Having a career in programming is creative, rewarding, and challenging. As another year rolls by, another batch of graduates are applying for jobs and hoping to kick start their career as a developer.
Packt asked 10 of their expert authors for the advice they would give to young developers just starting out on their career. Here’s what they had to say.
Mark Price
Author of C# 6 and .NET Core 1.0: Modern Cross-Platform Development
“Don’t go into the gaming industry because you think it’ll be “fun”. It can be fun, but so can working on business systems! Choose a position based on the technology and the team that you will work with – not the salary and not the industry.”
Belén Cruz Zapata
Author of Android Studio 2 Essentials
“My advice would be to trust your abilities. If you have a dream job or something you’d like to do, prepare yourself and give it a try, because it will be worth it.”
Steve Buchanan
Author of Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager 2012 SP1
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“Go wide at first, then narrow down and go deep. What do I mean? Start out as a generalist. Learn as much as you possibly can in tech. Once you have a rock solid foundation, find something in tech that you are passionate about and go deep in that area. Be careful not to become too attached to what you go deep in.
“We are in an industry where things change, so be ready to change your focus. Going
wide at first makes you a well-rounded technical person, which makes you agile. Going deep makes you a specialist. Specialists are able to build awesome careers.”
