Software developers are always in demand. It’s up to you to equip yourself with the skills you need to compete for jobs and apply for fellowships. Having the right skills can help you get higher-paying jobs, making you more attractive to companies looking for full-time staff.
- Attend Training Programs
Many companies offer technical training programs. For example, Adobe offers many software engineering programs for learning how to use core software development tools. Many training providers offer classes for software development. You can also get your IT certification from some community colleges and universities that offer certificates in IT.
- Read Code & Change Code
As you go through companies’ code repositories, look for places where you can improve the quality of their code or documentation. For example, if you see a lot of typos in their code, you might want to try to fix those. If they ask for a feature that isn’t documented well, it’s your chance to improve the quality of their documentation. If their code is hard to understand or not well organized, you can try to reorganize or refactor their code to make it more intuitive and clear.
- Find a Mentor
Several websites are dedicated to finding people who help new developers learn the ropes (and sometimes even pay them to attend code reviews and build projects with them). Happy students get paid, so it’s an effective way to improve your skills.
- Use Code Reviews
It’s important to publish your code, even if it’s bad. If you make tons of mistakes, it will be hard for you to improve as a programmer. Using a code review system is the best way to learn from this process. It’s best to use a tool that supports pull requests, where one person can make a change on a report and give the reviewer feedback. Many code review tools are available, such as GitHub’s Pull Requests and SourceTree.
- Pair Programming
The most effective way to improve your coding skills is by working with other developers on their projects. It helps you grow as a developer by seeing how someone else works, and it also helps you to learn new programming languages if you pair with someone who knows them well.
To be a successful software developer, you must constantly improve your skills. Having the right skills will help you stand out from other candidates and get you the job offers you want.
