Everyone knows that life is not going to end up after turning 30 years old. Despite the fact that, in most Eastern European countries, there are some stereotypes regarding the celebration of the 30th birthday. For many people that means stepping up in the new, more adult life. While in the USA, the general opinion is that after 30 life is just starting. Being a company, located in eastern Europe, and having clients from all over the world, we decided to create a list of things which each programmer should perform before turning 30 years old.
Become a professional
It is crucially important, not only for programmers, to become professionals in their field of activity. As, while you are coming older, more and more young and talented software engineers are improving their skills and dreaming to take your place in the company.
To learn English
Of course, in order to successfully work in the IT sphere, there is a real need to know English. BUT, there is a huge difference between English which you use just in programming, and prefer project manager to explain the client regarding the latest progress. And the real fluent English, when you are able to have discussions on different topics, for many hours. Better English level increases your chances for success.
Change a few companies
Doesn’t matter how perfect your company is, how great people are working together with you – there is a need to change the working place from time to time. Why? Just to compare, get new experience, work on a project of different complexity level, and get more colleagues at different places.
Work at least, at one huge corporation
We all know how comfortable is working in small companies, where each employee is treated as a family member. Comparing to this, work in a huge international corporation is more strict, there are not such family relations and much more restrictions. Even though, this type of experience is priceless. Probably, you are going to hate all kinds of bureaucracy, but later on, you will catch yourself on introducing something similar to your team.
Become a part of the startup
Work in the startup is going to teach how to multitask, fastly move from one task to the other one, change set of goals, and to not get upset when the task you have been working at, is not getting approved. Of course, I exaggerate, it is not so bad working in the startup, there are lots of successful ones, which later were transformed to the great companies. So, it always worth trying.
Understand the market
There are a lot of IT companies, which are coming to the market and getting out of the market. Recruiters never stop sending you a lot of messages with job offers, and there is a real need to understand what worth paying attention to, and what doesn’t. Also, you should honestly tell yourself, what do you want, lots of interesting projects or stability, possibility to work from home, or beautiful office. As well as, check out forums, and understand which salary is adequate for your level of professionalism.
Visit conferences with the best world-known companies
IT conferences are providing people with great possibilities, new acquaintances, and an increasing level of knowledge. Also, listening to the stories of success of world-known companies is very inspiring. Use all the possibilities and visit conferences, held by Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Uber or Google.
Learn how to be successful during job interviews
Everyone knows that going to the job interviews is a pain, no matter on the level of experience is a kind of pain and stress for a candidate. That is the reason, why it is important to learn how to not get any type of stress during a job interview and show the best results.
Feel yourself on the other side of the business
Which means, that it is important to perform the job interview, order website development, get yourself in the role of product owner, look at the software developers as at the resource for completing the goals. It is always useful to have a look from the opposite side.
Gain some experience abroad
Work of the IT engineer is the best one for relocation. As the code is the same everywhere, so it is enough to speak English and be good at your work. Doesn’t matter whether you are going to stay abroad, or will be back after a year of staying far from your hometown – come back. The experience you are going to gain will level up your professional level.
Set up your own company
Of course, we are not telling you to look for the investors and set up a company with hundreds of employees. You may just start from freelancing, finishing some projects, with few colleagues. It is quite easy to criticize managers of the company, and only wearing their shoes – you understand them better.
Work with exotic language
In one of our previous articles, we have been talking about weird programming languages, which were created just for fun. Still, it is possible to use them in programming, why don’t you try? Writing real scripts on those languages provides you with some kind of exotic experience, so why not you try?
Create something on your own
While you are young and creative – there is the best time for creativity. That is the reason why it is the best time to build a unique application or website on your own, who knows, maybe that is going to become a really popular and needed tool for everyone?
Become really good in leadership
Despite the widely known opinion that leadership that is something, you have to be born with, that is not true. Surely, not every soft skill can be reached with hard work, but leadership is the one, which can. Of course, hard work is required in order to get this skill on a high level, but this is really important for the success of a future career.
Learn how to write text, not just a code
And here I am not talking about writing novels or books, there is a real need to write business emails and describe tasks in Jira/Trello in the most understandable way.
Improve communication skills
In each field of the activity that is extremely important to be able to properly communicate with other people. Even if you are spending all working day in front of the computer, that is anyway important to explain your opinion in the way, everyone will clearly understand it.
Learn how to negotiate successfully
That is very important in each career and daily life in general. Starting from the work interview, and ending up with the negotiation with clients or communication with team members. This skill will definitely run you to success.
Have a speech at the conference
A conference is a perfect place for meeting new people and listening to inspiring stories of success. So, why don’t you try to speak out at the conference, sharing your story? You may become a real inspiration for other people, and gain new experience.
Run a technical blog
Blogging is not for everyone, for sure! But running a technical blog gives you a list of advantages. First of all, you are going to practice and increase your English level. Secondly, you will always stay up-to-date with the latest technological trends. And finally, it will provide you with advantages during a job interview.
Read basic programming books
Of course, it is impossible to learn all aspects regarding programming from those books, but it will definitely give you a basic understanding of the field. Moreover, interviewing new candidates for the position, you will realize if a person is speaking only with phrases from books, or has some additional source of knowledge.
Work on the brink of your possibilities
If you are working in IT already for some time, I am more than sure, that you have already tested all your possibilities. It is very common, to work overnight, before the deadline, fix several bags at the same time and so on. When you are around 25 years old – that is the best time for experiments, before you have family, children and more responsibilities. So, work hard, play hard now!
Get crazy with money
When you are young, and probably, earning more than an average person living in your city, that is a high time to get crazy with money. Check out the color of the water on the Canarians, go skiing in Alpes, test the services in Hilton all over the world. Those are the things, which are the best to be done before getting family and children. Later on, there will be other desires and places to spend the money.
Become a volunteer
Volunteering is a very pleasant thing to do. Doesn’t matters whether you are going to help the army, do some projects with children in the orphanage, or help the animals. The most important is the experience you are going to gain an understanding of the fact that your work really helps other people.
Take care of your health
While you are young, that is the best time to predict some problems, which everyone is facing with age. Go to the gym, perform the sport, take care of your back, which is obviously paining because of working in from of the computer. Go to the dentist, take care of the teeth, drink less coffee and more water.
Understand your weak and strong sides
There are people, similar to Julius Caesar, who is able to do a lot of things at the same time if you are one of them – congratulations. In case if you simple person, it is important to understand your strong and weak sides, in order to not get responsible for tasks, which you are not able to perform.
Learn to have a rest
That is a really important thing to do! Doesn’t matter how influencing your work is for the project – if something happens to you, it will not crush. That is why it is important to rest, go for vacations, to the mountains, forget about the work during evenings and on the weekends! The boss of mine said: “I work to live, not live to work,” and that is great credo to follow!
Get plan B
Even if you are the best software engineer in your company or even city – nothing lasts forever. Years will pass and new, talented programmers will come and take your place. Think about the future now, whether you want to open your own business, or go out of the city and become a farmer – draft a plan now and embody it into reality!
Do you have another thing, which should be done before turning 30? Feel free to comment under this post in our social networks!
