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Kate Beard (she/her)
Kate Beard (she/her)

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Let's get philosophical: how do you know when you're a dev?

This might be a bit of a weird, fuzzy one, but...

I recently was talking to a PhD student who has been sitting in with my team at work. His chosen line of study is how teams use Slack for communication. During our interview the other day, I mentioned that I had used Slack at many offices, both before I became a developer and after.

This turned into a tangent about my journey learning to code, and eventually he asked me this question:

"How do you know when you're a developer?"

It made me pause for a moment, mostly because I realised I had no idea what to say!

So what do you think?

  • If you did a course (university, bootcamp, etc) are you a developer when you finish? Before you finish? Some time after?

  • What if you are self-taught? When do you pass this invisible line?

  • When we know a certain number of things or have learned a certain number of skills?

  • Is it some other metric?

I know that this is one of those questions where nearly everyone's answer will be different, and of course every answer will be valid because of our different experiences. So let's hear it πŸ‘‰πŸ—£πŸ‘‚

Top comments (3)

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jmfayard profile image
Jean-Michel πŸ•΅πŸ»β€β™‚οΈ Fayard

How do you know that you love your partner? Give me the proof. Which day did it start? What's the metrics that shows it's serious? Where is the line?

There is no such thing.

You are a Dev when you are ready to do simple unimpressive things every working day for a long period of time. Lay down one brick at a time

A remarkable, glorious achievement is just what a long series of unremarkable, unglorious tasks looks like from far away.

waitbutwhy.com/2013/11/how-to-beat...

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vickilanger profile image
Vicki Langer

I had a Spanish language teacher who said something like β€œyou don’t know Spanish until you dream in Spanish.” So, maybe you’re a dev when your dreams are in Java, C#, HTML, Python, or whatever your language is

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rhymes profile image
rhymes

I believe creating a computer program is enough to earn the title of developer 😊