I’ve been a software developer for a few years now. I was studying computer science at the university for six years and now I’ve been working as a full-time software developer for another six years. I think it’s time to summarize what I’ve learned so far and how studying at university differs from real life.

My Experience

A programming code

I work mainly on back end side of things in NodeJS and Typescript. I have experience with developing web applications using Angular and AngularJS and for a few years, I was responsible for developing “something like Google Analytics” which included the usage of some big data technologies such as Hadoop or Kafka to process thousands or even ten thousand events per second.

Six years ago, I started to work in a rather small company founded in the Czech Republic, Europe. We had about 15 programmers and our business was mostly local. Now, we are part of a giant German company named Ströer. I’ve experienced the transition from a company that does daily standup meetings in a single room to a decentralized company as we have a sister company in New Zealand.

So what have I learned?

  • Meetings are Useful. Do you like meetings? If you are a software developer, the most likely answer is: “No, I’d rather spend hours fixing other people printers than attend a meeting!” But meetings are important part of developer’s daily job. You should learn how to moderate them and how to take advantage of them. Continue reading…
  • Logs are Windows to the Past you Desperately Need. Imagine yourself going after a bug some customer reported. Do you remember saying “God, I hate these descriptive logs! I wish we logged less stuff!” You don’t remember saying it? Me neither. Because I ❤ logs. Continue reading…
  • (I have learned more than this, coming soon!)

(Pictures are from unsplash.com)