Portrait of successful Java developer in 2015
The 2014 is over and it’s time to start implement all plans. But which plans can have an usual Java developer? It’s not a trivial question because someone want to buy a new sweater with moose and someone want to build an awesome web project. Since this is a technical blog, I’ll think in a programming and professional directions.
When I was studying in the university, one of my favorite professors said to me: “Doesn’t matter what are you doing, you always need to be in front of any activity”. From that time I try to adhere this statement. Returning to our topic, I want to write about some important topics which will characterise a successful Java developer in 2015.
Characteristic #1 – Up to date knowledge
Successful Java developer definitely will be enlightened about all latest Java features and news. This characteristic also involve the most popular frameworks such as Spring. This is good challenge for those kind of developers who work on old projects with a huge amount of legacy code. How to do this in a most effective way? I’d recommend to follow accounts of Java, Oracle, Spring and rest of interesting accounts in Twitter.
This is minimum which need to be done.
Characteristic #2 – Not only Java
For those developers who have already adhered point #1, will be useful to look at functional programming languages such as Scala or JavaScript. The first one case is more closer to Java, because it’s JVM-based language. The second one is more comprehensive, because JavaScript exists on client-side and server side, as a result you can become a full stack developer.
But the both cases are difficult for classic OOP-true programmers, because they have functional paradigm which always looks wild for Java developers.
Characteristic #3 – Community life
It will be difficult to become a successful programmer without opinion of other developers. Take a part in community life by participating in conferences as a speaker or as a trainer on programming courses. If these cases seems not suitable for you, try to contribute in open source projects on GitHub. Ideally these three activities need to be present in life of pro-active Java developer.
Characteristic #4 – Trends, science and education
Analysing successful projects and startups I understood that the most important technological trend for Java developers in 2015 is big data. Hadoop or Spark? Personally I choose the last one. For sure in this year I’ll try to use it in one of my projects.
When you work in a commercial software development you start think in a context of business domain. As a rule it leads to losing of natural way of developer thinking – scientific thinking. In order to eliminate this circumstance you can try to switch your mind activity by some computer science courses on coursera.
The cherry on the cake is a reading of books. The more new, modern, technical books you read the better understanding of cutting edge approaches in software development you have.
Characteristic #5 – Pet projects
Not always your employer give you chance to practice in a new technology or framework etc. It’s not his fault. It’s one of stimulus to develop your own project where you are able to try everything you want.
Summary
Someone after reading of this article would say: “What are you talking about, man?”, – and it’s normal for me. It’s my vision of how successful Java developer would look like in 2015. Furthermore, I’m going to unite all of this characteristics in personal career this year. So let’s do it together, dear competitors =)
