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Top 9 Lessons learned in 12 years as a software developer.

Ankur Tyagi on August 19, 2021

I completed 12 years as a software developer this month. Few honest takeaways about my experience with the job and the software engineering indust...
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Dennis Groß (he/him)

Great advice Ankur. I may code for around 10 years now but only reach 5 years as a professional. But I already can see that many of your points are really important.

If there is one thing that I would add than I'd say "built simple solutions". People, especially after the gained some programming experience, tend to overbuilt solutions. Or they try to impress with their coding knowledge.

But believe me that, you can spot a good programmer quite fast when you look at how simple the code is.

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Ankur Tyagi

Simple is the best. No need of those fancy one liners as long as it's understood & working fine.

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Eljay-Adobe

Aye! Jibes with my experience as well.

I'm glad you mentioned the social aspect of programming. Software development is a collaborative social activity. Social skills are important, because programmers will be interacting with managers, quality assurance engineers, technical writers, user experience designers, customers, and other programmers. Be kind. Be nice. Be helpful. Be forgiving.

Work/life balance is important. Because programming is so enjoyable, it is very easy to fall into imbalance.

"Job security is a myth." Aye! It's comfortable to feel secure. But it's an illusion. The first time that horse is shot out from under you, it's traumatic. The second time, meh, not really a big deal.

I've been programming since 1976.

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Jon Randy 🎖️

Agree with most of this. Coming up on 26 years myself, maybe I should take the time to write some stuff

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Ankur Tyagi

Absolutely, Jon, Please share your experience with us. Your experience might help many people out here, That's how I started last year & I can see many people getting benefits out of my journey. It's always good to see people share their experience.

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Bree Owen

Thank you for the advice. I’m a super beginner programmer just starting out. I appreciate your advice and will take it to heart, it makes a lot of sense. In this overwhelming world it’s hard to choose one thing so I appreciate your kind words.

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Randall

I especially like #1. After enough practice you get to a point where you know how to "build things" and don't need handholding. Good insights!

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Ankur Tyagi

Thank you

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saramon

one thing i've noticed in my journey as a developer is that revisiting my code after a year or so and refactoring is one of the best way to learn and gives you trust that you are getting better. which also gives you confidence in your abilities.

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Hisyam Zayd

i really should do this

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Rolf Streefkerk

Number 7 imo should read as, diverse in knowledge. Hence one of the core reasons the Agile way of working has been found to be very effective by mixing different disciplines it gives you the optimal pool of knowledge to solve the actual issues instead of the perceived issues.

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Avinash Vagh

Thank you sir🔥 it's nice journey.

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Ankur Tyagi

Welcome Avinash

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Ashley Sheridan

Really great points, and I think #8 can really tie in with #3, those bridges you're building are with teammates too, and a good team should have a spread of skills. There's no shame in not knowing everything, and it's a good thing to ask for help from someone more experienced with that thing. I've been developing in a professional capacity for just over 15 years, and as a hobby for about a decade more than that. The more I learn, the more I find that I don't know. This is a vast field, impossible for any one person to know it all. But a healthy spread of knowledge, coupled with knowing when to ask for help, that's what will get a good developer into the realms of a really good developer.

The only thing I might disagree on is the diversification (#9). I think that's one of those "it depends" situations. A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one, as the saying goes. I'll agree that spreading yourself too thin too early is probably not a good approach, but learning a bit about all of your surrounding fields can really help. But, that should be tempered by learning the basics first as you rightly point out. Learning a dozen different JS frameworks/libraries won't help if you don't know semantic HTML or basic accessibility, for example.

But great post, thank you.

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NikosNe

Very nice and insightful. One question: what do you mean by "the basics"? Is it algorithms and data structures? Is it mastering some low(er) level technology before moving to higher level? People tend to have different takes on this I believe 😊

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Safin Ghoghabori • Edited

One of the biggest things i would like to ask please elaborate on it:

Do one need to do masters after bachelors?
if someone has done BCA then do they need to pursue master i.e. MCA?
Does it make sense in futher promotions?
Does degree matters ?

Thanks in advance!

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Emmanuil B.

Thanks for the great advice.
As a developer in their first job, this is just what I need.

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Jan Küster

I can confirm all these points but you missed the 10.: writing long in-depth articles on solely technical subjects will never get you into the listings or any newsletter. 😅

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Jair Neto

Thank you for sharing your expertise Ankur, I'm new in this Dev environment ant It's very important to have some opinions from guys that are in this field for such a long time.

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Matheus Sena

Great Article.
We need more articles like this, for some beginners it's hard to find a way into programming and it's always good to hear stories from experts in the field.

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Deon Rich

Very useful insight! Looking forward do more posts like this.

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Martin Schenk

👏👏👏👍

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David Rowan III

Great advice.

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vishal patidar

Thank you sir.. 🙏

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Chinedum Onyema

Thanks for sharing

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Jin Vincent Necesario

Thanks Ankur.