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The Human Dimension of Software Engineering

The Human Dimension of Software Engineering

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5 Best Strategies To Get Your First Programming Job

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Reading Time: 8 minutes

A First Programming Job Requires Experience, But… How?

A question that aspiring young developers ask me all the time is: How do I get the first programming job that I need to build the experience required by most programming jobs?

It appears like a chicken and egg problem. You need work experience to get your first job, but you can’t get that experience without the first job. It might seem like an impossible riddle. In reality, it is far from impossible.  Here are five strategies that will not fail you.

Strategy #1 – Acquire Experience Well Before You Finish School

I worked a lot while I was still in school, and it made my life much easier later. Before finishing my studies, I accumulated a substantial number of professional programming experiences that made me into a senior developer even before I was interested in a full-time job. ... 

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Software Engineering Job Titles Explained

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Reading Time: 4 minutes

Ranks in software engineering are defined by job titles that vary from company to company and are meant to offer a clear career ladder. The landscape can be confusing. There are no industry standards for what each title means. The same title might mean something completely different in different organizations. Thankfully some common patterns resemble most variations.

I will look at four different career tracks:

  1. Software developers, individual contributors. People who write code. Their work is purely technical, and they have no management responsibilities.
  2. Software developers, management. People who write some code (some of the time), design software and have management responsibilities.
  3. Quality assurance, individual contributors. People who test software products or write code to test software products and have no management responsibilities.
  4. Quality assurance, management. People who do some testing (some of the time), write code to test software products (some of the time) and have management responsibilities.

A Few Words on Nomenclature.

Software Development Nomenclature.

Companies refer to software developers — people who write code — with one of many names. For example: ... 

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11 Worst Software Engineer Resume Mistakes.

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Reading Time: 4 minutes

When you send your resume to apply for a software engineering job, you should avoid making blunders that can send your hopes straight into the trash bin. Here is a list of the top 11 mistakes that I have seen over and over again.

Using too many words.

Hiring managers receive hundreds of resumes for every open job advertised. During the first pass of each new one, they need to decide if it goes in the trash bin or the “potentially interesting” pile. Too many words are a shortcut for the garbage.

The first page is critical and will receive the most attention. The last page usually has education information, and will also get some attention. Managers will tend to skip or just scan anything between the first and the last page. In other words, anything that is not the first or the last page is a waste of time for you and the hiring manager. ... 

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Hottest Computer Languages on the Job Market for 2017 [infographic]

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Reading Time: 1 minute

This is the first CoderHood Index infographic. It shows the hottest computer languages based on the Job Markert for ads posted on ZipRecruiter and Indeed as of July 2017.

Feel free to download and re-post this infographic on your website or blog. The only thing I ask in return is a link to this post from the page on your site or blog containing the infographic. Thank you.

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