A few things every new software developer needs to know

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The world of software development is riddled with misconceptions. It’s throwing off new software devs that are coming out of college / university and entering the working world. As a result, students aren’t able to prepare well for the start of their careers. Basically… it sucks.

Let’s clear it all up right here and now! Here are a few things every new software developer needs to know.

The things you learn in school are important, but not the way you think

You probably took a ton of classes while you were in school. I took 46 during my undergrad! Once you start your first job though you may be surprised to discover that the content of those classes was the least important part of them. The most valuable things you gained out of them were actually the skills you developed via repetitive action and pattern recognition.

That algorithms and data structures class you took? Yeah you might code up heap sort to pass a Google / Facebook / Amazon interview. But what you really learned was how to break down problems. Divide and conquer: break down your problem into smaller, easy to manage bites. You learned that many different problems have similar or related solutions just like certain algorithms and data structures will have similar properties.