5 steps to starting as a developer

?A lot of people want to become a developer but have no idea how to start. This line of work seems great – mostly work-from-home (or work-from-anywhere), good salaries, and interesting projects, what not to like? That may be an interesting article – let me know in the comments if you would like to hear about the downsides of working as a developer.

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So, you decided that you would like to start on a new career path or you are trying to figure out what to do after high school and programming is an interest of yours. Great! First of all, it is never too late. You just need to know when to start and that is where we come in!

Here are 5 advice on how to start:

1.????Project and portfolio

?When learning – be it at home, university, or in courses – make sure to keep projects in your portfolio. GitHub is a must and almost everyone will expect you to have it. To differentiate yourself you can have a working version online as well. It will allow people not only to look at how clean your code is but also how great your project looks, feels, and runs.

Keeping that as a goal in mind will let you focus on projects in a different way. You can think of them not only as a learning step but as a work experience. Even if no one is paying you to create it (because you are doing it for your own portfolio) treat it as work – it will help you in a long run.

?2.????Dealing with problems

?Being a developer or working in IT, in general, requires you to expect the unexpected and be a great problem-solver. Even when you are learning make it your second nature to search for information. For most of the issues, you will run into there is already an existing solution – all you need is to find it. Taking this approach will make you more independent and let you tackle everything that new work duties will throw at you.?

3.????Start from the bottom

Although it sounds obvious it not always is. Do not start learning from the framework or a massive library. Those change on regular basis and every year speed of change increases and a new framework or library is the new fad. Start learning a programming language. Those are more stable and will last longer and let you do more things for longer. With a great understanding of a language, you can always add a new framework or library to your professional arsenal.

4.????Project management

This is a very often overlooked aspect. Maybe you will not be a Project Manager but you will still have to organize your own work and tasks and write documentation as you go. Tools that can be helpful here are programs like Trello or Atlassian Jira , utilizing Kanban Boards. This is all about creating great habits from the start. What to focus on? Planning out your project, writing out the next steps, requirements, and potential issues. Many of them can be solved before they appear. Do not worry that at the beginning you will not predict all the issues, steps, or requirements. The more projects you will be a part of the more accurate predictions you will make. No one knows everything on day one. Do not get discouraged.?

5.?????Learn to divide big projects

Strongly connected with a previous point. Sometimes you will have a great idea for an app or a project and you will be excited to create it and make it work. Unfortunately, a lot of those ideas will be massive and can be overwhelming. There are two main ways to deal with that. Either just do small projects until you know exactly what you are doing or divide projects into smaller sub-products and tasks. This will help you stay motivated for longer and even if you do not finish the whole project you will have working parts that you can show.

[TLDR]

If you want to start working as a developer make sure to:

-??????Understand how to manage your projects and work,

-??????Create documentation as you go,

-??????Develop smaller products to always have tangible progress,

-??????Keep your portfolio up to date – this will be your differentiator,

-??????Look for solutions to problems and don’t be afraid of failure this is how you learn,

-??????Boast about your progress and success!