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The Coding Career Handbook

Gain insights into landing and excelling at coding jobs through essential principles, strategies, and tactics. Explore unconventional career advice tailored for early-career software engineers.

5.0

240 Lessons

10h 30min

Join 2.9 million developers at

Learning Roadmap

240 Lessons28 Quizzes

Getting Started

Get familiar with the essentials and realities of navigating a coding career.

Preface: Real Talk

Part I: Your Coding Career

Look at the stages, principles, company types, career layers, and diversity in your coding career.

Introduction: Your Coding Career

Principles Over Titles

Company Types

Career Layers

Diversity

The Five Career Stages

Quiz Yourself on Your Coding Career

Code Newbies

4 Lessons

Break apart the journey from coding newbie to proficient developer, leveraging resources, community, and practice.

The (First) Job Hunt

8 Lessons

Apply your skills to navigate the job hunt, leveraging networking, strategies, and interview practice.

Junior Developer

6 Lessons

Take a closer look at thriving as a junior developer through support, learning, and value addition.

From Junior to Senior

6 Lessons

Follow the process of transitioning from a junior to a senior developer role.

Senior Developer

9 Lessons

Master the steps to navigate senior developer roles, balancing leadership, technical debt, and business impact.

Beyond your Coding Career

7 Lessons

Learn how to use diverse non-coding career paths to enrich your professional life.

Part II: Principles

Look at effective strategies for personal and professional growth in coding careers.

Principles

10.

Learn in Public

7 Lessons

Work your way through learning in public to foster growth, build networks, and enhance careers.

11.

Clone Open Source Apps

2 Lessons

Explore coding skills by cloning and enhancing open-source apps, focusing on execution and iteration.

12.

Know your Tools

4 Lessons

Map out the steps for mastering tools, avoiding FOMO, and understanding design patterns.

13.

Specialize in the New

4 Lessons

Investigate the benefits of specializing in emerging technologies for career advancement.

14.

Open Source Your Knowledge

7 Lessons

Practice using open-source knowledge to accelerate growth, share expertise, and foster collaboration.

15.

Spark Joy

8 Lessons

Explore how to spark joy in coding through thoughtful practices and collaborative actions.

16.

The Platinum and Silver Rules

3 Lessons

Discover the logic behind treating others and oneself with respect and consideration.

17.

Good Enough is Better than Best

4 Lessons

Examine the benefits of embracing "good enough" over the unachievable pursuit of perfection.

18.

First Principles Thinking

5 Lessons

Enhance your skills in understanding and applying First Principles Thinking for effective problem-solving.

19.

Write, A Lot

10 Lessons

Develop a strong writing habit to enhance your impact, communicate effectively, and grow professionally.

20.

Pick Up What They Put Down

5 Lessons

Investigate how engaging with content creators can enhance learning and build connections.

21.

Part III: Strategies

Build on strategic decision-making in coding careers, from learning strategies to industry trends.

Strategies

22.

Intro to Strategy

4 Lessons

Get familiar with strategy's role in career success, vital decision-making, and effective planning.

23.

Learning Gears

6 Lessons

Discover the logic behind adaptive learning gears to navigate diverse knowledge and growth paths.

24.

Specialist vs. Generalist

7 Lessons

Examine the balance between specialization and generalization to tailor your coding career path.

25.

Betting on Technologies

5 Lessons

Find out about strategic technology choices for career growth and mitigating risks.

26.

Profit Center vs Cost Center

6 Lessons

Dig deeper into the roles, dynamics, and perceptions of profit, cost, and investment centers.

27.

Engineering Career Ladders

5 Lessons

Follow the process of career progression, role expectations, and company-specific ladders for engineers.

28.

Intro to Tech Strategy

7 Lessons

Approach tech strategy by integrating technical skills with business needs for impactful development.

29.

Strategic Awareness

9 Lessons

Learn how to use strategic awareness to navigate technology, prioritize goals, and build knowledge.

30.

Megatrends

5 Lessons

Get started with leveraging megatrends in technology to drive innovation and disruption.

31.

Part IV: Tactics

Go hands-on with key tactical skills for career growth, including negotiation, design, and time efficiency.

Tactics

32.

Negotiating

5 Lessons

Break down complex ideas in negotiation to increase earnings, advocate value, and secure offers.

33.

How to Learn in Private

5 Lessons

Map out the steps for optimizing private learning and enhancing coding skills.

34.

Design for Developers in a Hurry

7 Lessons

Discover methods to enhance user engagement with appealing designs, easy-to-use tools, and practical design principles.

35.

Lampshading

6 Lessons

Learn how to improve using lampshading strategically to foster collaboration and embrace vulnerability.

36.

Conference CFPs

9 Lessons

Step through the process of crafting and submitting effective conference CFPs to enhance your speaking career.

37.

Mise en Place Writing

7 Lessons

Unpack the core of pre-writing, ideation, research, and flexible improvisation for effective writing.

38.

Side Projects

5 Lessons

Break apart the importance of side projects, balance, project ideas, practical advice, and inspirational examples.

39.

Developer’s Guide to Twitter

11 Lessons

Build meaningful connections on Twitter to enhance professional growth and community engagement.

40.

Marketing Yourself (without Being a Celebrity)

14 Lessons

Deepen your knowledge of personal branding and effective career marketing strategies.

41.

The Operating System of You

6 Lessons

Enhance performance by upgrading mental frameworks, habits, health, productivity tools, scheduling, and intrinsic drive.

42.

Conclusion

Build on the importance of emotional well-being, mental health, and personal growth in coding careers.

The Emotional Journey of Your Coding Career

Certificate of Completion

Showcase your accomplishment by sharing your certificate of completion.

Developed by MAANG Engineers

ABOUT THIS COURSE

The non-coding part of being a successful software engineer is very important, but also happens to be very under-discussed. This is a course about getting great coding jobs and doing well at coding jobs. Especially if you're earlier in your career, there's a lot here that you might otherwise take years to learn, and your manager will never tell you. This is NOT going to be a conventional career advice course. There is a linear discussion of Career Guides, followed by a nonlinear collection of Principles, Strategies, and Tactics - independent essays of ideas that you may or may not agree with but are worth considering anyway. This course is a conversation starter, not a conversation ender. It will help get you on the right path to being the best engineer and the best you, you can be.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Shawn Swyx Wang

Head of Developer Experience at Temporal, author of the Coding Career Handbook.

Learn more about Shawn

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