It's simple really: Recognition turns into validation which turns in more opportunity.

Opportunities like a promotion or a raise.

Everybody wants that, but it's getting increasing difficult for developers to get the recognition they deserve with companies getting larger or moving fully remote.

In this issue, we are going to break down 6 tactics that top developers use to increase their recognition to help 10x their careers.

Let's dive in.

Be amazing

This is an obvious one but it needs to be mentioned.

By writing quality code, being great to work with as well as being highly knowledgeable, you're going to make it far easier to be noticed as a quality developer.

However, being amazing doesn't guarantee that you'll get recognition. It will definitely help but it doesn't guarantee anything.

The following 5 tactics explore ways to accelerate getting that well-earned recognition for being an amazing developer.

Start a blog

Be it your own personal website, a Medium profile or a dev.to page, a mechanism to write down your findings or explain your opinions is a great tool for getting some recognition.

Most developers don't partake in any form of official knowledge-sharing which means by doing this, even if it's a post every couple of months, will give you a leg up on those around you.

Blog posts are so powerful because they are relatively low effort, are easily shareable and help build a visual portfolio of your knowledge base.

Conduct a tech talk with your team

This isn't going to be for everyone.

Many struggle with anxiety around public speaking or verbalizing their opinions to others in case of public criticism. That's completely natural and fully warranted.

However, if you're able to get past that and build up the courage and confidence to give a talk, you're going to find yourself in the top percentile of developers.

What does this mean? It means you're going to stand out.

Build a deck using a tool like Canva, make notes on some high level points to say and then practice in front of a mirror.

Once you get past the anxiety, it's not that difficult and is really fun.

Find a niche and go deep

If you're able to find a niche that you really enjoy and has a knowledge demand, you're setting yourself up for some good recognition.

It's not always easy to find something to specialize in or become known for, but there are so many aspects to software development that there will surely be something that you can pick up and make your own.

Be it YAML pipeline, server-side rendering or efficient recursive functions, pick something and become the most knowledge person about that topic. This will help create a dependency on you which organically provides you with a mechanism to prove your knowledge, value and worth.

Share your thoughts publicly

We all have thoughts and opinions. Some of them will follow the public and some of them will go against the grain.

I believe in sharing your opinions in public in a healthy manner.

Take topics that you know well, write them down and start identifying potential pieces of nuggets that you could publicly share that will provide value to others.

Investigate copywriting and content curation to help you hone your ability to take your knowledge and make it easily digestible to others.

You most likely came across this newsletter from my LinkedIn, so that's proof that this works. The exercise of sharing my knowledge in public has resulted in far more opportunities and valuable connections than I would have ever received otherwise.

Find an open-source project to contribute to

If you've got a solid GitHub profile, you've got an easy way to earn the respect and recognition that you deserve.

Building your own projects on GitHub is great, but it's far more impressive if you can find an open-source project to contribute to. Even if it's just a couple of lines of code.

Being able to say "I contributed" to something that's being used by millions of people is super powerful in the game of turning heads and validating your abilities.

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I've personally used all of the above tactics at various points in my career to help boost my climb and get the recognition I needed to keep moving forward.

The best part is that you don't have to pick one. You can do them all at the same time and really 10x your career.

Trust me. Try it.

See you again next week.