You want to get promoted. What are the most important programming concepts to master?

Data structures and algorithms are the building blocks of any program. They help you organize, store, manipulate, and access data efficiently and effectively. You should be familiar with the common data structures such as arrays, lists, stacks, queues, trees, graphs, and hash tables, and how to use them in different scenarios. You should also know how to analyze the time and space complexity of your algorithms, and how to optimize them for performance and scalability.

Testing and Debugging skills are of the utmost importance for the rapid paced requirements in the current market. - Thorough testing makes the code impervious to any runtime complications. Well designed test cases can greatly improve the overall quality of the product. - Debugging skills save critical time and let you get comfortable dealing with exceptions and handling errors.

Test Driven Development (TDD) is one of the most important approaches in software development, as it saves valuable time that would otherwise be spent on debugging. Code that isn’t tested is potentially broken code. However, TDD is not a universal solution. It can create the illusion that the code is perfect just because all the required tests pass, until the moment comes to extend the program's functionality or perform maintenance. Therefore, this approach should be complemented with Maintenance Driven Development (MDD), which, from the beginning, challenges the implementation by asking how much time and effort will be required to extend capabilities in the future.

Version Control is a very essential aspect of a collaborative development environment. - It helps keep track of changes to the codebase over time. It is extremely easy to observe the growth of the codebase and makes the debugging process smooth. - Version Control highly speeds up development in a collaborative environment. Merging of multiple changes in the codebase becomes very easy with the seamless branching and merging.

To get promoted, mastering software engineering principles is crucial. For instance, understanding SOLID principles helped me improve code maintainability in a project, leading to a 30% reduction in bugs. This achievement was a key factor in my last promotion. Always remember, strong foundational knowledge paves the way for advancement.

Problem solving skills can help a developer become a critical asset in the organization. - Strong problem solving can help a developer come up with innovative and creative solutions to critical challenges and situations that may arise in the product development. - Schematic approach, analyzing applicable use-cases and understanding the code flow can help get strong command over the codebase .

In today's landscape, backend or full-stack programmers benefit from understanding the fundamentals of DevOps and cloud engineering. This includes building code on Docker, testing it on Kubernetes, and optimizing performance through clustering. With the emergence of AI, these tasks become more streamlined, leading to changes in job descriptions and, unfortunately, some layoffs as companies seek cost reductions. This shift underscores the importance of staying adaptable and continuously updating skills in the next years.

Yes, technical skills are a pre-requisite for most software promotions. But often more important is the impact of your work. Focus on building software that improves lives - your customers' lives, your boss's life, your teammates' lives, etc. When your work makes a positive impact, you're more likely to be promoted to a role that can impact more.

In my experience the best promotion is leave current job and go to the next! There are no other way, because so few companies have a good career plan and if something happens as a new promotion, generally it’s not enough according with the hardest effort as you can!