Books

The Complete Software Developer’s Career Guide

John Sonmez (Simple Programmer), an awesome guy that I’m following for some time now just published a new book called The Complete Software Developer’s Career Guide and you can get it here.

Currently the Kindle edition is on sale for less than a buck, so you may wanna jump on this opportunity!

He is the author of one of the best books for Software developers called Soft Skills: The Software Developer’s Life Manual. I wrote a detailed review about that book two years ago, and you can check it out here.

So, for this new book, here’s what he will teach you:

  • How to systematically find and fill the gaps in your technical knowledge so you can face any new challenge with confidence
  • Should you take contract work—or hold out for a salaried position? Which will earn you more, what the tradeoffs are, and how your personality should sway your choice
  • Should you learn JavaScript, C#, Python, C++? How to decide which programming language you should master first
  • Ever notice how every job ever posted requires “3-5 years of experience,” which you don’t have? Simple solution for this frustrating chicken-and-egg problem that allows you to build + legitimate job experience while you learn to code
  • Is earning a computer science degree a necessity—or a total waste of time? How to get a college degree that accelerates your career without burying you under a mountain of debt
  • Interviewer tells you, “Dress code is casual around here—the whole development team wears flipflops.” What should you wear?
  • Coding bootcamps—some are great, others are complete scams. How to tell the difference, so you don’t find yourself cheated out of $10,000
  • An inside look at the recruiting industry. What that “friendly” recruiter really wants from you, how they get paid, and how to avoid getting pigeonholed into a job you’ll hate
  • How do you deal with a boss who’s a micromanager. Plus how helping your manager with his goals can make you the MVP of your team
  • The must-know technical skills that every professional developer should have—but no one teaches you

Now, this indeed is copied ? from his book landing page, but I’m actually 100% certain all of it is true. How? Did I already read the WHOLE book!? Well, here’s the crazy part – during the last year or so, he was giving the chapters of his book for free on his website.

Here’s the review I left on Amazon about this book:

If you don’t like this book, I’m gonna buy it from you

I guarantee that if you follow John’s advice, if you trust the process, you’ll turn your software career around! Ever since I started following John via his blog and YouTube videos and applying what he teaches I need binoculars to look way back where I was. I can’t say a big enough thank you to John and this book is just a huge collection of everything you’ll ever need to know to succeed in this ever so slightly lucrative field of software development.

I personally believe that the concept of ‘trusting the process’ is the best skill to cultivate and nurture because it will catapult your success forward in ways you can’t imagine. He has some more videos about this topic, and you can watch them on his YouTube channel here. But, as many say:

It’s simple, but not easy

So keep that in mind and don’t back down when things get hard!

Written by Nikola Brežnjak