Book Image

Developer Career Masterplan

By : Heather VanCura, Bruno Souza
5 (1)
Book Image

Developer Career Masterplan

5 (1)
By: Heather VanCura, Bruno Souza

Overview of this book

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.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
1
Part 1 The Basics: Learn and Practice the Technical Skills
7
Part 2 Get Involved: Participate in the Community
13
Part 3 Create Impact: Share and Lead

Learning how to have difficult conversations

When you are interviewing team members, onboarding team members, giving and receiving feedback, and having peer-to-peer coaching sessions, you will need another skill in your leadership repertoire.

You will need to learn how to have difficult conversations. In the book Crucial Conversations, by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler, they lay out a framework for having these conversations and being successful with them. They call it How To Spot The Conversations That Are Keeping You From What You Want:

  • Get unstuck: This is the law of crucial conversations. If you find yourself stuck, there is probably a conversation that you are either not having or you are having it and it is not going well. The first step is to identify where you are stuck and the second step is to unbundle it with the content (the problem), the pattern (a pattern of behavior over time), and the relationship (define how the problem affects...