If you’re a software developer, chances are you already know some of this stuff. If you’re thinking of becoming one, then you definitely need to know this. Either way, understanding the keys to the good developer mindset is the starting point to being the best software engineer.
Knowing how to face the numerous challenges that will appear before you as your code takes more than just technical skills. It takes the proper mentality to overcome daily frustration, changing expectations, and increasing complexity.
It doesn’t matter if people want to become Python engineers to work on machine learning or are already Java developers. The good developer mindset will make you a better professional, give you a better understanding of projects, and help you build superior products. Here are 7 things you’ll have to focus on during your path toward conquering that mindset.
1 – Be Open to Experimentation
Constant evolution is a must for any software engineer. As languages, tools, platforms, and technologies keep evolving at breakneck speed, so should you as a professional. In other words, you have to keep learning as your career in software development progresses.
Want to know what’s a huge part of successful learning? Experimentation. When coding, you’ll come across new concepts, approaches, and tools that you’ll only fully understand if you play around with them. A lot of people are afraid of experimenting with new things because they fear they will break something. Don’t be one of them.
You need to experiment to have a deeper understanding of the things you’ll need to get your work done. As long as you remember to back up everything you have on your computer before going on an experimentation journey, you’re good to go.
2 – Accept That You Will Make Mistakes
Since you’ll be experimenting with new things and trying new ways of working, you’ll most definitely make mistakes along the way. Some will be less significant than others. Some will frustrate you. It’s ok. Accepting that mistakes will be a regular part of the work will turn you into a better developer.
Anyone working for PHP, Ruby, or JavaScript development companies knows for a fact that mistakes are part of the trade. Even if you aren’t trying new things, you’ll introduce some errors to your code. It’s fine, you’re human and all humans make mistakes.
The sooner you accept that reality, the better. Trying to be a perfectionist in the software development world will get you nowhere fast. When faced with mistakes, you can either learn new things from them to apply in the future or get annoyed and ruin your day. The choice is yours, sure, but it sure feels like the former is the way to go.
3 – Understand That You Might Feel Stuck Sometimes
If you’re just starting in the software development world, it is likely you are feeling excited about everything — even the most menial tasks! However, as you move on and start working project after project, you might end up feeling discouraged at one point or another. It’s perfectly natural and you should understand it as such.
Why? Because you can’t expect for a coding job (or any job, for that matter) to be exciting, fun, and fresh all the time. You’ll see that there will be moments when you’ll be “trapped” doing the same routines over and over again. In those moments, it’s easy to feel stuck.
Fortunately, that’s not true. Learning in software development isn’t a linear process. There will be projects where you learn a lot, others where you just apply what you know — heck, there may be moments when you feel like you’re going backward! As long as you keep going, practicing, and experimenting, you’ll always be on your way to becoming a better engineer.
4 – Embrace Patience and Perseverance
The 3 points above need 2 pillar qualities to work: patience and perseverance. On one hand, you’ll need to be patient to understand that there’s a time for everything. You’ll need time to experiment, time to go back to check on your mistakes, and time to grind. Being patient means you’ll have to learn to accept the development times even if they aren’t aligned with yours.
As for perseverance, it will allow you to keep going. Since you’ll make a lot of mistakes and get trapped into lots of logical labyrinths, you’ll need to be convinced of where you’re headed. Ask any developer you have around and they’ll surely have a horror story about how perseverance saved their career at one point or another.
It may happen that you make a huge mistake that costs a lot of time and money. It might be that a single sneaky bug is driving you crazy. Sometimes, your client will change their project expectations over, and over, and over again. Patience and perseverance are what will get you through these things.
5 – Develop a Solid Code Understanding
While you can use all of the tips above for any job (development-related or not), there are some specific ones that will help you with the developer’s mindset. Since you’ll be working with a fair amount of abstraction and a lot of rules, you’ll need some logical skills to be the best professional you can be.
For instance, take coding as a whole. When rookies get into software development, they think they’ll be sitting crunching code day and night. While this may be true for some specific moments, programming is more than that. In fact, you’ll be spending a lot of time reviewing code written by others.
In that way, you’ll need to have a solid code understanding to get your work done. This means you’ll have to have a deep comprehension of how code is organized, how it works, and how you can make it work in your favor. A lot of times you’ll be using other people’s code, so if you can’t understand how to make it all work in your own projects, then you won’t be a good developer.
6 – Learn to Pay Attention to Details
When you’re coding, you’re building a machine part by part. This means that you have to get everything right for the end product to work as you intend. What’s more — you’ll spend a lot of projects working with other people, trying to make your parts fit with parts developed by someone else.
All of that can lead to a lot of pieces malfunctioning or not working correctly. There’s a stat that says that the software development industry has an average of 15 and 50 bugs per 1,000 lines of code. Most of them come from a missing comma or a misspelled command. True, they can also come from faulty logic.
The only way to find out? To pay attention to details. In a work where a seemingly small thing can break an entire program, you’ll need to develop a keen eye to see even the littlest mistakes. It will be hard at first but once you understand the importance of it, you’ll quickly dive yourself right into that. One helpful tool for managing and tracking code details is the DevOps monitoring dashboard. By utilizing this dashboard, you can monitor your project’s progress, track issues, and collaborate effectively with your team.
7 – Adopt a Problem-solving Mentality
Most times, software development will have you solving problems. Be them the small mistakes mentioned above or the need to come up with new angles for a new product, problems are an integral part of any software developer journey.
As such, you’ll need to accept the problematic nature of development and adopt a mentality that will let you thrive in this world. There are lots of ways to tackle different issues. Sometimes, you’ll only need to look back to projects where you faced similar challenges to apply a similar solution. Other times, you’ll need your whole creative power to find a never-seen-before path.
Some people think that problem-solving is something that you are born with, like a natural inclination to look for solutions. However, you can learn problem-solving by thinking outside the box, keeping your mind sharp with practice, and by learning from the examples of colleagues and collaborators.
Conclusion
A good developer mindset isn’t something you’ll conquer overnight. It will take a lot of time (even years!) to come to fruition. Yet, if you’re clear about your goals and want to become the best software engineer you can possibly be, you’ll need to work on these things.
The best thing about it all is that none of these things can’t be learned. If you put forth the effort, you’ll be rewarded with a new way of looking at development that will impact how you code on a daily basis.
If you’re just starting, then beginning with all these tips in mind will make it far easier for you to be a better developer. If you’re a seasoned engineer, you still have time to look at yourself and see if all of the above applies to you. Chances are you still have room for growth and to learn a couple of things, so you can honestly take a look at yourself and see what’s missing to become the effective developer you want to be. Good luck!
