6 Things Highly Successful Software Developers Know

By Author: Mohan
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1. Know how the code works to drive the overall business

As we all know, there are plenty of developers who know to write code for android app or website. But the question is how many of them have actually reached the standard by understanding the real concept of developing the app or website?

Todd Stephan, VP of software engineering at Ask Applications says “understand broadly how the company works at a business level, speak the business’ language, and master translating business language to technology and vice versa,”

In the above definition what we can understand is ,if someone really wants to be a part of the development it is very important for you to understand the ethics of the company, the real purpose of doing the business, why the company has to carry out the particular task, then only it is possible to make the difference and be a part of the development of the company.

2. Write a code which is reusable, clean, easier to read and test

The code which relates to a particular feature, that feature may be generic in other applications too! If a developer can develop the code which ...
... can be reusable then that saves the time and efforts second time and so on. Furthermore each function should be assigned with only one purpose that makes it not to lose focus from its primary function as rightly said by Andrew Magee, software development manager at UK-based Enigma Digital.

Magee also insists developers to assign clear, meaningful names to functions and variables. In simpler words, if the programmer turns back to read his own code after a week, he should be able to easily and quickly comprehend what it is meant to do. The systematic and clean way of writing code makes it lay-back task to analyze, test or to reuse it.

3. Keep your teachable index high

Software field is the one where the revolutions are quite often. The thing which is blue today turns green tomorrow, needleless to say its constantly changing and constantly updating. Great developers have the ability and willingness to accept when they do not know. They keep their eyes and ears always open to know new things, learn new technologies.

MarketGoo’s Perez advises against being that programmer, the one who spews out a bunch of technical jargon instead of acknowledging they might not yet know the answer to a particular question. This indicates there is no old-wine concept in terms of software technology, but upgrading is a mandatory stuff if you wish to be great developer.

4. Get online help from strangers

You are not the pioneer to face some problems in coding field. There might be several others too who have faced similar problems and the solutions might be already out online. The smartness lies in consulting and taking help online where the probabilities are more to get quick and reliable solution. Do not turn a programming problem into productivity drain because of the mindset of not taking help from others.

Taking help from the internet does not mean copying and pasting some part of code. It is about understanding insightfully how the code works, knowing the issue in your code and finally moving ahead to rectify it and build a feasible program. If a developer just copies it without understanding the inner depth of it, for time being it may resolve the issue but at any instance of time it may come back to haunt you with much bigger problem.

5. Be comfortable with Uncomfortable
Katherine Wu from new Relic says “You have to be working on things that are difficult for you. Even if you are distraction-free and getting a lot of coding hours in, if you’re just building the same really simple app over and over again, that is not necessarily stretching the boundaries of your skills. And if you’re not deliberately stretching the boundaries of your skills, you may not be trying to structure skills in the direction that will help you really grow as a technical contributor.”

If you know to make soup pretty well, and if you prepare the same soup everyday for years there is literally no displacement in your evolution. Software field is rapidly changing, new technologies, new coding systems are everyday introduced and if you sit in same old application in which you are comfortable then certainly soon it will be death web for the spider who made it. It is always necessary for developers to push themselves into new limits and learn things out of the comfort zone.

6. Follower of an organized plan
“A highly skilled software engineer without discipline is like a veteran sailor without a map: really good at steering the boat, but can’t find shore.” says Gady Pitaru, CTO at Badger Maps. The skills, the knowledge and the information can just contribute to some extent to overall success but the backbone always stands tall which is being disciplined and organized.

A great software engineer believes in making pre-plans, works on blue prints and also knows time management. It is never about how much hours developer spends upon the project but it is about how much quality time a developer spends upon a project. A organized developer does not compromise over the quality in dilemma to deliver a project in short period of time.