Have you always been fascinated by computers, IT and programming?

Your thoughts ran in this direction when it comes to the path of education and choice of the profession you will do in the future? In 2017, the programming profession came first in Forbes magazine. No wonder, because it is expected that by 2025 employees from the IT industry will be the most sought-after professional group and at the same time the most dynamically developing branch of the economy in the world. After many hours of thinking, analysing the pros and cons, your choice is programming for various reasons.

Choice of technology

You must start your adventure and professional path by choosing the technology in which you will specialize. There are many of these, but you are probably already aware that your choice will affect the amount of earnings, the possibility of receiving additional benefits, and it is also associated with the variety of projects.

Professional computer scientists even think that a PHP programmer and a C ++ programmer are completely different professions, and they probably have a lot of reasons for this, because different technologies require different knowledge and different frameworks.

On the other hand, is there anything preventing you from learning one technology after learning another to become a more universal and sought-after specialist on the market? The most popular programming languages ​​are JavaScript, Java, PL/SQL, C# and Python.

How the programmer’s career path look like

When you enter your career as a programmer, you have two forms of employment to choose from. The first option is the contract of employment, i.e. permanent employment and obligations performed under the contract. Contract of employment means stability and the possibility of using all the benefits resulting from the labour code, e.g. paid leave, sick leave or social packages. The contract is usually higher salary, but also greater flexibility in shaping your professional development and a greater selection of projects on which you will work.

You start your professional path with a junior, i.e. Junior Software Developer, sometimes it is more of an internship or apprenticeship, but let’s treat it as the first career step. Nobody will entrust you with serious tasks yet, because you are still learning, and you need the help of an experienced colleague, but you are already starting to earn quite decently. Anyway, these first two years are great for you, you have time to develop your skills and consolidate what you already know.

When you are doing quite well as a Junior and gain experience, you may be tempted to apply for the position of Regular Developer, sometimes it is a Medium Developer or simply a Software Developer, and this obliges you to take full responsibility for the results of your work. When you worked as a Junior, you could have made mistakes, but in your current position that’s unacceptable as you have become a solid foundation for any development team.

After the next few years (usually it is between 2 and 5), the technology will have almost no secrets from you, you can reach for the position of Senior Software Developer and this is where the real work begins. You are an educated programmer that everyone will be happy to entrust you with complex tasks, ask for a project valuation and the time needed to complete it. You will be so familiar with the subject that, in addition to a specific task, you also get new Juniors under your care, for whom you become a mentor and a mine of knowledge. Here we close the three-step, simple path of a programmer.

Alternatives

It may happen that after reaching Regular Developer you will find that programming is not entirely yours calling, and you will want to try your hand at being a Security Expert, Data Administrator or Project Manager. It is important that choosing the programmer’s path doesn’t close you from other possibilities. Acquired knowledge and experience will bear fruit in the above-mentioned positions.

There is one more way you can consider when programming is no longer a challenge, you can simply become an IT Systems Architect. You have such extensive knowledge in the technologies and types of applications used that you can easily handle the entire project from A to Z, because you have web applications, Java window applications and other mobile applications at your disposal. Which path you choose and follow is entirely up to you.