How to succeed in your first software developer job

After some hectic rounds of interviews, you have finally landed in a first software developer job. What s next?

It s highly unlikely, that you will start by developing some real-time projects from scratch right away, except, if you have joined as an experienced programmer. It is the duty of a Project Manager to groom the budding developer, by assigning small tasks at a time and gradually moving to bigger scale. The objective is to enable the developer to have an idea about the job culture and its environment, and have a feel of what projects really are and what they are meant to do, and equip them with the skills and knowledge required to work on the job. You will be initially assigned with a mini-project to begin with, such as developing new feature for a product with CRUD functionality, form validations, implement search functionality, design UI screens etc., You are supposed to do the tasks assigned in the right earnest and complete the project within a stipulated time, without consulting your team mates. Your performance will be evaluated after each task is completed.

Based on your performance, you will be moved to the next level, and assigned higher level tasks. Before getting into real-time-projects, you will be provided with codebases used in real-time projects, which you are required to learn, the whole suite of development tools to set-up, and learning the coding style your team uses. Finally, after completing all the tasks required to jump start into a real time project, you will be inducted into a team along with other developers with a senior developer to assist you, to work on full-fledged projects. Since it is your first project, your role basically is to learn and understand the intricacies of developing a real-time project, and develop the necessary skills and knowledge associated with it, coordinate with other team members (ie., develop soft skills), attend daily group meetings, identify and understand the tasks to be done, consult your team mates for doubts if any, and complete the tasks in time and commit the changes on Git. When the project is successfully successfully, the whole team gets the credit (which includes you because it involved your contribution also). If you have made it this far Congratulations!!! You have succeeded in your first software developer job.

In a team of developers, the caliber of each developer cannot be the same. Some of the developers have exceptional Coding and Debugging skills, while some are good in either one of those traits, and the remaining have average skills, something similar to what we see in schools where not all students are of similar intelligence and caliber. The duty of a teacher is to take along all the students in the class irrespective of their ability and talent. Similarly, in a project, the role of a Project Manager is crucial, and his/her duty should be to take the team along and extract optimum results, provide clear directions, conduct regular team meetings, explain the features and functionality, the modules involved in the project, handle both external and internal pressures, conduct regular client meetings, schedule projects and time management, coordinate with team, maintain work sheets, and update the status of project to the management regularly etc. Also, the role of Project Manager should be to identify the best talents in the team and provide them with sufficient growth opportunities, provide them with challenging tasks and responsibilities, and finally, try to retain them for a long run. Also, keep in mind the volatility of the job markets before taking any decision. As a budding developer, you are required to abide by the entire project guidelines, perform the duties assigned to the best of your ability and complete the task within the stipulated timeline.

As a software developer, you will be required to know the Front End UI, Back End Programming Languages, Database, Cloud Computing, Understanding of Agile Development Methodologies, Unit Testing and Debugging and many more tangible hard skills. As you grow and develop with experience you will required to lead teams, collaboration with your team members, handle time and project management, ability to communicate technical information, Training new developers, and various other soft skills.

Url : www.edujournal.com