Growing your career

As of now, there are a lot of developers in the IT industry willing to advance in their professional careers who don't know how. This is meant to be a quick reference for them.

One could argue to include resources - there is almost no reference to devops, infosec, agile, AI, iOS nor any new cool frontend framework like React or Angular - but in my opinion if you have done enough of the points of this generic list, you will have already the resources not to need any list.

Note: If you don't know English well, it's time for you to learn. Many resources and documentations are written in it

• You will need to have a mindset of continuous improvement.
• There are many resources on the Internet (like this one). Some of them will be of great help and many others will only misguide you. It is difficult at the beginning, but try to discern them.
• If possible, try to find someone trustworthy with knowledge who is willing to mentor you. It will help a lot.
• Technical books that you should, at least, know of:
  • The Pragmatic Programmer
  • The Software Craftsman
  • Clean Code
  • Test Driven Development: By Example
  • Head First Design Patterns
  • Growing Object-Oriented Software, Guided by Tests (A.K.A. GOOS)
  • Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code
  • Working Effectively with Legacy Code
  • Domain Driven Design Destilled - Maybe later you will have time to read Implementing Domain-Driven Design or Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software
• Some of the videos that can help you:
  • One of the many screencasts of Sandro Mancuso
  • Videos on clean code by Uncle Bob
• Practice, practice, and more practice. By reading and listening alone you won't achieve anything.
• Contribute to open source projects if you can. Do stuff and put it in your public repository.
• Value yourself.
• Go to conferences, meetups, etc. Not only you will learn many things but also you will find other people to share points of view. Oh, and you will enjoy the all-important networking: You have to know people in the communities and the companies involved.
• Find the appropiate job for you. They should facilitate and encourage your learning. You won't be able to grow professionaly if you don't like what you do or it's difficult for you to find time for your growth - Speaking of appropriate jobs, do you know we're hiring? :)

Some times it will be hard. It will be OK, be confident.

If you have the will, you will make it as high as you want to. And remember not to run but to enjoy yourself on the path. It is all we have.