5 Things I wish I knew earlier as a Software Developer
Published: 2023-03-14 09:51:55

I was an average student from starting of my schooling. In most of the exams, my rank was between 10 to 25 in a class of 50–60 students. But from starting I always had an interest in maths so math was my favorite subject. My interest in Software Development started growing the day I was introduced to Java(My first Programming Language) at that time I was in class 8th(Yes I am from the ICSE board). I was lucky to have a Computer at my home in those days (2007–2008). I installed BlueJ into my system and started coding the program that the teacher taught us in school. the first program was as usual "Hello World!", but that program dived me to learn more and explore more it took 2 years for me to fully fall in love with Programming an effect of which I gained 90+ marks in High School. After High School, I started teaching a Java tutor in a local Coaching Center in 2012 which gave me 2000 rupees per month at that time it was enough for me to fulfill my own needs. In 2013 I joined another Coaching where I got 5K per student for teaching Java for 2 months and there were approx 10 students who were interested in learning Java for their school or Self-learning. In that coaching, I got my first freelancing work for creating the Coaching website in which I was teaching at stating I hesitated because I have never created a website that takes data from user and stores it and shows it on the dashboard but still I took the project and convinced them to create the project in 3 months. At night I was reading on the internet about how to create a website and then I came across the programming language PHP I went through its syntax and it was similar to HTML with some syntactic sugar on it. Then I created the landing page for the client in Php and uploaded it to a free hosting platform in that landing page I just added a contact us form and saved that data in MySql this was the first time I used any database and interacted it with any programming language and I loved it. and the Client was impressed with the work I just copy pasted code from the internet but as a new developer, it was something I am proud of to date.

Time passed by I learned Java Applet, JSP, Servlet, and many other technologies out of curiosity and today I am Senior Full Stack Developer here is the list I wish I knew earlier. I am writing it down out of my own experience after one year of team handling.

1. **Try to Understand the Problem before diving into the solution**: If you start finding the solution without understanding the problem well you will end up wasting your time. I have personally faced this in my team where junior developer do they directly dive into solutions without thinking if this issue is from the code end, Server End, or Client End. Sometimes there is an issue at the client's end but we try to fix our code and that just wastes the time.

2. **Try to solve|Debug the problem on paper before writing your first code**: Let's say that you have a create a module that does some work and according to you it will take 2 hours. Try to create a blueprint of the module on paper let's say it took 1 hr now you have 1 hour just to convert that blueprint to code rather than using 2 hours to code and getting stuck in between the code.

3. **Don't be shy to ask for help**: I have seen this in new developers that if they are stuck in some issue they don't ask for help from their manager and Senior thinking it might have a bad impact on them but the case is just the opposite. Senior will definitely help you because  once he/she was at your place.

4. **Start writing Unit Test Cases for your code**: Testing is not only a job for testers you should also be able to test your code before handling the code to the tester as there might be a simple scenario that you might have missed and it will be coved in a unit test if you write one. Learn more about TDD and BDD.

5. **Avoid Toxic Work Culture**: It's not a case of Software Development it applies to everything leave the place where you don't feel respected. You are not given credit for your work. You don't have a Work-Life balance. You can talk to your manager or HR in the company and if the situation still doesn't get better LEAVE.

These are the 5 things that I wish I knew earlier.
Do you agree with the points? Please Let me know.
You can connect with me on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/akarshbarar/