We need to aspire, grow and hit milestones in our respective careers is it a skill? yes we can. I'll be describing in four simple steps:
✍️ Learn
👨🏽🔧Build
🌐 Network
📈Earn
Are you a developer? Microsoft office specialist? A pythoneer? Or a newbie doing random stuffs? This article will focus on how we can develop our tech career. Let's begin.
✍️ LEARN
The very first step in learning is understanding the concept around that skill, following a roadmap for example a very newbie in programming irrespective of the programming language you want to learn Python, C++, C# or JavaScript it is recommended to understand concept like 🤖Computer science 🤖 Object-oriented programming 🤖 Data structures and algorithms
Development is growth, knowledge is a function of growth and that knowledge can only be acquired when we learn, so taking a lot of time to learn the fundamentals about our desired skill is very important. Some people focus on just getting that first job or paycheck it is a good motivation but it's more than that learning entails understanding, practice and expertise.
🙄 Take for instance we're building a 🏠.( I'll call the house building Model HDM). Learning is the foundation, it determines later events is your career. How? What? And your attitude to learning.
So take some time to analyse what you want to learn or what you are learning create a roadmap (learning part or curriculum) and follow it judiciously and if you're already an intermediate or a pro, there's Still many things for you to learn. Remember learning never ends.... a saying goes thus"The more you learn the more you earn" Don't know how true it is.
👨🏽🔧👩🏻🔧 BUILD Why should be building be the next step? Remember growth... Career development. So there should be evidences and proofs of growth... Using the House building model.. After laying the foundation.. the next thing is laying bricks, that's building. There's no proof you're building a house or you own a house if no bricks are laid.
⚡Are you a front end developer?How many web pages or website have you built so far? ⚡Are you a UI or ux engineer? How many designs have you created? ⚡Are you a game developer how many games have you tried hands on?
It's about building. What proof do you have to show for your expertise and knowledge. You are a software engineer,OH that's nice how many apps or software have you written?hahaha ,it's not a joke. Let me divert to Pratices| challenges |Hackathons. ( Tutorial hell is real). These stuffs have to do with action, getting things done. Few websites that let you stretch your coding muscles:
These things are to test our abilities, our knowledge base. What matters is not winning or losing, but testing our problem solving and logical reasoning skills. When we build what do we build? Are they real life solutions? Just asking though, In addition, it will be nice to have an understanding of version control and GitHub. As a developer/software engineer it is a good way to keep our project from loss, it is flexible and also allows other people to have access to them Just keep one thing in mind >>"Keep building you may be the one to be the next big thing"
🌐 NETWORK We have laid the foundation and bricks but you can't live in a house without roofing and proper furnishing. Networking plays this role. How many people knows you and what you do? You don't have to start telling everybody around, what you do. Social media has made it easy •How well do you maintain a decent online presence? •How active and significant are you? •Have you reviewed and polished GitHub profile? • How many projects do you to your credit? 🤔 Answering this question we give you understanding of what you need to do a few places that plays role of networking.
•Stackoverflow- Devlopers community
•LinkedIn- Your online CV and skill ID.
•Twitter- leaning, advertising and connecting.
•Any other Devlopers community e.g Kaggle, Freecodecamp forum, DEV etc.
•Others are Facebook, Reddit, WhatsApp,
Evaluate the abouve listed and work on them.
📈EARN It's true we do things for passion and knowledge, but a piece of software you've written will not feed you. You will need new peripherals, you'll have to pay for bills and courses No! Opportunities, earning a living, problem-solving , market Dynamics and passion follows. Here are few ways to earn
✍️ Freelancing
✍️ Getting a job
✍️ Starting a company/start-up: most software engineers have gone to start a company to solve a particular problem, a handful of most of the CEO of tech companies were software engineers.
✍️ Contract- Jobs
Closing thoughts: There are other steps and ways to career development in tech, but trust me you'll find out yourself, the more you pursue these goals. They are things encapsulated in the listed steps above. Last advice from me to you.
DO IT FOR PASSION, DO IT FOR THE DYANMICS AND OPPORTUNITIES.