Counterpoint: patio11's http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-pro....
1. Look for jobs that will let you program. ... You want your job title to be ‘software developer,’ ‘software engineer,’ ‘programmer,’ ‘coder
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Goranka Bjedov is a capacity engineer
Hmm.
I love how I can just read the bullet points and glean 90%-95% of what the post is about. So many blogs waste words.
Reading code always worried me. That was always my biggest deficit in school - I couldn't just pick up someone else's code and dive in, it took a lot of effort to understand anything more than the most basic code.
Of course, now I'm not in a programming job, so I can only imagine I've gotten worse.
in fact, these are valuable lessons for any position. Specially, the last one.
1. Look for jobs that will let you <do whatever you want to do>. 2. Don’t give up on becoming <whatever you want to become>. 3. Learn how to take charge of your career.
Crisp and to the point. Likes it.
This is a pretty myopic view.
Some of us enjoy or have enjoyed documentation, process, management and that isn't mentioned. Some perfectly successful programmers love QA, etc. A lot of them have already made that career choice and may be perfectly happy. You can't have an outstanding restaurant without great people in every position- wait staff, dishwasher, chef, etc. and similarly, everyone is required for a successful project, and successful projects can make people successful.
I do agree with trying to determine what you like doing early on, however employers lie during interviews. I wanted to go the middle-tier service track and was promised that, but instead got put into an IT and web app development job that periodically involves a service to be developed or used. Instead, try not to be a part of a company that you feel you are more than adequate for during the interview and whose overall mission does not prominently include what you are interested in.
And the absolute worst thing that can happen to a developer regardless of aspiration is to be golden-handcuffed to job where they atrophy. You can easily fall into such a trap.
Your family is and always shall be the most important thing that happens to reside in this sometimes wonderful sometimes terrible world. Do what you love and take care of them and others. That is all you can do. Everything else is temporary.
Lastly, don't fear- just do. Be what you are, and what you are will change.
404
Timeless advice for any software engineer!
The one thing to add (related to 1 and 3) is:
I once worked for a company where 1 week/month the managers would work in 1 department (as regular team members). With the hands-on feedback, they would improve the process/team/business. Needless to say, that company was making profits in the 2008-2009 "dark-age period".The main lesson for me is that software is the business where you learn about & improve other businesses. The value is that you get to understand better the world (business) around you. That way you can avoid building "innovative products" that no one needs.