How can you track your progress as a software developer?

1. Setting Clear Goals and Milestones 2. Utilising Version Control Systems (e.g., Git) 3. Task Management Tools 4. Regular Code Reviews 5. Robust testing practices and utilise bug-tracking systems (e.g., Bugzilla, Jira) to identify, log, and monitor software bugs.

I agree with tracking metrics. However my prescription of metrics is different. One should in my opinion specify in detail software quality requirements for each of the eight quality categories: 1) Functional suitability; 2) Performance efficiency; 3) Compatibility; 4) Usability; 5) Reliability; 6) Security; 7) Maintainability; and 8) Portability; as applied to each software part: a) Code; b) Data; c) Interface; d) (stakeholder) instructions; and e) training material; by assigning scores. One should track these scores over time for his/ her different software development projects; both as an individual, and as a team to which he/she belongs. Please note the sequence 1-8 is not necessarily arranged in the descending order of importance.

Another good way to measure your competence is to check how much effort it is for you to add a new language/environment to your "toolkit." If you know, say, C++ real well, would it be easy to wrap your mind around Java or C#? Spoiler: It may help to "find a need" to get started in something and see how you approach that in order to make progress. Are you using stored or online documentation and/or expert forums successfully?

A medida que practicas y te enfrentas a diversos proyectos, tu cerebro se adapta y se vuelve más eficiente en reconocer patrones y aplicar soluciones conocidas a nuevos problemas, un proceso conocido como transferencia de aprendizaje. Esta habilidad es crucial en la programación, donde a menudo necesitas aplicar conceptos aprendidos en un contexto a un desafío completamente diferente. La búsqueda de retroalimentación debe ser vista no solo como una forma de mejorar el código actual, sino como una oportunidad para expandir tu repertorio de habilidades y perspectivas. La programación es una disciplina que se beneficia enormemente del aprendizaje continuo y la adaptación.

Feedback is one of the most powerful tools we have in the job market and is often underestimated. Every feedback given sincerely, with the intention of helping the recipient, is a great opportunity for self-development. Listening to the opinions of people with more experience, with different experiences and other perspectives only expands our range of possibilities and opens our eyes to what we may not be seeing because we have become accustomed to what we have already adapted to.

Never underestimate the incredible gift PR reviews are. If you have opened the PR yourself, you will get direct feedback on the way you write code and that will allow you to grow. Don't try to "get that thing merged", but take this opportunity to learn. When reviewing other engineer's PRs it allows you to learn from others but also to observe yourself and how your feedback changes over time. At the beginning of your career you might be particularly good at smaller syntax or style issues but at later stages you will also notice how you begin to have ideas about tests, architecture and the bigger picture.

If you are working as the sole dev at your job or are working on side projects, then you'll notice as you gain experience you will paint yourself into fewer corners and fixing those design mistakes will get easier overtime. Other devs will cloud objective and perceived reality though, so this advice is really only useful with solo projects.

One activity I suggest is to look back at your work and projects from a few years ago, and see if there is anything you would do differently if you were to re-create that work. If you can see deficiencies in the approach you took or if you can think of a better implementation, it shows that you've grown as a developer since the time that you first created that work.

In the beginning it was easy - as long as you belonged to the exclusive club that had access to a manual (printed or photocopies illegally were the only options - PDF files came decades later, the internet and search engines to find them, too;-) I looked at the features of Fortran listed in the programmer's guide and ticked off the ones I understood and could use in my own code. Nowadays you have access to practical all info about any programming language or environment, library or whatever. But the principle still applies: Be honest to yourself, assess what you know, take a guess at how important the stuff is that you don't know and act on your gaps. Next, check if your areas of competence are the relevant ones in your target space.