From Entry-Level to Specialist Software developer. 5 ways to grow at each stage of your career

There are endless directions to grow as a software developer.

You can specialize in specific technologies, areas, or industries. But you can also broaden your knowledge and focus on the full-stack idea. Or, do as I did and improvise as the needs appear.

The required skills change at the different stages of your career.

As I'm a technical guy, my approach was to keep my roots in development and slowly incorporate skills that make my work more enjoyable and valuable for me and my clients. These skills were sometimes dealing with customers, other times leading teams, organizing projects, or learning new technologies. Each stage of our careers demands different skills to get to the next level.

If you are a software developer with a technical inclination, the following strategy will help you to increase your employability and salary:

Entry-Level Stage

At an entry-level stage, your employer shouldn't rely on you to make money.

Although many companies don't think that way and expect a junior employee to solve their problems, that's not how it works. Freshers are investments for the company. They demand more time from their colleagues than the time they save, and employers can't delegate complete activities to them.

Therefore, your role as an entry-level employee is to reduce your costs by accelerating your learning, making fewer mistakes, and minimizing the time you demand from your colleagues.

This is how to achieve it:

1. Ensure your assignments don't return to you because of errors you could avoid.
2. Investigate before asking for support.
3. Document what you learn (by investigation or asking your colleagues) so you don't ask the same question twice.
4. Be responsible for your deliveries. Don't miss deadlines, and raise your hand when you are out of track.
5. Dedicate some time to understand what you are doing so you can start connecting the dots earlier.

Middle-Level Stage

At this level, you still require support from your colleagues, but you have already brought benefits to your employer.

This is a dangerous phase because you start to feel that you know a lot. So, you lose the fear that made you double-check everything, which may lead you to make more mistakes. However, you are mostly independent and can create value for the team.

Your goal during this stage is to absorb more demands, acquire more knowledge, and become the team's engine.

Focus on these activities to embrace the position and escalate to the next level:

1. Understand user requirements.
2. Assess, specify, and estimate solutions.
3. Start connecting the dots between functional needs and developments (why do users ask and pay for the developments?).
4. Show junior members how to do things.
5. Propose solutions when you ask for support or a senior's opinion.

Senior-Level Stage

You don't know everything, but you can do and solve anything.

In a senior position, you often have the last word on technical discussions. That doesn't mean that you must know everything (no one does), but you must provide detailed analysis and solutions for any issue that appears. Your value at this point is not only about what you can do, but you are also responsible for your team's output, even when you are not the boss.

Going deeper into the technical side doesn't make sense because you are already too skilled. So, if you want to keep growing, it's better to acquire management and social skills that will maximize your team value:

1. Communicate clearly and confidently with the clients.
2. Delegate, support, and train your colleagues.
3. Use your developing skills only to solve complex requirements and issues (or explain why it's impossible or unworthy to solve them).
4. Be the link between the management and the operative lines.
5. Propose new requirements to optimize the system.

Specialist-Level Stage

Your participation in developments is minimal at this stage.

Although you know every corner of the system, no issues require such advanced skills. Your team handles most of the work, but you must still guide and optimize their performance. Many companies will want to keep you around because they feel safe with you, but if you're going to serve the company better, you need to get out of your comfort zone.

To increase your value for the company, you should focus on escalating the performance of the team and creating a more extensive product:

1. Understand functionality and business needs at an advanced level.
2. Manage projects, negotiate, and deal with unknown variables over time.
3. Improve frameworks and foster productivity in your team.
4. Find and sell new system functionalities to the client so you grow the business.
5. Investigate new tools, products, or versions and advise the client on the benefits of their adoptions.

Conclusion

As you can see, the above list encompasses technical, functional, and management skills.

These 3 perspectives always go hand in hand, and the reason is simple: They are all required for quality software.

So, even if you enjoy coding, I advise you to avoid focusing only on the technical part but become a complete software developer.