Whether you’re getting placed, completing an internship or starting your career with a new firm as a developer, this article is for you if you’re confused about how you could turn your vast potential into a driving force for your team. Developer technologies are transforming perpetually, but what doesn’t have to change is your willingness to welcome this change and be motivated. ( Well, most of the time! We all have our moments. )
The placement season is on and every aspiring developer does wonder about,“What skills as a developer should I have?” Let’s divide these skills into Work Skills and Team Skills.
Work Skills
The kind of work you like to do!
Attention to detail, requirement analysis, patterns/MVC, testing end-to-end, system design, performance optimisation, scalability design, algorithms, data structures, order of operations, discrete math/algebra, OOP, HTML and CSS, 2 & 3 tier architecture, security, debugging, API, UI/UX awareness/design , the list goes on and on, when we have to pick a domain. Have you ever felt while working on any one of these, you don’t feel it’s like work at all, because it’s something you’d do even if you aren’t getting paid for it. (I know that’s not a practical approach. I am not asking you to work for free.) If you’ve ever felt like that about a certain skill, you would be more productive when it comes to it and impress your team! (I know this sounds pretty cliche but just bare with me because it’s true).
Be eager to learn from those around you!
This is a very important trait! If you have attended a few hackathons here and there, you should be knowing about this. There is no shame in asking questions! If you know less, you have an opportunity to be a better version of yourself by learning more ( so no need to guilty about being naive, then you know for sure you’d learn much more in that room than anyone else! ) If you know more, be humble and help those around you. (You can learn more by teaching the things you think you know!)
Take initiative
When you are faced with a challenge to learn something that you have no idea about, do not freak out. ( It's harder than it sounds I know)
So hear me out on how to achieve it :
Clear your head of your preconceived notions!
Consider a parallel universe where you can do that task perfectly. ( I am a Rick and Morty fan after all. I would choose to be a physicist if not a developer )
Practice and Learn ( Read Documentation and Articles! Don’t clone repos period.)
Make a project of your own using that skill!
And lastly explain your team how you did it, and you will exponentially increase your expertise doing that!
Team Skills
Communicate
If you can communicate the issues you’re facing properly to a peer, they are half resolved already! But remember it goes both ways if you communicate, you should lend an ear to listen to your teammate too and help them make it a better experience for them as well!
Support
No matter where you stand in the team ( leader or a peer developer ), you are liable to support your team no matter what, because that’s what good crewmates do.(Unless you’re an imposter which defeats the purpose.)
Be Professional
If you want your peers to meet deadlines for you, and provide you with what you want (sometimes they might execute the task better than you expected ), you should be doing the same for them in the first place. Be a person you’d want to work for in this scenario. (otherwise it's a deal breaker).
Recently, I got a chance to appear for a Google Technical Interview, and I made it through to the next round.( even though I thought I could perform much better ). It made me realize that being honest about what you know ( like I was during the interview ) and what you wish to know always gives you the best results! Most people would try to use deception to get something, but they don’t realize that interviewers can see through deception easily. How could you ever be better at a skill if you lie about it to yourself?
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