Soft Skills: The software developer's life manual

A look into the mind of a developer turned trainer turned entrepreneur and finally writer on how he evolved his career as he change his perspective on life. As a modern developer, writing code is not enough and developing these soft skills and really creating value to others and knowing how this value could be extended to sustain your lifestyle is an art more than a task.

Looking back

Gaming is probably one of the best introductions into computers, specially aspiring the possibility of coding your own games. This is what get kids motivated into look under the hood of the program. The second layer of engagement is of course, the internet, and the internet back in the day, even thought more rudimentary was also more exciting because it was pointing towards computing.

Forget the Instagram, Porn, and Netflix, the internet of old didn’t had much distractions, and the few ones that had were full of simple logic that literally a kid would understand. Specially a kid with the desire of learning the way those were coded.

Right now if a kid wanted to see the code of Inside, or Deus Ex Mankind, or even simpler games like Minecraft, or Angry Birds, their brains would spin by not be able to grasp all the hundred of thousands of lines of code written on top of hundred of frameworks an libraries. Just overwhelming would be the word.

Another issue exposed by the interview is the way you learn to code. For that motivated kid that want to code games and such, it’s frustrating going to school, where the focus is more business oriented. He talked about his experience taking this entry-level Java course and end up being mind-numbing boring since most of the algorithmic classes usually achieve next to nothing.

Making your first choices

The irony of the story is that he quit school to pursue his desire on game developer only to end up becoming at trainer again, for Android. The twist is that he was good at training, so good that he end up making many courses and getting payed so much more that he started to make more money training than coding, and eventually making more money for training material than from active training, generating passive revenue.

One of the things of the conversation that becomes a situation for many talented developers is that jumping these careers might not be as smooth as it looked. Doesn’t matter how good a developer you are, making it a business, require well… business skills. But beside the business and marketing and sales skills also requires something even more important, putting the work. More work than your regular 9 to 5, by factor of 3 or 4.

And realizing this early makes it goes into self checking yourself if this is something that you are built to do or not. If you just one of the Starbucks coders that spend time building their personal brand and website end finished the day looking at videos on Youtube or chatting on Facebook or Instagram. Maybe this is not something that you are meant to do. And I guess this is the biggest lesson to learn. Having a good work ethics, and also knowing when and how to get help is what will make your venture have success or fail.

Changing your mindset about time and work

One of the biggest change of mindset is the mentality of a 9 to 5er into an entrepreneur, from a career coder that sees time as billable hours and payment as a continued stream. To a entrepreneur who has to figure out things before it happens so he/she be ready for them. However this change of mentality is not only for entrepreneurs but also for regular employees that still have a responsibility to their careers. Building and evolving your career involves setting actual goals and tangible achievements and realizing that "You are a business”.

Once you do that, you can unlock new opportunities for yourself. So having a blog, and an online presence that give you a first step into networking yourself outside of office environment into the rest of the world. Or just plainly join a community of developers like a user group and activists that allow you to discover new and possible ways to either benefit yourself or benefit the company you work for, which eventually will benefit yourself.

To be continued....

This is part 1 of the interview from Talk Python to Me episode #71, for more information go to the site and listen to the interview. This article has my own opinions and take from the interview. Any comments feel free to post.

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About me:
Steemer, crypto fan, like to listen to 90s hip hop, and loves to chat about Linux Python and Free software. Runs a local Tech club in sunny Cancun, and enjoys hoping on planes and landing somewhere else, hopefully in one piece.