1.Patience....and lots of it!

In the world of technology and development it’s normal for this side of the world to introduce new software and hardware almost daily. And as a developer, you’re expected to keep up as much as humanly possible in order to stay ahead of the trend. But not only are you expected to be aware of the new technology that comes out, but you’re also expected to widen your breadth of knowledge in the technology you’re currently niched in. It can be a lot and quite frankly - it is a lot. And because of the amount of knowledge so readily available for your consumption, it’s critical to be patient with yourself when it comes down to learning new information. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the idea of you should be understanding something quicker than you are. Especially when it seems your peers are outpacing you on that same topics. Trust me, don’t fall for the mirage in the desert. You’re not alone in the feeling. I encourage you to make a flexible game plan every few months, simply checking in with yourself on the technologies and tools you desired learning and exploring. And while you’re learning new technologies, build, build, build, and build some more. Break code, debug code, and contribute to open-source code in that technology stack - just get your hands dirty!

2.Flexible Communication & Negotiation

Maybe it was just me, but as an introvert I thought the world of development was a “every man for himself” type of environment. That couldn’t be further from the truth, this is a highly connected and community oriented environment and if you’re not prepared to tweak your tune for the crowd your communicating to, you will unfortunately suffer. You could have the greatest speech on a project you created, but what good is it if you didn’t match the message to the crowd you’re targeting. Be prepared to work with many people from all walks of life.

3.Child-like Curiosity & Imagination

With the wide range of exploration option the tech world provides, it’s essential to carry with you a childlike curiosity about all that you encounter as it makes the journey that much more rewarding. Getting lost for hours in a code base, just trying out different logic paths is bound to lead you to new discoveries across the web from the googling you may have to do as you dive deeper. Not having an end goal in mind and just letting your coding auto-pilot come on helps cement information as you’re bound to want to learn something you’re actually interested and excited about.

4.Knowing When to Move On

Sometimes, the code is just broken and it’s okay to call it quits. Yes tenacity is golden, but keeping your sanity is worth even more. After you’ve given a task at hand plenty of effort and time, it’s okay to bury it and move on. And whose to say after moving on and learning new concepts, the solution comes to you at a later date. The good thing about code, for the most part if you’re keeping up with your storage - it’ll always be there for you! And maybe before calling it quits, it never hurts to bring in some outside eyes to help guide you along, but again if that method renders futile, it is a-okay to save it for another time in the future. As time goes on and you continue coding, you can only get better. Changing perspective a little bit here, think of the code that’s broken and seemingly unfixable for you now as a problem you’re gifting future you to solve once you have the knowledge base for such complexity. It’s like you’re your own Yoda.

5.Ability to Accept Multiple Truths

One of my favorite aspects of coding, is that there is so many ways to reach the same destination! It’s incredibly freeing and exciting as you could recode the same project over and over just to test different syntax out, but since being in a coding boot camp I’ve soon realized that not all people inherently enjoy that amount of laxity, as it makes learning concepts a bit more difficult if you’re learning material from one source and they do it a certain way and then switch to a different resource and they go about the same concept in a completely different way. I can agree that part of the learning process can be frustrating, but that’s where point 3 comes in! It’s going to take some Frankenstein level of stitching and removing of elements to get things to work right, but hey- that’s what coding is about!