Essential Developer Skills not Taught in University

I was always baffled how little Universities actually do to prepare Engineers for the real world of Software Development.

There are many things that I see missing.

But here’s the top three Skills I see Graduates lacking:

  • Using their Tools effectively.

  • Properly. Documenting. Everything.

  • Doing manual labour. Automate!

Code for long enough, and you’ll learn these to be true.

Let me elaborate ⬇️


Mastering Your Tools 🔨 🧰

“If I had 8 hours to chop a tree, I’d spend 7 sharpening my axe”

— Abraham Lincoln

Abraham already figured it out. Follow his Advice.

An Essential Toolkit every Developer contains:

  • A fine tuned environment

  • Effective Version Control

  • Shortcuts / Commands / Scripts

So go sharpen your Axe! 🪓


Documentation is Key 📚

Quality Software Documentation improves Software Delivery, according to the State of DevOps Report 2021.

HowTo’s & Guides are prerequisites for Automation and Asynchronous Communication.

A crucial ingreedient for today’s remote working environments


Pro Tip: Version Control Serves as Documentation Too

Learn how to document your changes with Intent.

This is hard and takes time.

Get Started here:

https://twitter.com/ederbit/status/1620100060074676227


Automate 🤖

Let Robots do the work.

Write Scripts to automate your workflow.

Build Helper Tools for specific Use Cases.

Here are some Examples:

3 Workflows that I’ve Automated

  1. Launching apps with custom layouts for University/Work/Personal

  2. Applying System Configurations across all my Systems

  3. Auto-compressing any videos I upload to my Cloud


Pro Tip: Record Yourself Working

Rewatch after your work session with 2x Speed.

Do you notice any patterns? Do you repeat yourself?

Take notes and find ways to remove bottlenecks.


Quick Recap

  • Learn to master your tools 🔨 🧰

  • Produce quality Documentation 📚

  • Automate. Automate. Automate. 🤖


First published as a Thread https://twitter.com/ederbit/status/1625196082610290689