This is a guest post from Tim Bourguignon. Enjoy. Dear new developer, Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time, there was a black chalk board in a dark room. The board carried remainders of countl… | Continue reading
Dear new developer, I hope you enjoyed reading these letters. I’ve certain enjoyed writing them. When I chat with new developers, at meetups, on slack, or via email, they let me know when let… | Continue reading
This is a guest post from James Turnbull. Enjoy. Dear new developer, Steve Jobs made the phrase “Good artists copy, great artists steal” famous in the tech industry. However, there̵… | Continue reading
This is a guest post from Elise Shaffer. Enjoy. Dear New Developers, As I sit down to write this letter, I’m struck by the thought that I don’t know you. You could be like me, a person … | Continue reading
Dear new developer, Feedback loops are so important. (If you’re not sure what that is, I’d recommend “Thinking in Systems”.) These loops help systems improve. If you donR… | Continue reading
This is a guest post from Randall Kenna. Enjoy. Dear new developer, Two weeks after I graduated my coding bootcamp, I had an offer. Two weeks after that, I started my first engineering job at a sma… | Continue reading
“Letters To a New Developer” is now a book! Here’s the cover: | Continue reading
This is a guest post from Adam Leventhal. Enjoy. Dear new developer, I love software engineering. Even as excited as I was to start my first job, I didn’t imagine the deep and enduring joy it would… | Continue reading
Dear new developer, I want to preface this with the fact that I am not a lawyer, so please don’t take this as legal advice. This is my experience with employment contracts and other legal adv… | Continue reading
Dear new developer, For large long term life decisions, you should realize a few things. First, that few decisions are 100% irreversible. Second, that the choices you have in the future are based o… | Continue reading
Dear new developer, It’s paradoxical, but sometimes the best thing you can do is not write code. Remember, the value you provide is to solve the problem you are faced with (the outcome), not … | Continue reading
This is a guest post from Donnie Berkholz, lightly edited. Enjoy! Dear new developer, Since joining an enterprise (the world’s largest business-travel company) a while ago to drive their DevOps tra… | Continue reading
This is a guest post from Cara Borenstein. Enjoy. Dear new developer, A couple of years ago, I started my first job in Silicon Valley. I was a junior software engineer at a fast-moving company and … | Continue reading
Dear new developer, Businesses will spend money to make money (or save money, which is essentially the same thing). This is what they are doing when they are hiring you, when they buy that shiny ne… | Continue reading
Dear new developer, At some point in your career, you might get laid off. This is different than being fired for performance reasons (which might happen too, unfortunately). First off, I am not a l… | Continue reading
Dear new developer, Design patterns are common ways to implement solutions that can be repurposed across different systems and domains. This post proposes patterns for handling organizational situa… | Continue reading
This is a guest blog post from Rick Manelius. Enjoy. Dear new developer, Can you name all 50 US states? How about their capitals? Every city in the US? Every town? Could you list the GPS coordinate… | Continue reading
Dear new developer, If you want to build good software, learn automated testing. Depending on your platform of choice, you may have good defaults or you may need to investigate options. But I think… | Continue reading
Dear New Developer, Congratulations! Let’s take a moment to celebrate the decision you’ve made to launch or redirect your career. What lies ahead is a lot of hard work, satisfaction, the occasional… | Continue reading
Dear new developer, There’s an art to saying no. And there’s power in doing so. I worked on a project that was creating a Yahoo clone early in my career. The lead developer got sick. I … | Continue reading
Dear new developer, Right now you’re probably a bit frustrated and confused. You’re learning a lot of things and you don’t really understand everything. Sometimes things click and… | Continue reading
Dear new developer, You have to manage your career. If you don’t, no one else will. This means three things. Know what you want. Communicate that. Make moves toward it. Let’s talk about… | Continue reading
This is a guest blog post, lightly edited, from Josh Doody. Enjoy. Dear new developer, Let’s talk about jobs. My first job I was 25, and I wanted to move my career along as quickly as possibl… | Continue reading
This is a guest post from Jeff Beard, lightly edited. Enjoy. Dear New Developer, Preparing for a university job fair or similar recruiting event is very important if you want to make an impression … | Continue reading
Dear new developer, A big part of your job is keeping up to date with new technologies and happenings in the tech world. This can sometimes be a distraction, because there is all kinds of new stuff… | Continue reading
Dear new developer, I was at a lunch a few weeks ago and asked some senior engineers and managers what advice they’d give to a new developer. One said: “never stop learning”. I th… | Continue reading
Dear new developer, If in doubt, put it under version control. Version control is a way for you to keep track of the core nuts and bolts of code, which are files on the filesystem. Version control … | Continue reading
This is a guest post from Jenn Quindica. Enjoy. Dear New Developer, I didn’t learn how to program until I was 18; in fact, I didn’t know about computer science the concept until I was 1… | Continue reading
Dear new developer, Work on your network. It will help you in numerous ways as you progress in your career. Whatever you are looking for: a new job, to hire someone, to get a mentor, to learn about… | Continue reading
This is a guest post from Kim Schlesinger. Enjoy. Dear New Developer, I know you worked hard to get where you are. You are self-taught, you earned a degree in computer science, or you graduated fro… | Continue reading
This is a guest post from Rishi Malik. Enjoy. Hello New Developer! Right now, it’s Q1 2019. And there’s a lot of advice you’ll find out here on the internet. Much of it is good, some of it is bad, … | Continue reading
This is a guest post from Tae Kim. Enjoy. Heyo! So you’ve entered the world of… development? Software engineering? Programming? Coding? So many words for the same thing! I usually stick with “Softw… | Continue reading
Dear new developer, Remote work is fantastic. You avoid a commute, have control over your work environment, and save money on lunches. However, it has downsides. You need a fast internet connection… | Continue reading
Dear new developer, When building a system, you’re going to be confronted with lots of decisions. Unless you are operating in a total vacuum, you’ll have to reach agreement with other p… | Continue reading
Dear new developer, Sometimes when you are thinking about a new job or shifting to a new position in a company, it can feel overwhelming. What if I make the wrong choice? At least, I’ve often… | Continue reading
This is a guest post from Josh Thompson. Enjoy. Dear New Developer, You know that there’s a chasm between your skill level and that of the mythical “senior software developer”. If… | Continue reading
Dear new developer, I found this post, “How to Become the Best in the World at Something”, enlightening. The author is arguing that if you pick one area to be the best in, you’re … | Continue reading
Dear new developer, Coding is so much more than typing into a computer. Other things that matter: knowing who to talk to what to build when to discuss high and low level concepts other processes li… | Continue reading
Dear new developer, Depending on what your life looks like, you may have some time where your body is occupied, but your mind is not. At least not 100%. Tasks like doing the dishes, running and dri… | Continue reading
Dear new developer, Learn two languages. When you know just one language, you can go a long way, especially if the language is dominant. In web development, that language is javascript. In system p… | Continue reading
Dear new developer, Every company has its warts (aka issues, aka problems). I have never met anyone who worked for the perfect company. So, go in with your eyes wide open and choose what warts your… | Continue reading
Dear new developer, Read books about software development. Seriously. Now, you won’t learn the latest techniques from books. Those will live online in blogs or videos (or in papers, if you wo… | Continue reading
Dear new developer, This Ask HN is worth a read, as there are some good tips on how to succeed in a larger company. I’ve been here for about a month now and still feel like I’m mostly j… | Continue reading
Dear new developer, When you are considering a career move, whether to a startup, a sabbatical or further schooling (basically any time when your income will exceed your expenses) it pays to calcul… | Continue reading
Dear new developer, It’s a good idea to learn SQL (which stands for structured query language). This is the language that the vast majority of data is stored in for most companies. The reason… | Continue reading
Dear new developer, Early in your career you are judged on potential. Frankly, this is because when you are young in your career, you don’t have much of a track record, so there’s not m… | Continue reading
This is a guest post from Cierra Nease. Enjoy. Dear new developer, “Failures” as a new developer are plenty — but you might be asking, why is “failures” in parentheses? To fail something is d… | Continue reading
Dear new developer, Use copy and paste as much as you can. Not so much for code snippets from Stackoverflow, though that will save you some time hunting down mismatched parentheses. But this is esp… | Continue reading