything. Mobile, Web [ Front, Back, Full Stack], DevOps, Machine-Learning, Data, etc. its impossible to not ask for help, advice, or even ask for 2nd opinions.

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ceneka_ profile image
Ceneka • Edited

I was sooo ready to read a comeback, a "that's the opposite" message. I Think that you described a manager wet dream

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cedricholtz profile image
Cedric Holtz

That's the right spirit!
You should definitely send your CV to Bumble.
(Also the location checks out)

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jmarcossf profile image
Juan Marcos

"Good Developers Don't Need Anyone's help"

We're only engineers. We're only developers. AND we're only human...

I used to try to tackle things myself... Then a teammate called me out one day and said " we're only engineers. We don't know EVERYTHING. If we need help, or if we're stuck in something, feel free to ask!"

There are MANY gotchas in what we do for a living... All the frameworks, language syntax, etc... We don't know everything. And asking for help definitely speeds things up and saves us hours upon hours of looking through documentation.

With all due respect, I hope you're not a team lead with your views on what makes a "Good Developer".

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bashovski profile image
Anur Bašić

You aren't a good developer if you do everything yourself.

Discussing approaches and how something can be implemented with others is crucial. Two pairs of eyes are better than one.

This post is just a bunch of nonsense.

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sushruth profile image
Sushruth Shastry

I sense sarcasm in this post.

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thumbone profile image
Bernd Wechner

When I read that second point I thought so too ...

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txjson profile image
Nylah D. Klasson

"Good Developers Don't Need Anyone's help"

This is just plain wrong, I would say it even makes you a bad developer. Being able to develop on your own is fine, but you're always better as a team. Not acknowledging that you may need help with something makes you a bad developer. We all learn from others, just as we all can teach others. Don't be so quick to neglect someone's help, maybe it'll teach you something.

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zekaric profile image
Robbert de Groot

Missing a big criteria of a good/great programmer. The code you write can be understood and fixed/enhanced easily by anyone else that comes in after you. If you can't do that, any of the above is worthless in my opinion.

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flavortext profile image
Scott L F B • Edited

This article summarizes exactly what I thought made a good developer before I got an education and a software engineering job. The most egregious misstatements are:

"Good developers don't need anyone's help"

A good developer knows when to ask for help. Our job is to engineer software, not reinvent the wheel. Failure to ask for help or information when you need it can be a blocker to your own productivity.

"You're Good If You Can Create Something
When I say creating, I mean Programming a piece of software, not designing it."

Good software is MADE at the design stage. Writing code that does what you want is the easy part. Scalability, extensibility, availability, instrumentation, fit for purpose -- all of these things should be considered and determined at the design stage and require much more thought and effort than the actual programming. The ability to execute on the design is a bare minimum requirement to be a developer at all.

SOURCE: I'm a software development engineer at Amazon

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sloan profile image
Sloan the DEV Moderator

Hey all!

Just a reminder to please treat each other with respect and kindness on DEV.

It's absolutely okay to disagree with the ideas put forth by the author, but remember to follow our Code of Conduct and try to keep the criticism directed at the ideas put forth in the post rather than at the author.

Let's try our best to be empathetic and patient with one another!

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shivam888 profile image
Shivam kashyap

Wow

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sanishchirayath1 profile image
Sanish Chirayath • Edited

The real Growth happens when you learn from your peers...Real pro developers are those who accept that they don't know everything..open to learn anything...And there's no wrong ask for help from those who have done it..so that your learning process can become much faster... also can avoid the mistakes they've done..It's an art to asking the right question to right people..

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pljay profile image
Pathum Lakshan

This is how Project Managers think of Developers when they're close to project deadline.

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