I think developers and software engineers are a special breed. The fact that we have fingers that can write code is like magic for most of the population, right?
When we can scan code on a dark screen, or when we can follow the logs that are scrolling through a terminal at a fast speed, or when reviewing the source of an HTML page and make deductions around the framework or JS library being used, that's a bit like sorcery for most of the world. When we share that with non-technical developers or non-technical colleagues, they feel like, "Wow, how do you do that?"
And as an ex-developer myself, I can share that feeling. It feels like a superpower.
You can make a good career out of writing code and building software and algorithm. Especially when you grow into a more senior developer position and you become responsible for mission-critical applications and you become this vast source of knowledge that is so valuable to most businesses.
If your development team were to disappear, most of those businesses couldn't run. It's very difficult to transfer that knowledge and the experience of running such systems, as digital runs so many things today that are mission-critical.
However, there is also a threshold of how big you can make it or you can grow in your career if you just want to write code. There is a cap on how far you can climb in the org chart if you wanna stick to this.
Writing code is an amazing skill, but if you have a great idea and want to launch the next unicorn, you're gonna need to do more than write code. You can launch the product, but it's not gonna grow by itself and you need more skills. To unlock that next stage, you need to diversify into more than writing code. A good thing is that you can use the skills and the mindset that your software engineering degree or the experience, the years of experience that you have, the skills that you gain... You can package that to be even more valuable to the team and have a bigger impact on the product you're building, on your colleagues in your technical team, and also on the other teams in your organisation. You will also have a bigger impact on your clients and even society in general when you build life-changing products or a new digital solution that innovates and do things better or make the web more accessible.
In this video, I go through more details about the skills that software engineers can use to grow into more impactful roles.
I will add the full transcript below very soon if you prefer to read it out.
