How do you keep updating your programming and coding skills as a software developer? It is imperative to be aware of the latest updates, libraries, frameworks, and even languages to optimize your coding efficiency and remain relevant in the dynamic job market. This has even become more important for the remote workforce and distributed teams as they work independently.
Worried about keeping your skills updated? Here are the best ways to keep your skills updated as a software developer.
Keep reading programming blogs
John Sonmez, the author of the book "The Complete Software Developer’s Career Guide," suggests that reading programming blogs every day is one of the best ways to remain updated on the latest trends and changes in the programming world. This helps you know what is new in the programming community and why it is important to you. In addition, this reading habit makes you aware of the complex problems in software development and approaches to solve them, particularly as a remote worker.
Following websites and social media platforms
There are communities of programmers on social media sites that keep updating followers about the changes and updates in the programming world. For example, if you are part of a remote workforce and you are a frontend developer and use HTML, CSS, Java, React, or jQuery for software development, then you can go to Youtube, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other platforms to look for pages and experts who keep tweeting and posting about the updates on these programming platforms. Some popular websites that you can follow are Geeks for Geeks, Medium, Free Code Camp, Reddit, and Hacker News.
Take online courses
In this era of information technology, you can take any class from anywhere in the world at any time. Whether you are working full-time or part of a distributed team or remote workforce, you can take an online course from platforms such as Coursera, EdX, Udemy, Udacity, and others, and complete it whenever you find the time. Some of the top universities in the world, like MIT, Harvard, and Oxford, offer their online courses on these platforms, and you can get a chance to learn from their world-class faculty. Moreover, once you complete your course, you can also get certificates that drastically increase your value as a remote worker. This is the best way to keep your skills updated as a software developer.
Attend Events/Conferences/Meetups
Usually, software developers spend most of their time working in front of laptops. If you are a part of a remote workforce or distributed team, then your social interactions become zero. In such circumstances, meeting like-minded people is as important as the practical implementation of skills in the workplace. Networking with like-minded people at conferences, workshops, seminars, and meetups is an important way of gaining new skills and knowledge. Moreover, you can also get a chance to meet face-to-face with industry players and learn from them about the latest architectures, frameworks, designs, libraries, and updates.
Updating your software skills is essential to getting a promotion, personal growth, or joining a better company.
At Axented we have open positions for developers. Axelerate your career by joining our team and becoming part of a growing tech community working for scale-ups and start-ups.
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