Let’s face it, it is REALLY HARD to keep up with the technological advancements in our industry.
The amount of information being thrown at developers has grown at a pace that leaves most developers struggling to keep up.
Keeping up with technology advancements is a BIG PAIN for developers.
The moment you absorb one technology, three more are thrown at you. So the real question here is, How does one keep up?
We at HyperTrends take Developer Education very seriously
Here are some of the tips to keep in mind if you’re a developer and have struggled keeping up with the technology advancements:
Front-End? Or Back-End?
Decide whether you want to be a great Back-End or a great Front-End Developer. You cannot be both. It is a folly to assume that you’ll master both. As of this year, we have started turning away clients who want a “Full-Stack” developer. When your CORE VALUE is providing High Quality Work, you really can’t cut corners. When you hire someone who is a full-stack developer, you’re going to end up cutting corners on the UI/UX or backend performance, or in the worst case, both.
Pick 1 or 2 Languages and Get Really Good At Them
It is REALLY hard to master something. But you can be about 85-90% good at 2 things and make a great living out of it. Per our opinion, stick to one Programming Language if you can, but if you must, pick just one more language and master both to where you can efficiently program. If you’re a C# developer, try picking NodeJS or Python to complement your skill-set. If you’re a Javascript Developer, try picking Python or Java.
You've Got 5-Nights. Choose Wisely.
You’ve got about 1.5hrs every night where you can really get in the zone and kick some ass. Choose what you want to do very wisely. You could break your nights into learning nights, coding nights, open source contribution nights, ideation/hobbyist nights and so on. Never, ever give up the learning time to WORK stuff. It DOES NOT HELP. And yes, take a break from programming on WEEKENDS. Well, we’re all guilty of going over the top. But if you must, learn AS MUCH as you can over the weekends.
Pluralsight is awesome
Make it your nightly partner. We can’t begin to tell you how much we have benefited since we had our developers learn on Pluralsight daily. Think about it this way, if you have Developers that watch Pluralsight 2 hours a week, you’re getting 8hrs per month of learning. This itself will help you leaps and bounds.
Get The Basics Right
It is amazing how many developers still don’t have their basics right. SOLID? Nope, many can’t even understand what that means. DDD, Event Sourcing, CQRS etc. are all MUST NEEDED skills in the new paradigm of Distributed computing. So spend a month brushing up your basics and do everyone else in your team a favor.
Cross-Train
If you’re not contributing to the team, you’re NOT going to be on the team. We at HyperTrends are enforcing a strict cross-training policy whereby developers train each other on cool things they learnt or used in their projects. This simple act of making everyone aware of tools and technologies, or patterns and practices itself is worth its weight in gold.
Don't Chase Shiny Objects
We often run into developers who are constantly enamored by a technology that their favorite startup used to achieve powerful results. They want to incorporate that technology in the current product they are building. This may sound great, especially if you are a technology enthusiast. Before you decide, always ask the “Scale” question – “Can everyone in our team quickly scale to use this technology?” and the “Benefit” question – “What benefit does this technology really provide us? Can we not achieve the same result using this current technology?”It is extremely easy to chase shiny objects. The price is often paid in terms that cannot be measured accurately.
What other rules do you have for your Developers?
We would love to hear what you do for your developers so that they can grow their skill-set without getting too overwhelmed.