A Career in Tech

By Gunner Technology

Gunner Technology reviews the ins and outs of a career in the technology industry. From the day-to-day responsibilities of a software developer to the best and worst aspects of the job, from the need for a college degree in computer science to what employers look for in potential employees, Gunner Technology covers it all. You'll learn how to best prepare yourself for a career in tech, how to best position yourself to get that job in tech, and how to thrive in the industry once you've started your career in tech.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gunner Technology
• Release date: Aug 10, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463479278

Gunner Technology

An AWS Partner specializing in JavaScript development for government and business.

Book preview

1 A Day in the Life of a Software Developer

Jigsaw Puzzle

Puzzles/Problems

What is it like to be a software developer?

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The best analogy we could come up with is doing a jigsaw puzzle.

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A lot of technology work is problem solving. You’re basically doing mini-puzzles all the time.

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Just like looking for the right piece for an empty square, a lot of your time as a developer is spent looking for the right solution to your current problem.

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You’ll be doing tons of research (more on that later) and writing/throwing away tons of code. Constant experimentation, searching for a solution: that’s what software development is all about.

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And your brain spends a lot of time thinking about solutions, both consciously and unconsciously. You’ll never stop thinking about an issue until it’s done.

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Even when you’re not actively involved in the problem, your brain will be working on it. Often, hours or sometimes even days later, you’ll have a flash of insight and immediately see the solution to the issue.

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And sometimes it’ll even be hard to sleep. (Although that might be an effect of the massive amounts of caffeine you’ll be consuming, but more on that later.)

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You might wake up in the middle of the night, run to the computer, and finish in an hour what you’d spent the previous couple days trying to figure out.

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With that much cognitive effort, there’s one thing that makes someone really good at software development (or jigsaw puzzles for that matter).

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And it’s not intelligence.

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It’s stubbornness.

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Software problems take time. Often it’s an hour of planning, ninety minutes of research, half an hour of implementation, and two hours of testing.

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It’s a huge effort, but you’ve got to have the willpower to power through every single one of those steps.

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And often, you’ll be working on something you’ve never done before. You’ll be in unfamiliar territory, breaking new ground, and it can get pretty frustrating.

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But the good news is, you start recognizing patterns and learn to work in different contexts.

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(Just like with jigsaw puzzles, to belabor that analogy just a bit more, where you know whether you’re looking for an edge piece or if you’re looking for a particular color or pattern.)

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You’ll start recognizing what kind of problem you’re trying to solve and have different tools for different tasks. And speaking of tools...

Tools of the Trade

You have help as a software developer.

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First, and foremost, you have coffee.

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Coffee Mug

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Caffeine is your friend. It helps you focus on the task at hand and push through when you’re stuck with a frustrating problem.

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(That’s also why a lot of software developers take Adderall. You get that artificial, priceless, laserlike focus. You basically feel like Bradley Cooper in Limitless.)

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And when you need to get creative, you can leverage what’s known as the Ballmer Peak.

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Steve Ballmer

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According to Steve Ballmer, there’s a peak BAC (Blood-Alcohol Content) for coding, somewhere around 0.14. So don’t be afraid to knock a couple back, especially when you’re trying to