240. How To Upgrade Your Software Development Job

How can I get a better job in software development? How do I get ahead at work as a C# developer? What are my next steps? These are the questions we will answer in today's episode of Dev Questions.

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SPEAKER_01 0:00

Do you have a job in software development that isn't the best? Maybe it works for now, but you want to take the next step in your career. In today's episode, we're going to talk about how to upgrade your job in software development for a better job. Wishing for a new job is great, but it doesn't actually accomplish anything. Let's talk about the 11 concrete steps that you can take to take your career to the next level.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Welcome to the Dev Questions podcast with Tim Corey.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

Software development is more than just writing code. So let's talk about the rest of it. Specifically, let's talk about how to take your career to the next level with a better job. Now, back in episode 236, we talked about what your next step in your career might be. This episode is going to focus on getting a better job, which is the second of the four options we talked about. Last week we talked about the first option, which was to get your first job. Getting a better job follows a lot of the same steps, but there are some differences. So let's talk through the steps to accomplish your goal. Number one, don't quit. This is the mistake right out of the gate that a lot of people make. I want a better job, so I'm going to quit this job. Well, guess what? You might not find that better job. And if you quit now, well, you don't have any job. And no job, having no job is probably worse than having a job that gives you a paycheck but isn't great. Okay, so don't quit. Wait. Instead, number two, identify what type of job you want. You might say, better. What does better mean? When you look at a job, is it just the money? I would encourage you that it shouldn't be. It should be more than just the money. But what is it? What is it that is your ideal target job? What are you looking for? And then, you know, what things could there be in that? Maybe you are a full stack C sharp developer and you want to focus more on the front end. Okay, well, then you could look for front-end jobs, but you could still possibly put in there, I'll take a back-end job as well, or a full stack job if it's better in these other areas. Or maybe you're saying, you know what, I need to have a better work-life balance. So I need to have less hours. I was looking for a job once where I was looking for a senior uh developer job and I wanted a few things. They had my list. And I interviewed one company, everything looked great, but I wasn't working my list. And so what I was doing is saying, okay, you know, is this a good job? Does it pay well? Does it, you know, is it something I'd be interested in doing? And it was checking off those boxes, but that wasn't my list. And so we got down to near the end of the interview process. They liked me. I thought this is where I'm going to be working. And then we talked about how many hours per week and how many vacation days per year. They wouldn't give me a number of hours per week. Their only answer was, we work pretty hard around here. And then for the vacation time, they said after a year, you'll get a week vacation time. No, no. That was totally, that was red flags, massive red flags when it came to my checklist. Because my checklist was, I want to work from home. I want to have a good amount of time off to spend with my family. And I wanted to have a roughly 40-hour week job. So right on the bat, out of the gate, that job should have been a rejection, but I spent a lot of time going through the process because I didn't work my list. So when you have that list, work that list and make sure that you are lining things up properly. The next interview I did, I actually cut the interviewer off and said, hey, I don't want to waste your time. I'm going to work through my list and just verify a few key things that are baseline before you even get started. That way, if we don't match up, no harm, no foul, let's walk away and not waste each other's time. Turns out that ended up being the job that I worked at for four years. But identify what type of job you want and then make sure you work that list. Number three, update your resume. Your resume shouldn't just be change the numbers. It should be rework how you do things. Make sure you put your best foot forward. Make sure that you are talking about outcomes, not just about nebulous things. Things like, you know, if you say in your resume, um worked on a team and built applications or built C sharp applications, who cares? No one cares. What does that even mean? So instead, talk about the 50% speed increase on the application that you worked on, or the 300 new customers per minute you could process, or you know, whatever improvements you made, whatever things you did that can be measurable, measure them and then put them in your resume. So update that resume, the latest stuff. Also, look at your resume and say, hey, you know what? I have front page 98 on there. Well, is that relevant anymore? No, it's not. Get off your resume. So look through your resume and say, these things aren't relevant anymore. If you have Knockout.js, if you have jQuery version one on there, if you have things that, yeah, were relevant 10, 15 years ago, but aren't anymore, get them off your list. Pair it down to what's important. Okay. And then number four, build an app around something impressive or tricky that you did at work. Oftentimes people will tell me, you know, I do all this work, but it's all confidential and proprietary, and I can't show off any of it. That's true, but you can build something else using the knowledge you learned at work to show off similar things. Not the same code. Don't just copy code. But instead, if you learn a new technique at work, build a test application or a demo application that uses that technique and shows off what you can do. Okay. You can take some things from work and show them off without directly copying. Okay. Take the ideas, take the concepts, take the patterns that you have learned and build a demo application that shows off similar things. Okay. So take those concepts and create applications that show off what you can do, which then leads into number five, which is refresh your portfolio. Your portfolio should have applications that are no more than about six months old. Anything older than that, and you're starting to degrade the value of them. You might say, well, Tim, that means I have to be doing new portfolio items all the time. Uh-huh. Yes, that's what that means. And maybe you have one portfolio item that you proudly say, I built this five years ago and I have updated it to the new version of.NET every year. That could be cool too. But keep your portfolio fresh. If the code you wrote two years ago is the same level of code you write today, that's a problem with your learning. You're not learning enough. You're not growing enough as a developer. You should always be growing as a developer. So if your code is changing and growing, show off the latest of what you can do, not the old stuff you don't do anymore. Okay, so refresh your portfolio. Number six, update your C sharp skills. Often when you work at an organization, you're working in a specific technology and maybe even older technology. But even a more modern one, maybe you're focused in on Winform desktop apps in.NET 8. That's pretty modern, but it's one small slice. And you should make sure that you polish the other areas of C sharp, the other skills that aren't directly related to your job, things like containerization, things like web, things like API, things like working with async and await and databases and those things that you might not be doing in your current project. Update your C sharp skills. Number seven, add or polish your secondary skills. So here's some suggestions for C Sharp developers specifically. Make sure that you either add or polish your SQL skills, your Docker skills, your DevOps skills, your Azure skills, and your minimal API skills. If you have time, add web in there as well. So polish those secondary skills or add one. Okay. You want to make sure that you're not just giving potential employers the here's what I can do in C sharp, but also here's additional things that I bring to the table. Number eight, reach out to your network of contacts. Now, this is hard if you're still in your job because you probably don't want that word getting back to your employer. So you gotta be careful about how you do it, but kind of keep open, start opening the door to, hey, you know, what's going on at your company? Do you, you know, where are the what are the openings like? What's what's it like to work at your company? Those kind of things don't necessarily say, I'm looking for a job, but start those conversations with your network of contacts to just feel out the market and understand what's available and what your contacts might be able to help with. That leads in to number nine, which is to evaluate the market and what's realistic. So I worked in a corner of Pennsylvania, northeast corner of Pennsylvania, where the jobs were very, very similar, meaning I could leave one employer at a certain rate for a certain type of C sharp developer and go to another employer with almost the same amount of pay, almost the same amount of benefits, and similar responsibilities. And it was kind of like there were a few jobs or a few employers in the area that were all just very, very similar. And people would rotate around those different employers. So if you wanted something different, if you wanted something with more pay, if you wanted something with different benefits or work from home or things like that, then you had to go outside of that specific area. And you needed to know that. So if you evaluate the market and find out, hey, all the employers are paying about the same as my employer, well, if you're looking for more pay, that's not gonna work. So you have to figure out something different. Okay, so evaluate the market and what is realistic. And this is where, again, having contacts in the industry is really helpful. Knowing other developers in the area will help give you a sense for where things are at realistically. I saw a lot of positions where the position looks great and then you talk to the actual developers and you're like, ooh, I wouldn't want to work there. It sounds great on paper, it sounds great in the interview, but when you actually find out what's really happening, not so great. So having that list of contacts, having people that you know you can have an open, honest conversation with can really help you in evaluating the market and what's realistic. Number 10, apply to jobs that could meet your goal. Notice this is number 10. This is not number two, this is not number one. Wait to do that until number 10 because you have other things to do first. Prepare before you engage. Prepare before you start your putting your resume out there. But then apply to jobs that meet your goals. Again, you're filtering down a list. You might say, well, Tim, there's only so many jobs out there. That's true. But first of all, if you're looking for a better job, you are already eliminating a lot of jobs because you're doing filtering whether you whether you want to believe it or not. So be honest about it and filter out the things that won't be better jobs. And then two, you only need one job. You don't need a hundred jobs, you need one. So find the one that fits you. And that's part of that is to give a good resume. Don't just give a generic resume, customize your resume to the job. Make sure you have a good portfolio, make sure you're putting your best foot forward. If you have contacts in that company, talk to them. Get in front of the hiring manager because of a connection, not just because you put your resume in cold. Okay. Work this and spend time being conscientious of the process, thinking through what is best and making sure that you're putting your best foot forward instead of just shotgun blast throwing your resume out into the wind and hoping it sticks somewhere. Now, number 11, reevaluate constantly. This is something people often get wrong, is they say, I've applied to 500 jobs and no one's even getting back to me. Okay. Have you reevaluated what you're doing? Because what you're doing isn't working. And the answer usually comes back, well, it's the employer's fault. Okay, it's either 500 people's fault or it's your fault. Now, I'm not saying you did anything wrong, but what I'm saying is that what you're doing isn't working. So change what you're doing, reevaluate. And it takes being honest. Be honest with yourself, be honest with the fact that you're not perfect, what you're doing isn't perfect, and that maybe you're not as good as you thought you were, or maybe what you're offering isn't representing who you are. Okay, so talk to other people, get their feedback, reevaluate constantly to say, how could I do this better? And it takes leaving your ego behind in order to do that. But if you do, you will have better results over time. Okay. Now it's a lot of steps, but take those steps in order. Don't just rush ahead and really mess yourself up. Now, if you follow this plan and if you work it consistently, you'll be improving your odds of success every day. So don't leave getting a dream job up to random chance or luck. All right. Thanks for the question. And as always, I am Tim Corey.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

Thank you for joining us for this episode of Dev Questions. When you're ready to learn to think and code like a professional developer, head over to IamTimCorey.com and enroll in a course.