Developer Career Masterplan

Developer Career Masterplan

by Heather VanCura, Bruno Souza
Released September 2023
Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
ISBN: 9781801818704

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Book description

Elevate your technical career with practical guidance, best practices, and actionable insights shared by industry experts

Key Features

  • Develop the right skills to advance your career with comprehensive skill development
  • Explore practical examples and case studies for real-world career guidance
  • Understand the importance of networking and community engagement for professional growth
  • Purchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free PDF eBook

Book Description

Written by industry experts that have spent the last 20+ years helping developers grow their careers, this book offers invaluable insights and guidance tailored to the specific needs of technical professionals. By discovering the secret of continuous learning and adapting in the ever-evolving field of software development, you’ll explore various learning paths with formal and informal methods, as well as gain an understanding of the value of certifications to validate your skills. This book will teach you the significance of building a strong support network, holding crucial conversations, and taking ownership of your career growth. You'll delve into acquiring both soft and hard skills, becoming a well-rounded and sought-after developer. Packed with practical examples, stories of successful developers, and real-world applications, the chapters will equip you with actionable advice on how to push beyond your comfort zone and embracing communities to enhance your teamwork abilities. Additionally, you’ll uncover the benefits of joining open-source projects, speaking at conferences, and building a personal brand to amplify your visibility and reputation. By the end of this book, you'll have a well-laid-out long-term and short-term plan for your career progression, equipping you with advanced technical skills, strategic thinking, and the ability to effectively manage relationships within your organization.

What you will learn

  • Explore skills needed to grow your career
  • Participate in community and mentorship programs
  • Build your technical knowledge for growth
  • Discover how to network and use social media
  • Understand the impact of public speaking
  • Identify the critical conversations to advance your career
  • Participate in non-technical activities to enhance your career

Who this book is for

This book is for technical professionals, particularly developers, seeking practical career growth guidelines and best practices. It addresses both junior and senior developers, offering valuable insights and experiences from within the developer community.

Table of contents

  1. Developer Career Masterplan
  2. Foreword
  3. Contributors
  4. About the authors
  5. Interviewees
  6. About the reviewer
  7. Preface
    1. Who this book is for
    2. What this book covers
    3. To get the most out of this book
    4. Conventions used
    5. Get in touch
    6. Share Your Thoughts
    7. Download a free PDF copy of this book
  8. Part 1 The Basics: Learn and Practice the Technical Skills
  9. Chapter 1: The Secret to Learning about Technology Quickly and Continuously
    1. Knowledge versus skills
    2. Finding focus and priorities
    3. Applying just-in-time learning
      1. Step 1 – Have a broad vision of the market
      2. Step 2 – Go deep when you are ready to apply
    4. Practicing deliberately to learn a technology
    5. Implementing important good habits
      1. Take action
      2. Write every day
      3. Create routines to get yourself started
      4. Plan your week
      5. Deploy habits
      6. Tips for learning new skills
    6. Interview
    7. Summary
  10. Chapter 2: Choose Your Best Path for Learning, Training, and Certifications
    1. Deriving maximum benefit from formal learning
    2. Expanding your possibilities through informal learning
    3. Self-learning – be independent by learning how to learn
    4. Acquiring and benefiting from certifications
    5. Combining several learning possibilities
    6. Interview
    7. Summary
  11. Chapter 3: Optimize Your Support Network for Growth
    1. Taking responsibility for your career
    2. What does it mean to take responsibility?
    3. Finding support for what you need
    4. Asking for help
    5. Holding crucial conversations
    6. Developing good negotiation skills
    7. Feedback – dealing with criticism
    8. Interviews
    9. Summary
  12. Chapter 4: Acquire the Right Skills Deliberately
    1. Soft versus hard skills – the reality
      1. Fire
      2. Force
      3. Frequency
    2. How do we improve our skills?
      1. What are hard skills?
      2. What are soft skills then?
      3. The best way to improve soft skills
    3. Key skills to develop
    4. Interview
    5. Summary
  13. Chapter 5: Stepping Outside Your Comfort Zone
    1. Forcing your brain to take action
    2. Step 1 – Create and visualize a great future
    3. Finding opportunities within our limitations – the sweet spot
    4. Step 2 – Maximize the current problems
    5. Step 3 – Build a bridge from here to there
      1. Building the bridge
      2. SMARTER goal template
    6. Step 4 – Plan small actionable steps
      1. Two types of “steps”
    7. Be consistent
      1. STEPLADDERS – small steps
      2. Create a COMMUNITY
      3. Make it IMPORTANT
      4. Make it EASY
      5. Apply NEUROHACKS
      6. CAPTIVATING – make it rewarding
      7. ENGRAINED – create routines
      8. Final lessons
    8. Interview
    9. Summary
  14. Part 2 Get Involved: Participate in the Community
  15. Chapter 6: Become a Team Player by Embracing Communities
    1. The value of communities
    2. Identifying communities of relevance to your career
    3. Participating in communities
    4. Communicate to identify tasks
      1. Take action
      2. Contribute the actions to others
      3. Have fun
      4. Participating in communities to increase your networking
    5. Building communities
    6. Leading communities
    7. Challenges of participating in communities
    8. Interview
    9. Summary
  16. Chapter 7: Focus Your Growth by Giving and Receiving Mentoring
    1. Different types of mentoring
    2. Mentoring is not a one-way street
    3. Be selective and intentional
    4. How to select a mentor
    5. Finding a good mentor
      1. Being intentional
      2. Create a plan
      3. Go deep into discussions
      4. Apply lessons in your life as fast as possible
      5. Bring back results
    6. Be the best mentee for your mentor
    7. Being a good mentor – you can mentor people too!
    8. Interview
    9. Summary
  17. Chapter 8: Be Part of a Larger Group – Meeting People at User Groups and Meetups
    1. Where real developers meet
    2. Finding a community near you
    3. Making the most of your participation
    4. The benefits of getting involved
    5. Deepening your participation and your results
    6. Starting your own user group community
    7. Having a clear objective
    8. Interview
    9. Summary
  18. Chapter 9: Grow Your Network through Social Media
    1. Learning how to use social media to develop your technical career
      1. Discussion forums and Q&A
      2. Video, streaming, and images
      3. Chat and direct messaging
      4. Blogging and articles
      5. Specialized communities
      6. Locality-focused communities
    2. Personal versus professional social media usage
    3. Building your online presence
    4. Add visual elements
    5. Creating content
    6. Reaching out to people
    7. Interviews
    8. Summary
  19. Chapter 10: Build Lasting Relationships
    1. How conferences can boost your career
    2. Finding the best conferences to attend
    3. Time and money – making your attendance worthwhile
      1. Some thoughts about virtual events
    4. Making conference attendance an asset for your boss and your company
    5. Goal stacking – how to guarantee results while attending a conference
    6. Interview
    7. Summary
  20. Part 3 Create Impact: Share and Lead
  21. Chapter 11: Build Trust and Solve Problems with Open Source Projects
    1. The value of contributing to open source
    2. A word about meritocracy
      1. Access to amazing software
      2. Access to knowledge
      3. Learning
    3. Selecting an open source project
      1. Projects you are already using
      2. Projects your company uses and depends on
      3. Projects that are related to what you know
      4. Projects you are interested in
      5. Projects your friends are part of
      6. Participate in an open source foundation
      7. Start an open source project
    4. Building trust and getting accepted
      1. Build trust
      2. Start small
      3. Join the mailing list
      4. Don’t try to impose your own ideas
      5. Think about the project users first
      6. Start with things where you do not need permission
      7. Moving on to help more closely
      8. Improve the documentation
      9. Improve testing and project delivery
      10. Help with upgrades
      11. Fix small issues
      12. Do things no one wants to do
      13. Making open source a core part of your evolution
      14. When the team accepts you, take your responsibility seriously
    5. Reading code
      1. Read code from libraries
      2. Read code you do not understand
      3. Change and step through the code
    6. Writing code
      1. Refactor code
      2. Update and upgrade code
    7. Delivering code
      1. Code analysis – help with the project quality
      2. Testing, testing, testing
      3. Package and deliver the project
    8. Solving problems
      1. Use the project in your current position
    9. Sharing – bringing value to your company and customers
      1. Share what you learn by working in open source
      2. Share the project
      3. Share the principles
      4. Share how to participate
    10. Delivering value to your company and customers
      1. Solve problems faster by adopting open source solutions
      2. Combine open source software for a more complete solution
      3. Build on top of existing open source projects
      4. Bring back improved solutions to open source communities
      5. Build a knowledge base of solutions for your company
      6. Learn from solutions and patterns implemented in existing projects
      7. Apply proven open source processes inside your company or for your customers
    11. Interview
    12. Summary
  22. Chapter 12: Scaling Trust through Public Engagement: Speaking and Blogs
    1. What is public speaking?
    2. Public speaking for introverts
    3. Generate content ideas
    4. Find the right place to share
    5. Organizing, building, and presenting your content
    6. Finding the right places to get started and share
    7. Techniques for engaging audiences with your content
    8. Interview
    9. Summary
  23. Chapter 13: Be a Leader: Manage Up, Down, and Across Your Organization
    1. Being a leader even if you don’t have a leadership role – take a leadership attitude
    2. Leading by serving and helping – act as a leader in the team
    3. Attracting top talent to your team
    4. Leading by learning how to solicit and receive feedback
    5. Learning how to have difficult conversations
    6. Optimizing your presence – hybrid environments and global teams
      1. How to inspire people to take action
    7. Using your leadership to build trust in the market – build visibility for you and your cause
    8. Interviews
    9. Summary
  24. Chapter 14: Stepping Up Your Technology Game – Defining Technology Instead of Merely Using It
    1. How technology is standardized and what it has to do with your career
    2. Identifying the technologies and organizations
    3. Getting involved with standards organizations – the conventions and best practices
    4. Connecting your company to standards, identifying technologies and organizations, and getting involved on a deeper level
    5. Interview
    6. Summary
  25. Chapter 15: Build Your Personal Brand and Become a Trusted Advisor
    1. What is personal branding?
      1. Building trust
      2. Gaining reputation
      3. Increasing visibility
      4. Becoming a trusted advisor
    2. Identify your professional brand
    3. How to build your professional brand
      1. Define your brand in an outward-focused way
    4. How can we attract an audience?
      1. Take responsibility for helping others – leaders take responsibility
      2. You can’t transform people, but they can transform themselves
    5. Help them help others
      1. Share their stories (testimonials)
      2. Promote an environment of support
      3. Share the successes and the results
      4. Ask for feedback
    6. Leveraging your personal brand professionally
      1. Trust leads to opportunity
      2. Trust is the best way to meet amazing people
      3. Trust is the best way to lead people
    7. Interview
    8. Summary
  26. Index
    1. Why subscribe?
  27. Other Books You May Enjoy
    1. Packt is searching for authors like you
    2. Share Your Thoughts
    3. Download a free PDF copy of this book

Product information

  • Title: Developer Career Masterplan
  • Author(s): Heather VanCura, Bruno Souza
  • Release date: September 2023
  • Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
  • ISBN: 9781801818704