Career Planning
What you need to know before making a career decision?
- Know yourself
- What are you good at
- What are your unique skills
- What are your likes and dislikes
- what motivates you
Understanding Software development
Software development is actually creating products for others to use for work, education or entertainment. So software development is in fact a very creative profession. You are actually solving someone else's problem so you are helping others with your creativity.
Nearly all industries rely on software products to operate. Therefore the demand for software development professionals is increasing on a daily basis as they are required to build all these products. When you gain the required skills to develop software you become part of this highly sought-after workforce with global demand.
All the resources that are needed to learn and improve the skill set required for a career in software development is available on the internet.
One of the most important aspects of building a career is improving your skillset. Your skillset is made up of your technical skills (i.e. hard skills) and your soft skills.
Technical Skills
Technical skills are the skills you need in order to work in industry. In the software development industry the technical skills you need are;
- Programming and coding.
- Knowledge of data structure and algorithms.
- Understanding of how computers work.
- Knowledge of the different types of computers that are used in different industries
- Knowledge on different types of operating systems, how they function, what are the differences between them and why they are different.
- Understanding of the internet and its protocols.
- Ability to test your software created for different scenarios by adapting software testing strategies i.e. debugging
- Understanding on cloud computing
- Knowledge on the right tools for software development and have a good toolset you are familiar with.
Most of the software that you create is for manipulating data to extract knowledge and information. So learn techniques on how to store, retrieve & manage data. These can be either using different types of databases or any other means of storage.
Soft skills
Soft skills are nontechnical but necessary skills for your career that are non-specific to a particular field. Soft skills you need to develop;
- Problem-solving & critical computational thinking
- Communication and collaboration skills
- Develop interpersonal skills
- Time management
- Self learning and self development
Software Development career options
This section will discuss some popular career tracks, both entry level and specialized fields.
Entry level career options
- Front- end engineering
- Back-end engineering
- Full-stack engineer
- Mobile app developer
Career Specializations
- Game Engineering
- Development and operations
- Security Engineering
- Data engineering
- Machine learning Engineering
Steps to take to achieve your career in software engineering
- Do your research
- Build software products to practice your skills and understand how to solve different problems
- Apply for internships in companies working in the area you are interested in
- Talk with someone in the field to learn what to expect
- Made a linkedIn profile and reach out to people in the industry
- Build on your knowledge towards success
References
https://www.trio.dev/blog/software-engineer-soft-skills
https://learntocodewith.me/posts/become-a-software-engineer/