Software development is a well-paid profession, and it\u2019s not unheard of for people to blaze forward so quickly in their careers that they are ready to retire by their early 30s. While you may not be aiming for that blistering level of speed, I\u2019m going to guess you wouldn\u2019t want your career to move at a snail\u2019s pace either, much less for it to get stuck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since blogs with proactive career tips are already abundant, I thought I\u2019d write one instead about those things you should not<\/em> do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With no further ado then, here are 5 classic mistakes a software developer can make which are certain to slow down her career!<\/p>\n\n\n\n The software industry is one of the most rapidly-evolving in the world, and people who work in it are often advised that they must never stop learning<\/a>. This is good advice and I do not intend to contradict it here, but it\u2019s not uncommon for people to assume that \u201clearning new things\u201d is alphabet soup for \u201cfinding a new job\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If <\/em>your current position is causing you to stagnate, and your company doesn\u2019t offer you the means to change that, then by all means look for a new position. Otherwise, there is nothing wrong with staying with the same company for 10 years or more. You can grow, learn, and improve yourself from within the team, and assuming the organization is big enough, you\u2019ll almost certainly reach executive positions earlier than if you just bounce from one job to another every 6 months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you\u2019re the sort of developer who wants to create products of her own, then a surefire way to go nowhere is to put yourself in competition with the field\u2019s bigger players from the outset. Say that you want to create an application to video-call your friends and colleagues. Maybe you can think of a feature that Zoom and Google Meet do not boast, and that\u2019s good, but you are still setting yourself up against competitors with a market share and a level of manpower which are several orders of magnitude above yours. Whatever feature you may come up with, they\u2019ll just replicate it and integrate it into their product within the week, and you\u2019ll have wasted months or even years on an uncompetitive product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For entrepreneurs and independent creators, market research is among the most essential parts of career-building. If you have an idea for a product, find out what sort of a competition you\u2019ll be going up against, and if the fish in the pond are too big, move on. The giants of this industry tend to cluster around products that are either so basic that everyone needs them, or so advanced that nobody else has the resources to create them. Find room for yourself somewhere inbetween those two extremes, and don\u2019t be afraid to use tools created by others to develop your own idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This blog has already delved into the differences between working for a startup and working for a big tech firm<\/a>, so I\u2019ll keep this one brief. Suffice to say, that if you want to see quick progress in your career, then you should at the very least consider a spell or two working for a startup. Many devs don\u2019t do that for the understandable reason that bigger firms pay much, much better salaries. But with a startup you will pick up skills and experience which are simply not available when under the wing of a consolidated company. And if the team in your startup grows, you\u2019ll be primed for a management position from very early on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n#1 Changing jobs too early<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
#2 Picking the wrong fight<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
#3 Taking the salary bait<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
#4 Too much time in the library<\/h2>\n\n\n\n