Software development continues to be one of the most popular career choice for new members of the work force to choose.

It makes sense. There are endless opportunities. The salaries can be high. The work can be groundbreaking.

However, everyone is going to need to start at an intern or junior level. Here are the things I wish I knew, or practiced, earlier in my career.

Let's dive in.

Seek feedback early and often

We are all told to ask as many questions as possible, especially early on in our careers. However, this can be intimidating for juniors.

My advice is to move past it. Accept that asking questions can make you look stupid or vulnerable. That's part of the process. The alternative, to not ask questions or get feedback, is far worse.

I've seen and coached a lot of juniors. The ones that went the furthest in the shortest amount of time are the ones that asked a lot of questions. They have a hunger to learn more and to understand as much as possible.

"What does this part of the solution do?"

"Can you look over some code I just wrote?"

"How can I improve as a developer?"

The more you ask these types of questions, the better you'll become. It's guaranteed growth.

Soft skills are essential

You will only go so far on your raw technical skills alone. Soft skills are just as important and this is something to learn as early as possible.

We all write code for computers to understand, but you need to be a person that humans can understand. Skills like communication, teamwork and empathy all come into play.

The person who is a great coder and is also a great teammate is the person who will go furthest.

Embrace documentation

Love it or hate it, documentation is one of your best tools as a developer.

As a junior, all I wanted to do was code and build things. I ignored documentation. No notes. No helpful comments. No diagrams of my thought process.

Do you know what happened? Six months later, I'd have no idea what I was trying to achieve or what my old code was meant to do.

Documentation is powerful and you have to do it. It's so beneficial to not only your future self, but also the rest of the team who has to work with your code.

In today's world, you can use the power of ChatGPT to save you tons of time, so writing documentation isn't as exhausting. I wrote an article here that helps explain how to go about that.

Get started writing documentation today.

Stay curious

Typically, junior developers are very curious.

Everything is new and exciting to them so there is a natural level of curiosity that they are trying to satisfy. This is great but also dangerous.

After some time, those juniors get more experience and start to get more comfortable. They only start working with the technologies they know or enjoy. They stop learning new things and growing.

This should terrify you.

This industry moves at breakneck speed and it's your responsibility to keep up. You need to stay in the know on what the latest tools, stacks and frameworks are. You don't have to dive very deep into each one, but it's always beneficial to have a basic understand because, who knows, you may be using that new shiny thing one day soon.

Understand the business

​Junior developers often think that their job is just to write code. This is true to a certain level. A better way of looking at it is that you provide value by solving problems through using code as your tool.

With that in mind, begin to understand how your company makes money. How do they attract more work? What type of skillsets does the company not currently have that could benefit the company? What can you learn that will make you irreplaceable?

From your findings, start learning as much as you can about what you identified. The goal is to level yourself up to become a highly valuable developer. You're not just writing code, you're providing further value to your company by having skills that they need which could create more work for them which increases your value even further.

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If you are a junior developer, I wish you all the best and hope that these 5 tips were useful.

If you're wanting to learn from my and the experience of many others to help grow your knowledge, go ahead and grab a FREE copy of my book, 101 Tips For Becoming A Better Developer.​

See you again next week.