Career Growth in Software Development

Touhid Arastu

Feb 2024

• Director of engineering at Snapp! 
• Active in the tech industry since 2008.
• Collaborated with numerous talented Software engineers, contributing to successful project outcomes.
• Find me on social media with the handle: @arastuq

$ whoami?

Lets talk about

the ladder!

I’m not a great programmer; I’m just a good programmer with great habits.

– Kent Beck

Junior level

Radar Chart explained

relationship with the team(s)

3

People

level of engagement with the development process

4

Process

scope of influence of the position

5

Influence

• Adopts: actively learns and adopts the technology and tools defined by the team
• Specializes: is the go-to person for one or more technologies and takes initiative to learn new ones
• Evangelizes: researches, creates proofs of concept and introduces new technologies to the team
• Masters: has very deep knowledge about the whole technology stack of the system
• Creates: designs and creates new technologies that are widely used either by internal or external teams

Technology

• Enhances: successfully pushes new features and bug fixes to improve and extend the system

• Designs: designs and implements medium to large size features while reducing the system’s tech debt

• Owns: owns the production operation and monitoring of the system and is aware of its SLAs

• Evolves: evolves the architecture to support future requirements and defines its SLAs

• Leads: leads the technical excellence of the system and creates plans to mitigate outages

System

• Learns: quickly learns from others and consistently steps up when it is required
• Supports: proactively supports other team members and helps them to be successful
• Mentors: mentors others to accelerate their career-growth and encourages them to participate
• Coordinates: coordinates team members providing effective feedback and moderating discussions
• Manages: manages the team members’ career, expectations, performance and level of happiness

People

• Follows: follows the team processes, delivering a consistent flow of features to production
• Enforces: enforces the team processes, making sure everybody understands the benefits and tradeoffs
• Challenges: challenges the team processes, looking for ways to improve them
• Adjusts: adjusts the team processes, listening to feedback and guiding the team through the changes
• Defines: defines the right processes for the team’s maturity level, balancing agility and discipline

Process

• Subsystem: makes an impact on one or more subsystems
• Team: makes an impact on the whole team, not just on specific parts of it
• Multiple Teams: makes an impact not only his/her team but also on other teams
• Company: makes an impact on the whole tech organization
• Community: makes an impact on the tech community

Influence

Medior/Intermediat level

Senior level

All you need is the plan, the road map, and the courage to press on to your destination.

– Earl Nightingale

https://roadmap.sh

roadmap.sh is a community effort to create roadmaps, guides and other educational content to help guide developers in picking up a path and guide their learnings.

In software engineering, if you're the go-to person for, say, a programming language like Python, your colleagues might come to you for help with complex Python code, best practices, or when they need someone to lead a project that requires advanced Python skills.

Being a go-to person shows you've specialized in something valuable and are willing to share your knowledge and help your team.

• Programming Languages: Proficiency in at least two language.
• Algorithms and Data Structures: Understanding of basic algorithms, complexity, and efficient data handling.
• Version Control Systems: Knowledge of tools like Git for code management.

Core Technical Skills

• System Design: Ability to design scalable and maintainable systems.
• Cloud Computing: Familiarity with cloud services for deploying and managing applications.
• DevOps Practices: Understanding continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) practices.

Advanced Technical Skills

• karanpratapsingh/system-design
   

• donnemartin/system-design-primer
   

• binhnguyennus/awesome-scalability

• Problem-Solving: Creative and analytical approach to solving complex problems.
• Teamwork and Collaboration: Ability to work effectively in diverse teams.
• Communication: Clear and concise communication of technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.

Essential Soft Skills

• Project Management: Understanding the basics of project management and agile methodologies.
• Code Quality: Emphasis on writing clean, maintainable code with documentation.

Real-World Application

People Focused Track

• Maintains an understanding of technical projects but shifts focus towards management.
• Organizes and oversees projects to ensure timely completion.
• Responsible for team performance and project success.
• Guides team members, fosters their professional growth, and communicates with stakeholders.

Engineering Manager

• Strategic oversight over multiple projects, ensuring technical excellence.
• Manages larger teams or multiple smaller teams, focusing on scaling team efficiency.
• Influences broader product or technology decisions, ensuring alignment with business goals.
• Develops leaders within the team, negotiates with other departments, and sets a vision for the team.

Senior Engineering Manager

• Oversees the technical strategy for multiple teams or departments.
• Focuses on long-term goals, resource allocation, and optimizing processes.
• Drives significant contributions to the company's overall strategy and success.
• Represents engineering teams at the executive level, mentors managers, and shapes company culture.

Director of Engineering

• Conceptualization
• Product Design
• Development
• UI/UX Testing
• Branding

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