-- Yes, you need to have good soft skills like communication, interpersonal, team work, analytically, problem solving, etc
-- Yes, you need to be passionate
-- Yes, you need to have the right attitude
-- Yes, you need to be a "quick and on-going" learner
-- Yes, certification can help
But, most importantly,
-- You must know how to write robust and quality code. That is the bottom-line for a programmer.
Your coding skills will be under scrutiny
-- through pre-interview written tests
-- through face to face job interviews
-- through peer code reviews on the job
-- through challenges to quickly identifying root causes by reading others' code and fixing critical production issues whilst your superiors are looking over your shoulder or requesting for regular updates.
-- through helping your peers and superiors and earning a reputation as a go to person.
-- through your open-source contribution, Github check-ins, and blog posts.
To get further, you need look at the big picture and
-- draw a plan as to what you can do as a programmer?.
-- draw on your experience and others' experience gained proactively through books, blogs, articles, opensource contribution, etc to impress your interviewers, code reviewers, peers, and superiors.
-- draw high level diagrams at job interviews.
-- draw high level diagrams to communicate your thoughts to your peers, superiors, and stake holders at work.
-- draw attention to your resume with well rounded accomplishments and experience.
-- draw attention to your depth of knowledge in the 16 key areas in the job interviews.
-- draw on your creativity to differentiate yourself from others.
It is not enough being a quiet achiever. You need to be visible.
-- You need to have a professional online presence via blogging, personal portfolio, LinkedIn profile, etc to market your skills and knowledge.
-- Marketing is key to expanding your horizons by
- promoting your know-hows in the 16 key areas to solve business problems.
- promoting your services as a freelancer/employee/consultant.
- promoting your books as an author.
- promoting your blogs as a blogger.
- promoting your software applications, products and services as an entrepreneur.
- promoting others' products and services via your online presence.
Code, draw and market will open doors
- to increase your earning potential.
- to be in a position to choose from multiple job offers.
- to be in a position to find work in a difficult job market.
- to passive income generation.
- to become a freelancer.
- to go places ... and do what you are passionate about.
No comments:
Post a Comment