Working as a programmer can be a rewarding and lucrative career, but excelling in the field takes talent and discipline as well as an intensive knowledge of programming languages.
You want to stand apart from other programmers to maximize your chances of career success, and doing this can start with developing the right habits. In fact, four key habits that you should cultivate include the following.
Whether you are working on a particularly challenging project or charting a course for the path of your career, it helps to think about where you want to end up. By identifying core goals you hope to accomplish, you can reverse-engineer your efforts to achieve those objectives. You can break down your progress into achieving small milestones over time, and make certain that you're on the right path towards achieving professional success.
Successful programmers usually have a lot on their plate, but it is important to manage your time effectively so you can get the most important tasks done before your energy is depleted. This means resisting distractions such as Slack messages, emails, and social media alerts. Develop a system for prioritizing the work you want to do. For example, one system is to divide tasks up into four categories: important and urgent; Important and not urgent; not important and urgent; and not important and not urgent. Tackle the important and urgent tasks first, always.
Many programmers work collaboratively on projects or must interface with team members. Instead of thinking of these interactions as competitions where there is a winner and a loser, go into every interaction looking for compromise. Orient your actions towards showing you want a win-win and both you and your colleagues can be more productive and successful.
When communicating with others, try to understand their perspective rather than just striving to make yourself understood. Identify your colleague's core interests and address them so you can build mutually beneficial relationships and so you'll all be able to work effectively together towards accomplishing big things.
By cultivating these key habits, you can excel in your current position or maximize your chances of impressing managers and getting hired for new opportunities. Technology Partners can also help you enhance your career by finding open positions with top employers, so give us a call today to find out how we can assist you.