What Makes a Great Developer:
By: Flux Technologies
Tags: Jobs, Developer, Best Practices, Hiring, Discussion

Since Charles Babbage, an English mechanical engineer and polymath, originated the concept of a programmable computer, started the era of solving problems and optimising solutions with the help of writing code. What is aimed at making the life of end-users’ easier, has become the life challenge of developers.

A highly qualified developer is a valuable asset and the cornerstone for any software development company and beyond. Positive attitude, communication skills, time and task management, quick learning ability, deep technical experience and more are among the many required skills of a 21st-century developer.

Here, at Flux we follow and stay true to the dynamics of the market changes and challenges. In this regard, we sat with several of our prominent developers to discuss the qualities and the path that takes to the great developer from the perspectives of junior and senior developers, as well as keeping the gender balance.

Among KEY QUALITIES developers should possess we can single out most persistent ones:

Eager to learn and become better;

Be dedicated and devoted to your profession and job;

Possess technical, debugging, time management and research skills;

Be creative and think out of the box for arriving at simple but genius solutions;

Be agile and at the same time a good team player.

It started to sound like a job posting, didn’t it? ☺ Let’s see what else there can be added. The BACKGROUND needed to be able to succeed in the profession Flux developers think that you:

MUST be passionate about your work;

Need mathematical and analytical thinking;

Better be smart and able to learn and practice in the process;

Should possess good English;

Should possess the earlier mentioned qualities.

It is important to know what’s expected of you as a developer to be able to conduct your work effectively and efficiently. Flux developers know that it’s EXPECTED from them:

To develop a maximum effective/well-functioning/technically correct code in a minimal period of time;

To share knowledge and best practices;

To build and extend team;

To develop code which will comply with the existing best practices and have documentation — description of the work conducted and of the technical element;

To be a team player and respect deadlines;

To learn and grow, to be dedicated, to be positive.

We all know, it’s not enough to just get the job. What is a good developer without working on self-development! Flux developers share with their methods of improving their SKILLS and KNOWLEDGE. Hence, if you want to get better at what you do:

Make as much use as possible from current projects/issues you are working on;

Take notes of the concepts and technologies met to research later;

Discuss and share ideas with colleagues;

Shift projects and accumulate ideas/techniques within the same project you work on and integrate them cross-projects;

Use the Internet extensively: read books, articles, follow certain channels/people, use YouTube tutorials, use stackflow for quick solutions;

In the end, take some time to digest the collected information.

Best skills and practices are reflected in best environments. Flux developers believe the most comfortable ENVIRONMENT for them to work should be:

Silent;

Sunny and welcoming;

Non-formal, bright open-space;

Full of supportive and caring colleagues without whom all the other office conveniences would mean nothing;

In Armenia, where for this generation of developers the choice of the profession, as well as the directions in the profession has not been complicated, long-planned or a long-wished, but rather an intuitive, market-driven choice, Flux developers claim that the decision came naturally after years of learning and listening about programming. It is a modern specialty with a lot of perspective and something that we cannot imagine the future without.

In the meantime, what can the ARMENIAN MARKET suggest to them, and are the expectations high? Flux developers believe that this is a field with much potential, much demand, and still, much need to grow and use its capacities at its best, and this better be done on a state level.

And finally to conclude our interview we wanted to know how FLUX molded our developers as specialists and as humans. It turns out that: