How can one set themselves apart from other programmers?
I am asking this because if there is a group of people who all can write the same code, how can you set yourself apart from the rest of the group? #technology #programming
4 answers
Lauren’s Answer
This is a great question. From working with teams of programmers & developers, my recommendation has two possible avenues: 1) become an expert in one specific tool, program, or process (e.g. agile development). This immediately sets you up as a valuable resource and potentially someone to help lead the group in your specific area of expertise. 2) round out your experience/knowledge with learning in another aspect of the business (e.g. if you are looking to be an app developer, look into courses on Product Management, someone you would likely be working very closely with). This enables you to understand both sides of a work process and more easily translate between the teams who may only know terminology or processes relevant to their work; this is extremely valuable to teams.
Angel Shipp
Angel’s Answer
Always attain to become the best version of yourself! Do not compare yourself with others, but compare yourself with your past self. Other people's skills have limitations, but yours do not! With this way of personal development and learning, you will become more fulfilled, challenged, and you will naturally shine.
I have learned many programming languages during my 19+ years with Verizon, mostly due to my hunger for learning and not because of what other programmers are doing. Because of this continuous pursuit of learning, I have found joy, success, and fulfillment in SQL programming.
Kurt’s Answer
Learning the syntax of a programming language at school is just the very tip of the iceberg. There are going to be lots of people that have the same credential on paper that says they know how to write code, but relative few of them are going to have the gift of helping others achieve insights. That is the key thing today, because everyone has a database and everyone has more data than they know what to do with, but if you can extract a meaningful story from the data you will be very valuable. Of course that is something that is a bit harder to train for, the best way to learn to do it is actually do it, but to put yourself in the best position to hit the ground running after school, I would try to diversify and learn what you can about a business you are interested in, then you will be able to merge the programming and business aspects together better than someone that knows tons of code but doesn't know anything about how business works.