5 things you need for a great coding career – India Today

Coding is not an easy career. With many people graduating each year from top computer science programs in the country, its one of the most competitive careers anyone can embark on. At the same time, it is an exciting career with new advancements changing the landscape every day.

Coding and programming is a passionate endeavor for those who love to create new products. And now with the pandemic, since newer industries are adopting the digital paradigm, theres a growing need to polish the old skills and learn new ones.

The demand for tech professionals, Software, Full-stack, Web and Frontend Developers have seen a boom when it comes to hiring, and some skills have become crucial elements on a Coders CV.

For anyone who wants to make a shining tech career, following are a few skills one must not ignore to put in his/her CV:

One of the most truly underrated skills for any software engineer is the ability to read code. Code lasts a lot longer than you probably anticipate at the time of writing it. That's why there's still a decent demand for COBOL developers, which has been around for 60 years.

We live in a world where developers come and go, but the code never moves. This leads to the fact that software engineers have to spend way too much time on reading codes and trying to understand codebases.

As a software engineer, youll spend the majority of your time reading and trying to understand pieces of code which most of the time is not even your own code. This is incredibly hard to do since more often than not you dont know the intent of the creator of that piece of code.

In the most ideal situation, you would land in a codebase where all code is well-written, structured, properly documented and tested. In reality, this is almost never the case.

With advancement and innovation in technology, programming is becoming a highly in-demand skill for software developers. Data structures and algorithms are the identity of a good software developer.

The interviews for technical roles in some of the tech giants like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Flipkart is more focused on measuring the knowledge of data structures and algorithms of the candidates as they want people who can think out of the box to design algorithms that can save the company thousands of dollars.

The main reason behind this is, data structures and algorithms improve the problem-solving ability of a candidate to a great extent.

In a world, where every second person holds a professional degree, it has been noted that employers, while looking for new additions to their team, filter their choices based on some soft skills.

Organisations are looking for teammates. They want to hire someone who is a cultural fit to their team. If developers and coders want successful careers, it is essential that they learn the art of communicating within teams.

Moreover, many roles require coders to communicate, in a clear and concise way, with clients/teammates that are external to their own teams. The ability to have positive and productive personal interactions can benefit you as you use your coding skills in the workplace.

Contributing to open-source projects can make you stand out compared to your peers in the industry. Companies are often impressed with candidates that have an elaborate GitHub profile, with a lot of activity, projects and contributions.

Although this may not be the best way to measure the quality of a developer, companies still look out for developers who are active in the community. This tells the company that you are truly passionate about coding, and you do find time outside of your regular work to code.

So, make sure you contribute to your favorite open-source projects. This can even be simple bug fixes, but it still makes you stand out.

Finally, a coder needs to update their skills regularly. Computers and technology touch nearly every part of life. Theyre the ones responsible for developing, designing, testing, writing, and modifying.

Tech is an ever-changing industry. There are latest advancements every day and professionals need to adapt to the dynamics of the industry.

Success in the industry depends on a combination of soft skills and technical knowledge such as language acquisition, innovative thinking, analytical skills, perseverance and expertise in their faute which the coders need to keep polishing throughout their coding journey.

- Article by Siddharth Maheshwari, Co-Founder, Newton School

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5 things you need for a great coding career - India Today