Advice to new software developers

I’ve had the pleasure of managing and growing developers for a few years. Most new developers do not suffer from a lack of skill but instead a lack of perspective. This is true both on the structure of code but also on the structure of careers.

What to do those first few years.

Most people fresh out of school are going to end up at either a product company or a consulting firm. Think carefully going anywhere else. The consulting route has the benefit of seeing many projects over a short period of time. A product company has the benefit of watching a single product evolve and the stresses that come with it.

Both experiences are valuable. However, the career options tend to be better for the person working in consulting.

Why? Because consultants are rarely hired for out of date skills. As expensive “hired guns”, they are hired to take on high-value projects that the company can’t staff internally. The internal staff is often stuck with thankless maintainance of the code produced by the consultants — regardless of quality.

Which looks better on a resume:

Part of key team writing java code to ship {major project X}, on time and on budget

or:

Wrote code in java fixing bugs for company {major…