Surviving and Thriving as a Junior Software Engineer: Insights from the Pros — PART 2
Hello Everyone,
Are you a junior software engineer looking to accelerate learning and career growth? In this second part of the series, I gathered insights from seasoned professionals in the field to give you practical advice on how to leverage your mentors and senior colleagues, develop the skills necessary for the evolving industry, establish yourself in a competitive job market, and showcase your skills and experience to potential employers.
Read on to gain valuable insights and tips from the pros!
1. How can junior software engineers best leverage their mentors and senior colleagues to accelerate their learning and career growth?
Samuel: By being teachable! curiosity will always make you want to know more, so more that.
Tobi: I think junior engineers should pay attention to how things are done, it might become overwhelming always asking senior colleagues for help. It’s better to request for a written technical documentation and guide that can be referenced in times of need. Makes thing easy for both sides. You also should be able to show that you’re improving, show new things you’ve learnt and show that you want to help the team with mundane tasks so that the senior ones can do the more complex ones that you can’t handle. I think that would encourage them to keep supporting you.
Funsho: Discuss your plans with senior colleagues, easier to point out what to fix that to help you come up with a plan.
Chris: Plan out a roadmap on things you want to get better at(concepts, industry standards of performing tasks e.t.c). This makes it easier for your mentor to understand where you are in your journey. A lot of senior colleagues have may be overwhelmed and it makes it easier when there’s a plan to work with.
2. How do you see the software engineering industry evolving in the coming years, and what skills do you think junior software engineers should be focusing on developing?
Samuel: Adaptability! Frameworks come and go, same with languages. A junior developer should be willing to learn skills than transcends just work. The Tech industry evolves and will keep doing that, grow and evolve with it.
Tobi: At the time of this writing, the tech industry is going through some turbulent times with recent layoffs. It might be difficult to get a job at this time as a junior engineer but I think the circumstances will only lead to creation of new startups building products that solve crucial problems. I think it’s a time for reset and the future is bright. Junior engineers should focus on knowing a little of bit of the whole software engineering process from ideation to deployment. I think it would be more beneficial to be a generalist than a specialist as a junior engineer to be able to take advantage of various roles and opportunities.
Funsho: Big data skills
Chris: I believe so, and I’d say it’s important to focus on soft skills, a lot of developers focus on technical skills but soft skills are important as you move up the career ladder.
3. What advice do you have for junior software engineers who are just starting out in their careers and looking to establish themselves in the competitive software engineering job market?
Samuel: You have a lot to learn, Tech Companies rarely take Internship positions , so you have to build your portfolio with amazing things! Learn your stack and play around with a lot of emerging tech. Learn the foundational things and build on top of that.
Tobi: If you’re just starting out in software market, I think you should try to network with people. Try not to do things alone by yourself. Networking with like minded people will provide the motivation you need to keep going on the journey. Attend developer conferences and meet-ups. Always have a personal project you’re working on whether you have a job or not. Sometimes the project at work can be limiting your growth and not allow you to try new technologies and frameworks but for your own personal projects you will be able to break things as you want and move things around giving you the freedom to explore so many exciting technologies that are out there. Make noise about what you’re doing, don’t worry about rejection or whether anyone would pay attention to you, you have nothing to loose so share your work. If you realise your current company isn’t going to give you the experience that you require to grow, try seeking for new opportunities to solve more challenging problems. If you’re finding it difficult to get a job, you can approach startups, check companies career page and find their hiring manager’s email. Then email them with your resume containing a list of projects you have built with links to the live hosted version. If they want to see the source code, that’s when you can send the GitHub links but most hiring managers want to see how the most advanced or complex things you have built and look at the user experience if it works well.
Funsho: Stick with one technology in early years
Chris: There’s a lot to learn but don’t feel you have to know everything, everyone was once a beginner. take it one topic at a time
4. How can junior software engineers best showcase their skills and experience to potential employers in a competitive market?
Samuel: Build pet project, they’ll help you get better. they eventually become your portfolio. This give you an edge over your peers.
Tobi: My own mantra is “just keep building”, build projects that make use of different technology stacks. Host the source code on GitHub and make it public so that it’s easy to discover and share. You can also host your projects for public access if you can afford to. A lot of employers usually want to see a live projects that people are using. That’s why it’s important to host even your personal projects, follow best practices, don’t use dummy data or Lorem Ipsum texts but use real life data so that it appears like a real world project that people are using. You can also get some of your friends to try it out. You can host an iOS app on TestFlight for distribution if you’re ready to publish it on the App Store.
Funsho: Build a couple of useful personal projects
Chris: build, build, build, when I was a junior one thing I focused on was to have a product that a client/employer could see, that’s really how people can see what you can do. I did side-gigs before I landed a job and it helped me have something I could show at interviews.
In conclusion, this marks the end of Part 2 of our series on Surviving and Thriving as a Junior Software Engineer. We explored several questions and topics that are fundamental for engineers beginning their journey or striving to stay ahead of the curve.
I will like to express our sincere gratitude to
Oluwatobi Omotayo — Senior iOS Engineer at Andela
Manuel Chris-Ogar — Android Engineer at Backbase
Samuel Dalafiari — Android Engineer at FairMoney and
Funsho Olaniyi — Senior Backend Engineer at Raft
For their valuable contributions to this research initiative. Their insights and knowledge have been invaluable in shaping this series.
As the world continues to become more digital, the importance of software engineering will only continue to grow. I hope this series has provided you with valuable insights and knowledge that will help you succeed.
“Developers are too wrapped up with technology and trying to solve problems using technology rather than careful thought and design. This leads developers to constantly chase after new “shiny objects,” which are the latest fads in technology” — Vaughn Vernon
Appreciate, clap, share, follow and leave a comment. I sincerely appreciate it.
