Software Engineering Stack Exchange
Software Engineering Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [career-development]

This tag exists only for historic reasons and system doesn't allow using it anymore.

See Improve question quality by informing askers of expectations in some career related tags:

these questions are now considered wholly off-topic here... also these tags are blacklisted and can no longer be used on new questions.

70 questions
386
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29 answers

I don't program in my spare time. Does that make me a bad developer?

A lot of blogs and advice on the web seem to suggest that in order to become a great developer, doing just your day job is not enough. For example, you should contribute to open source projects in your spare time, write smartphone apps, etc. In fact…
not-my-real-name
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330
votes
63 answers

Is 4-5 years the “Midlife Crisis” for a programming career?

I’ve been programming C# professionally for a bit over 4 years now. For the past 4 years I’ve worked for a few small/medium companies ranging from “web/ads agencies”, small industry specific software shops to a small startup. I've been mainly doing…
Jeff
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236
votes
33 answers

Will high reputation in Stack Overflow help to get a good job?

In a post, Joel Spolsky mentioned that 5 digit Stack Overflow reputation can help you to earn a job paying $100k+. How much of that is real? Would anyone like to share their success in getting a high paid job by virtue of their reputations on Stack…
Shamim Hafiz - MSFT
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146
votes
15 answers

Are 9 to 5 programmers looked down upon?

I would consider myself a 9 to 5 programmer. What I mean by this, is that I have a programming job, but after I leave work, I leave my work there and do not take it home. I very much enjoy my career choice, and I enjoy the work that I do at my…
B Johnson
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128
votes
16 answers

Is there any way to get faster at solving bugs? I've just had a warning from my boss

I've just been told by my boss that I will receive a negative performance review on Monday. He wants to talk to me about why I am so slow and why my bug fix rate is so low. I love programming and solving problems but I actually do find my job really…
user90636
103
votes
25 answers

How do programmers quit a job?

I'm thinking about leaving my current employer and wondering how one goes about that process in the programming world. We have a lot of projects on the go at the moment and I'm the only developer. We have 4-5 projects that are fairly big and need to…
Brandon
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97
votes
21 answers

How can a new programmer impress the software engineer (boss)?

I'm working at my first programming job. My boss is a very smart software engineer, and I feel like I have very little to offer compared to him. Problem is, he is always busy, and needs someone to help him out. I feel like I'm not good enough, but…
Pablo
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86
votes
14 answers

What are the advantages and disadvantages to using your real name online?

As a programmer, do you see any professional or other advantage in using your real name in online discourse, versus an invented handle? I've always gone by a single username and had my real name displayed whenever possible, for a few reasons: My…
Jon Purdy
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84
votes
19 answers

Choosing between two programmers: experience vs. passion

I am in a position where I have to hire a programmer and have the option of 2 candidates, the first has experience but he doesn't have a passion for coding and he says so while the second doesn't have the experience but he has the passion, he did…
Duke
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80
votes
20 answers

Move on and look elsewhere, or confront the boss?

Possible Duplicate: When do you know it's time to move on from your current job? Problem: I had no prior experience when I interviewed, so I didn't know exactly what to ask them about the company when I was hired. I've spotted a number of warning…
Meister
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67
votes
15 answers

I'm going to quit my job because of our platform: how can I leave a productive explanation of this?

I'm planning on leaving my current job because we're locked into using Blub, with an enterprise Blub framework and a Blub-level web server, on mediocre shared hosting. My coworkers are friendly and my boss is an average small business owner - I want…
Brighid McDonnell
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65
votes
21 answers

"Don't do programming after a few years of starting career". Is this a fair advice?

I am a little experienced developer having approximately 5 years experience in PHP and somewhat less in Java, C# and trying to learn some Python nowadays. Since the start of my career as a programmer I have been told every now and then by fellow…
Yasir
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64
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19 answers

Which skills would you expect and appreciate in a Junior Software Engineer?

I recently finished my Master of Science in Software Engineering, and I am about to start my professional career in a few weeks. My role will be as a Junior Developer for a company which develops software using Java & related technologies (among…
Bartzilla
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62
votes
7 answers

I'm the .1x programmer at my company. How can I best contribute?

I work at a newly-minted startup of five people. We have a Ph. D in machine learning, a former member of the RSpec core team, and the guy who compiles the Git binary for OS X. That's just the employees; the founder has a Ph. D and was CTO for a…
invaliduser
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60
votes
10 answers

Is there such a thing as staying in a job too long?

After reading through a few "job hopping" related threads recently, I've been thinking how the opposite of job hopping can also be a problem. I've known many people (especially in large, relatively sluggish companies) who got comfortable in a cushy…
Bobby Tables
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