5 Ways to Advance Rapidly as a Developer
You’re a developer and you’re ambitious. You love solving problems and you dream of being that chief architect or CTO that gets to guide a company on the right way of building software. How do you get the opportunities necessary to advance rapidly up the ladder?
I’ve worked with some truly outstanding developers, and there are several characteristics that make them stand out. Here are the most important ones, and while these may seem obvious, the team members that exemplify all of them are hard to find.
Number One: Own your lane
Not “stay in your lane.” “Own your lane.” When you own your lane, you can start to drift into other lanes too, and you’ll be encouraged to.
There’s a reason this is listed first. I’ve met many developers who want to have an impact on how their organization goes about producing software, but to do this, you have to be willing to put in the work and earn the trust of those you work with. Make sure you’re 100% solid on the small things. By small things, I mean getting your own work done consistently and to a high standard. Don’t expect people around you to take your input if you can’t show you are capable of more than your own basic responsibilities.
Get comfortable doing the job you were hired to do, and protect that. If you understand your responsibilities and are asked to do things outside those responsibilities before you are completely comfortable with them, push back. It will hurt you and it will hurt whatever team you’re on. Don’t get me wrong, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t stretch yourself. It does mean that before you can advance successfully, you need to get to the point that you can look at all your core responsibilities with confidence and be ready to see something else with a “bring it on” attitude.
Number Two: Make the effort before reaching out
Do your research before you ask someone else on your team to help. This includes trying multiple solutions, googling it, and struggling a little bit. If you haven’t struggled to find an answer before reaching out, you haven’t tried enough yet. Very few problems haven’t been solved by someone else before you. Many of the solutions that person came up with will be available to you online.
You may think I’m joking about ensuring you “google” something before reaching out… I’m not. There are few ways you degrade the confidence your team has in you than by consistently showing you want others to do the hard things for you.
On every software team there are developers who figure things out and those who don’t. Be one of the ones that can figure things out.
Number Three: Be willing to do the hard things
Is there an upcoming task that sounds difficult, not fun, and everyone on the team seems to be dreading? The developers I’ve worked with that inspire others around them to level up are the first ones to sign up for these tasks. Often, they’ll do it before the discussion even comes up, knowing that it’s an opportunity to make an impact. Taking on these tasks often means that you’ll have little to no help from the team around you, which can be an intimidating thought for many people. You have to be willing to crawl through poor documentation, experience failure, and push on between small wins and ultimately find success. If you want to stand out, though, one of the best ways is to be the person willing to take on the hard things and get them done.
Number Four: Be proactive
Really good team members don’t have to be told when something is critical. They know it. This means that when management decides to ask about it they either have a solution already, or they’re in the process of understanding it which builds confidence either way. If you see a way to improve your existing product then don’t wait for someone to think it’s a good idea to prototype something, do it. Could you end up wasting time by making changes that get thrown away? Possibly, but you’ll both learn new things and, if you’re good at it, score some wins that are valuable for the organization.
Number Five: Get the job done
You may think this is the same as “Own your lane.” They’re similar, and a big part of owning your lane is getting the job done, but this is important enough to be called out specifically. You will not be able to progress if you can’t get the job done. Instead, you want to be the one who can get that job done, and the job of those around you, if necessary. Be the person no one is checking up on because you consistently get your commitments done, and if you can’t, the reasons have already been communicated well in advance with options to mitigate risk. If I had to pick two of these that are most important, owning your lane and getting the job done are easily the most important.
