What I wish I had known when starting my development career
This is a guest post from Doug Durham. Enjoy. Dear new developer, It’s very easy to throw terms around in our (or any) industry. In our hurried culture, we latch onto words or phrases that may not fully encapsulate their original intent. I’m afraid that is what has happened to the label of “software engineer”. … Continue reading What We Mean When We Say “Software Engineer”
This is a guest post from Aaron Kardell. Enjoy. Dear new developer, I’m enjoying the season I’m in. That’s the simple phrase I find myself conveying to others lately. I have 21 years of post-college professional experience. Except for a handful of short-term consulting gigs, all of that has been working on something I founded … Continue reading Enjoy the Season You’re In
This is a guest post from Dewan Ahmed. Enjoy. Dear new developer, Are you trying to find your first job in IT? Are you trying to switch to a better (paying) tech job? If you have tried to reach out to a professional on LinkedIn for networking, you know that the response rate is often … Continue reading MeetUps – an underrated tech job board
This is a guest post from Kathleen Hunt. Enjoy. Dear new developer, I have eight years of experience in career, professional, and workforce development. I’ve designed and taught curricula for three different companies/institutions, coached hundreds of individuals 1:1, reviewed thousands of resumes, and spoken with dozens of hiring managers over the years. I’ve helped 19-year-olds … Continue reading How To Get A Job
This is a guest post from Chad R. Stewart. Enjoy. Dear New Developer, It’s very easy to think that Software Engineering is solely about writing code and knowing tools. For the first few years of your career, you’ll likely be evaluated mainly on the code you produce. But trust me when I say, the relationships … Continue reading Relationships matter, please build relationships
This is a guest post from Rachel Kroll, lightly edited. Enjoy. Dear new developer, I worked for a web hosting company that had a dubious history of keeping spammers around far too long. Then while I was there, they had the so-called "adware" vendor. They got mad if you called it "spyware". I honestly thought … Continue reading How To Avoid Working For Evil
Dear new developer, The title of this post is true. I've seen it done and done it myself. However, when I first started out, I saw the managers who hired me and thought "wow, they are the ones in charge; I want that!" Spoiler: I didn't. Common software development roles Let's define some common terms. … Continue reading It Is Possible To Progress In Your Career Without Managing People
This is a guest post from Sarah Harvey. Enjoy. Dear new developer, I’ve given this sort of pep talk to a bunch of newly joined women at Square, to the point where I’ve just decided to sit down and write all that stuff in one document. I’ll add a disclaimer that this is very engineering-focused, … Continue reading Starting a career in tech
Dear new developer, Recently, I had a conversation with a new developer who was trying to break into the job market. While I'm always leery of giving too much job hunting advice to folks in this situation (after all, I wasn't a new developer during this time, and things have changed a lot since I … Continue reading Ways to stand out
This is a guest post from Tiffany Jachja. Enjoy. Dear Developer, Many people will encourage you to set goals and find ways to share them for your career development. All of us have struggled with filling out templates, worksheets, and other forms of documentation to lead the conversation about what we hope to accomplish in … Continue reading Why is goal setting so difficult?
Letters To A New Developer 