Letters to a New Developer : What I Wish I Had Known When Starting My Development Career

Learn what you need to succeed as a developer beyond the code. The lessons in this book will supercharge your career by sharing lessons and mistakes from real developers. Wouldn’t it be nice to learn from others’ career mistakes? “Soft” skills are crucial to success, but are haphazardly picked up on the job or, worse, never learned. Understanding these competencies and how to improve them will make you a more effective team member and a more attractive hire. This book will teach you the key skills you need, including how to ask questions, how and when to use common tools, and how to interact with other team members. Each will be presented in context and from multiple perspectives so you’ll be able to integrate them and apply them to your own career quickly. What You'll Learn • Know when the best code is no code • Understand what to do in the first month of your job • See the surprising number of developers who can’t program • Avoid the pitfalls of working alone Who This Book Is For Anyone who is curious about software development as a career choice. You have zero to five years of software development experience and want to learn non-technical skills that can help your career. It is also suitable for teachers and mentors who want to provide guidance to their students and/or mentees. Contents 5 About the Author 6 Acknowledgments 7 Introduction 9 For new developers 10 For anyone considering software development 10 For mentors 10 Format 11 Thank you 11 Chapter 1: Your First Month 12 There are no adults in the room 12 Onboarding 13 Overindex 15 Work through the trepidation 16 How to excel at your job 18 Learn your team 19 How to read code 20 Learn about personal finance 21 Take care of your body 23 In conclusion 24 Chapter 2: Questions 25 Ask smart prepared questions 25 How to ask a question on the Internet 27 Don’t be afraid to ask questions 29 Technical decisions in the face of uncertainty 30 Getting answers from busy people 33 Ask the hard questions 35 You know more than you think 36 How to ask “why” 37 How to document “why” 38 Start asking “why” 39 Trade-offs 39 Improving Stack Overflow 40 How to say “I don’t know” 41 In conclusion 42 Chapter 3: Writing 43 Read your work aloud 44 Write that down! 44 Tips for using email well 46 Real-time messaging 48 Write a technical ebook 49 On developer documentation 51 Always be journaling 53 Organization 53 Schedule 55 Reviews 55 Personal results 56 Closing thoughts 56 You should blog 56 Motivation 60 In conclusion 61 Chapter 4: Tools to Learn 62 Leverage 62 The command line 63 jq, awk, and sed 65 awk 66 sed 67 jq 67 Version control 68 Text editors 69 IDEs 70 The standard library 71 Automated testing 74 Network engineering 76 SQL 77 Debuggers 79 Benchmarking 80 Search engines 81 The keyboard 83 In conclusion 84 Chapter 5: Practices 85 Don’t just write code—solve problems 85 Look around corners 87 Read code 88 Estimate your work 90 Debug systems 93 Assume positive intent 95 What about when...? 96 The ROI of trust 97 Express gratitude 97 Cultivate the skill of undivided attention 99 Leading vs. lagging indicators 100 In conclusion 101 Build empathy 102 Don’t complain about the code 103 Avoid jargon 104 Realize time is money 105 Say no 106 Play a lot more 107 Build on your own 108 Consistency is key 109 In conclusion 111 Chapter 6: Understanding the Business 112 Software is about people, not code 113 Outcomes over output 115 Business process crystallization 116 Businesses spend money to make money 117 Understand the business model 118 No company is a monolith 120 Where do developers fit in? 121 Hammers 123 Starting a company 124 Learn from your customers 126 In conclusion 128 Chapter 7: Learning 129 Never stop learning 130 Build expert intuition 132 A regular world 132 Many opportunities to learn 133 Frequent feedback 133 It takes time 133 Teach and learn 134 What is your woodlot? 136 Avoid being an expert beginner 138 Pattern match to be a just-in-time learner 140 Help, I can’t learn something because it is boring! 141 Your team will teach you 142 Use an RSS reader 143 Listen to podcasts 145 Subscribe to link newsletters 146 Read great books about software development 147 Listen actively 148 Learn two languages 150 In conclusion 152 Chapter 8: Mistakes 153 Get used to failure 153 Making mistakes is okay 155 Mistakes are forgiven, hiding them is not 156 Don’t make the same mistake twice 157 Don’t be afraid to “fail” 158 That time I dropped a production table 159 You’re going to put some plates in toasters 160 What do I do when I see someone making a mistake? 162 The despair of ineptitude 163 Admit your weaknesses 164 In conclusion 166 Chapter 9: Your Career 167 Favor learning over earning 167 You will never be in a better position to leave a bad job than before you start 169 Pick a flaw, any flaw 171 Preparing for a recruiting event 173 Resume 173 The introduction 175 The conversation 176 Appearance 176 The surprising number of programmers who can’t program 177 Start at a small consulting company 179 Potential vs. delivery 180 Maintain work-life balance 181 Take this advice, or leave it 183 Manage your career 185 Knowledge 185 Communication 186 Progress 186 Know your runway 187 How to manage one on ones 188 Write a brag document 191 Be adaptable and authentic 192 Are you ready to work remotely? 193 How to go through a layoff 194 Use LinkedIn 197 Contracting 198 Engineering management 199 Someday, you won't want to code for a living 201 In conclusion 203 Chapter 10: Community 204 Meetups 205 Conversational hooks 206 Online tech communities 207 You get what you give 209 Build your work community 210 Three mantras to live by 211 Surround yourself every-damn-day with people who are smarter than you 212 Build community and give without expecting anything in return 212 Listen to your gut, every day without exception 213 Build a personal board of advisors 213 In conclusion 214 Index 216 Learn what you need to succeed as a developer beyond the code. The lessons in this book will supercharge your career by sharing lessons and mistakes from real developers. Wouldn't it be nice to learn from others' career mistakes? "Soft" skills are crucial to success, but are haphazardly picked up on the job or, worse, never learned. Understanding these competencies and how to improve them will make you a more effective team member and a more attractive hire. This book will teach you the key skills you need, including how to ask questions, how and when to use common tools, and how to interact with other team members. Each will be presented in context and from multiple perspectives so you'll be able to integrate them and apply them to your own career quickly. You will: Know when the best code is no code Understand what to do in the first month of your job See the surprising number of developers who can't program Avoid the pitfalls of working alone