3 Qualities I've Noticed in Successful Junior Developers

Here are 3 traits in aspiring developers that I've noticed, who eventually break into the industry.

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Transcript

Don Hansen: 0:13

Today I'm going to share three very important qualities I've noticed in successful junior developers, and these qualities just help these junior developers stand out and finally get hired. So obviously there are going to be other qualities that can make you more marketable and help you stand out, but these are three very important ones that you definitely want to focus on. So I've been mentoring junior developers for five plus years. I've lost track at this point, but this is what I've noticed in the people that I've seen be successful versus people that are not successful. So very first one curiosity and enjoyment for coding.

Don Hansen: 0:48

A lot of people that got software engineer positions back in the day, they were always curious about tech. They were always curious to tinker and explore new technologies and new devices that came out. They might play with a new custom router that they had set up instead of renting a modem. They might just really enjoy building or setting up like a camera camera or a custom security system or just some way to detect motion and then alert you on your phone. Or maybe you know, as you were younger, you just set up a camera that you didn't build on your own Like there were. There was no coding, you just bought a camera with software pre-installed that would monitor when your mom came home so you could hide whatever you were doing and you know she wouldn't catch you and ground you right like you could use technology to solve whatever problem that you wanted to, and you were fascinated by technology because of the opportunities it brought, and you were especially when you would dive into coding or building things on myspace and customizing your page. It was a really cool thing to be able to build this unique thing that I built. Right, I would build, I remember building pages on x page I think that's what it was called back then and I built websites to. It was just like starcraft websites of my favorite race, which is zerg. Zerg is obviously the best race, so I built multiple of those and I would put Starcraft music, zerg music, of course, and I would put information and I think I had a clan at the time and I would just put like a button to recruit. I don't even remember how you could contact me. I don't know how it was set up, but I just built something and that feeling of building something that everyone else could see was indescribable.

Don Hansen: 2:46

I would stay home and not like hang out with friends sometimes or I would maybe not go on a date and abandon a date because I found this new thing that just piqued my curiosity. Now, I'm not saying these were healthy habits, but I had an inclination to just be drawn to using technology to make my life better. There was a pull to it that I think a lot of tech people and a lot of programmers can relate to. There was a pull to it. I was always drawn to it and I would dedicate time to it and I would dream about it and I'd wake up and want to build this thing all over again and I would think about what I had to sacrifice my time or what I had to sacrifice to get additional time to be able to explore more technology. No, I didn't do this all the time, and if I'm making it sound like that, let's change that narrative, because I think you can have a little inclination, a little interest, a little curiosity that you dive into.

Don Hansen: 3:51

Like you spend your entire Saturday exploring something of technology. You dive into Saturday of learning a little bit of coding and building something really minor and useful for you. Maybe it's some sort of calculation for whatever you need to do, maybe it's just automating a bunch of spreadsheets. I think you have to have this drive that makes you want to learn to build. You're a creator. As a software engineer, as a developer, you are a creator. You build things. Of course, you fix things, but you are a builder.

Don Hansen: 4:33

And if you are six months, nine months, a year into your journey and you still don't want to build things, still don't want to build things, that's a little bit concerning because I see a lot of people that dive into this, thinking that they are just going to be able to go through this linear path of you teach me what I need to learn and I do that thing and I get a job and I get paid for it. There are a lot more people that are more passionate than you, that will go the extra mile, that will build personal projects on the side. I think it's okay to have responsibilities and have to limit your time with exploration and curiosity and diving into the code and learning things, but if you find that it's a chore, I don't think you're going to make it to the end and maybe it just stays as a hobby until you gain a little bit more passion for it, which will allow you to dedicate the massive amount of time and gain the depth of knowledge that you need to to be able to build real professional projects and not get burned out and quit in six months because you actually enjoy coding. Enjoy coding when you get stuck. You're curious why. And if something works and you don't know why, you are curious, you don't just let that go. You dig into exactly why that thing was broken. You need that curiosity. You need it because the depth of knowledge required to be a successful software engineer nowadays. It requires you to push past motivation. It requires you to be a successful software engineer nowadays. It requires you to push past motivation. It requires you to have a pull to technology, a pull to coding. Do you need to be passionate about it? No, I actually think that's a great thing, but I don't think you need to be passionate. But you have to have that curiosity and enjoyment with coding. If you don't, you're probably not going to make it.

Don Hansen: 6:30

I'm not gatekeeping. A lot of people have said I'm gatekeeping because of this. It's just not true. I'm just telling you the types of people that I see be successful are not the types of people that are just doing this for more money. Like why are you going into tech and picking one of the hardest fields where it requires a lengthier time to get into? Why are and picking one of the hardest fields where it requires some of the a lengthier time to get into? Why are you picking one of the hardest fields to get into a tech when there are other tech positions and you can look these up? You can look up different salaries for tech positions or tech adjacent positions that just pay more than what you're making now. You don't have to become a software engineer and that's okay, and if you really don't like coding, you should think about that.

Don Hansen: 7:13

So second quality is grit. You are going to curse at your screen. You're going to be frustrated at many points in your journey and it takes a perseverance. It takes a perseverance. It takes willingness to be pissed off. It takes willingness to be pissed off, shut your computer off for the night and then wake up and do it all over again.

Don Hansen: 7:42

If you are someone that constantly leans on motivation to become a developer or motivation to do anything developer, and when that motivation or motivation to do anything, and then when that motivation dies, you don't put the time into it. You let your skills atrophy. If you are that type of person that knows what they need to do and only does it when they feel motivated, which most people don't feel motivated all the time. You will have a lack of motivation. I had a lack of motivation. Everyone had a lack of motivation at some point. If you aren't willing to push past that lack of motivation to do what you know you need to do, you don't have that grit and you haven't built that up and you're not willing to build that up, you're probably going to fail A lot of successful developers. They will keep grinding through it and you know when I would get stuck, when I would get frustrated.

Don Hansen: 8:35

As you get further into coding and year after year passes and you keep coding, you keep building things, you keep solving problems. You understand your flaws, you understand the time of day that works best for you. You you start analyzing that within you so you can best optimize that. But it's never going to be perfect and I found many times where I did not want to code. I did not want to build this thing, but I promised my community that this thing would be released and I don't always succeed at this. Sometimes I fail at it, sometimes I have bad estimations because I'm super uh, like I really want my, I'm excited about it and I get my community excited about it.

Don Hansen: 9:17

I'm going to build something and then it doesn't happen because it takes longer than I thought it would, but I'm still working at it. And if I don't feel like doing it, I'm still doing it, and sometimes I have to hop on live stream. That's where usually you see my live coding streams pop up on Twitch or YouTube. It's I don't feel like doing it, but I think this kind of forces me to work through it a little bit when I have people watching me and I'm not just going to sit there and stare at the screen. I'm going to try and you have to figure out like what can, like little tips and tricks that can help force you to achieve these things, to learn these things when you're not feeling motivation. Because one thing you're going to also realize is, the more often you force yourself to do what you need to do, the easier it will get in time. When you don't feel that motivation. A lot of successful people don't rely on motivation. Also, a lot of successful people don't rely on motivation. Also, a lot of successful people have a vision, they have something pulling them, but that doesn't always provide motivation either. They do it because they know the results of what they're going to do. Regardless of how they feel, they do it anyways. They take action. They don't think about it. They take action. They don't let their mind wander. They take action. They don't think about it. They take action. They don't let their mind wander. They take action. Taking action and just doing what you plan to do will develop grit, regardless of how you feel. That is another very important quality that I see in very successful people that eventually land that job.

Don Hansen: 10:44

Third thing soft skills. You can't just be a code monkey. You're not just going to be a code monkey. You're going to work with different departments and when I say a code monkey, um, a code monkey is to someone that, in my definition anyways someone that receives requirements and then creates something and spits it out. Just give me a requirement, spit it out. A lot of companies nowadays they want you to flush out those requirements on your own. They want you to understand the problems. Like you'll, you'll gain some ownership over the part of the app that you're working with right and which is a really cool thing. You are that go-to guy for that part of the app and that should feel good, but it does come with more responsibilities.

Don Hansen: 11:22

But you should know the users that use your app and you should know the bugs that pop up that you've created. You should know the user's frustrations with your feature and maybe it's a poor user experience and you want to get that feedback and you want to work on that. You want to flesh that out and take that initiative with this product manager saying, hey, you know, I noticed this bug and I noticed we've been getting some tickets with this bug Seems like they're piling up. I'm going to go ahead and reprioritize this. It'll take a day, flush it out and then I'm going to go back to the feature work. You're going to have those conversations with different departments and that might mean talking with design, saying, hey, like even as a front end developer, developer in general, like we had back end developers suggesting features in and just talking about UX concerns with our designers and designers. Good designers are open to that. They listen, they care about other people's perspectives. That know that feature, that know that app and the limitations and the users they're serving. Right, you're going to be talking with other departments. So you got to be able to have empathetic conversations, right?

Don Hansen: 12:26

So this is why I say, like, if you are very, very, very, very introverted introverted is a word that I think locks people into a certain personality type. That I think is a mistake. Right, I'm a very introverted person, very introverted. When I talk with a bunch of people, my energy gets sucked out of me. It's why I don't do super long streams, okay, but I've slowly worked on how I talk with people and I slowly worked on how I manage that energy that gets sucked out of me. When I'm in a room full of people, I can do it better. A lot of people don't realize this. I'm very introverted and I never let that limit me, because I let that limit me for most of my life Until I became a developer.

Don Hansen: 13:08

You need to go out and talk to people. You need to go out and talk to people Even I think some people are even just shy to like say hello to the cashier or make new friends. Especially when you get out of college, it's harder to meet people. You're not brushed up against them all the time. You have to take initiative to go out and possibly get rejected or feel awkward, and I think a lot more people need to get more comfortable with just conversations with new people. You're gonna be meeting new people when you get a dev job in different departments and if you guys are working with clients are gonna be meeting new clients potentially for getting into agency work or anything any sort of contract work like that.

Don Hansen: 13:50

Go out and meet people. Get those awkward moments out of the way. The best way to build up your soft skills is to have a bunch of shitty conversations and get better each time. It's just, you know like. I always use this reference because I think a lot of people get it. It's just like dating. You're really awkward at first. I was very awkward at first. I said a lot of dumb shit and I had that pointed out to me many times by women, men, friends of mine. I slowly had to get better with it.

Don Hansen: 14:21

I think sometimes when we think about building soft skills, I think that's intimidating and I think there's a really simple solution. I'm going to emphasize it again Just go out and talk to people and talk to more people. Put yourself in uncomfortable positions where you don't think you're going to have anything to say and just try to spark up a conversation. Get comfortable with it fact that maybe that interaction won't go the best way. Then you lighten that load.

Don Hansen: 14:54

That anxiety goes down of talking with other people and improving your soft skills. And I think it's this anxiety up here that prevents people from improving their soft skills, because they think they can't do it. They think they can't have a meaningful conversation, they think they can't have an empathetic conversation, they think they're going to be awkward, they're going to say the wrong thing, someone is going to think they're stupid or and you're going to realize like a lot of these anxious thoughts are all. They only exist in your head. When you have good intention and you talk with people, usually most of those anxious thoughts never come true. The reality is very different than this boogeyman that you formed in your head of interacting with other people and this includes with other developers and looking stupid in front of other developers.

Don Hansen: 15:46

Honestly, developers generally don't care if you ask a stupid question. They care about your intention behind that question. I can even talk about a lot of senior developers. They don't care that you ask a question that shows that you're at a very low level, but they care that you ask a question that shows you did absolutely no research and you're just trying to leech off of the senior developer, you didn't even Google it and you're wasting their time, which they should feel like. Their time is wasted in that scenario and I understand that and I empathize with that. But a lot of senior people want to help out junior developers and they want to talk with you and they don't care that you don't know something. They care that you're humble, they care that you put a little effort in those two main things. You're going to make a lot of friends with senior developers. If you could just remember those two main things.

Don Hansen: 16:33

But just talking with other developers and people in tech. I think it starts with your conversations outside of tech and then it's just about talking, going to different conferences or meetups and stuff like that, or pairing in a hackathon project and working with other people, where you're going to start building up the confidence because you're doing it more often. So your anxiety is going to go down, your confidence goes up and naturally you're going to start getting a little bit better with conversation. As you analyze the reactions of people, you can look up different tips and strategies to be able to interact with people and I do think that's helpful. But I think a lot of people would just read self-help books or to watch YouTube videos or Chrismon Command, which is a really good YouTube channel, by the way but they don't practice it.

Don Hansen: 17:17

Go out, have a bunch of really awkward conversations and get more comfortable just talking with people and you're going to see your soft skills go up, and so soft skills is an incredibly important requirement in today's dev positions. You're going to be interacting with a lot of people. You're not just going to be a code monkey in the corner being this brilliant developer. It's going to take a long time to even get to some skill level where you can kind of pull away and not talk to people as much, if that's really the direction you want to go into. There are a few dev positions like that, but you're going to talk to people as much, if that's really the direction you want to go into. There are a few depositions like that, but you're going to talk with people you got to enjoy. You got to enjoy the products you're building. You got to enjoy the users you're serving.

Don Hansen: 18:00

It gets fun. It gets really, really fun when you build things that change people's lives, right, or maybe that's drastic. People hear that and they're like, oh, you think you're changing someone's life. Well, yeah, sometimes it depends on the product that you're working on, especially healthcare products that truly serve people. Um, or, I mean there are a lot of different industries where you can help people, but, yes, the these things are fun when you get to interact with the team and, um, you just have empathy in everything that you're doing.

Don Hansen: 18:28

You care about the stuff. You should care about this, you should care about this path. That's kind of what this goes back to is. You should understand that you were learning a tool, you were learning to code, you were becoming a builder to be able to create things that literally can change the world for the better. And if you are surrounding yourself with people that make you feel like you're not really having that much of an impact, you're just surrounding yourself with the wrong people and you should think about that. But those are the three qualities.

Don Hansen: 18:56

I've noticed that in successful junior developers that do make it to that finish line, that do land that job and, of course, there are going to be other qualities that can make you stand out. But these are three really important ones. But I'd love to hear what you think. What qualities do you think make up a really successful developer? Or stuff you've seen in, maybe your mentors, senior developers that you've talked to, that you admire, that you inspire to be. What are those things? Let me know in the comments. All right, that's all I have. I'll see you in the next video.