• Question: what are the skills needed as a emerging software developer

    Asked by matthew on 4 Mar 2025. This question was also asked by jump519wren.
    • Photo: Kate Belson

      Kate Belson answered on 4 Mar 2025:

      There are lots of online resources that can help you learn to code – I like codecademy.com, it takes you through from the basics and has lots of free courses! Practicing your maths skills is also helpful, as well as solving “logic” problems – try downloading some logic or problem solving games on your phone.

    • Photo: Marcus Davage

      Marcus Davage answered on 5 Mar 2025:

      You can learn many technical skills online.

      What you can’t learn online is character: Are you trustworthy? Honest? With integrity? Respectful? Polite? Dependable? Constantly curious? Always willing to learn new things? Willing to ask for help? Can you accept failure and learn from its results? Are you happy to challenge or be challenged? Are you happy to do the mundane work without complaint or the important work without fear?

      If so, you’ll go far.

    • Photo: Sam Brown

      Sam Brown answered on 13 Mar 2025:

      To add you need great communication skills as you will need to sometimes communicate issues and what you did to fix it to non-technical people as well as technical team members or management.

    • Photo: Neil Barnby

      Neil Barnby answered on 25 Mar 2025:

      The obvious answer is to learn a programming language and it doesn’t necessarily have to be a particular one. Learn one, any one and you will then be able to pick up others and the popular/in demand ones change all the time. You also need to learn to be organised, good at problem solving and focussed – developing software is not easy or always interesting, you often have to programme bits you don’t enjoy.
      The main thing is you need to enjoy finding solutions to problems.

    • Photo: Caroline Roche

      Caroline Roche answered on 11 Apr 2025:

      Problem solving and creativity are good skills.
      You can also decide on whether to be a ‘Jack of all trades and master of none’ meaning you can transfer easily between different programming languages which can give you a broader range of opportunities. Or you can become a subject matter expert / guru in one particular language which can lead to opportunities as a specialist in that language.

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