Read this before you start your career in Coding! Best Tips for Coders
Welcome to the Session
Hi everyone, in today’s session is for all programming beginners who want to start their coding journey in 2025. In this session, we will discuss several things that, if implemented, can make our programming journey much smoother. Additionally, we will achieve better results and outcomes in the future while also building the right mindset necessary to enter the job market, especially the tech job market.
Before we start the session, there are two things I want to convey to you based on my personal and professional experience in tech.
Understanding the Tech Job Market
First, speaking about the job market in the tech sector, the majority of jobs today are development-based, where we have to learn and apply some kind of development work in a company.
Second, if someone is targeting large MNCs, which are generally associated with bigger packages like FAANG companies, especially at an early stage, they need to learn Data Structures and Algorithms (DSA). Unless it’s an exceptional case, even if you have 7 or 10 years of work experience, the majority of interviews will ask about DSA.
Avoiding Misleading Content
These two points are addressed at the beginning of the session because, on social media, we often see thumbnails saying certain technologies are overhyped. These are videos made by creators for views, but as students and beginners, we shouldn’t get misled by them. As beginners, if we set a goal for ourselves, we should have a clear idea of the tools and technologies we need to learn to reach that goal, which comes from understanding the on-ground job market reality rather than watching clickbait videos.
The Importance of Setting Goals
The first thing we need to do as beginners is to set a clear goal. That goal should be clear in our minds, along with the direction and the steps required to achieve it. There’s a famous saying that for any task, there are three questions we must deeply think about and have answers to: Why do we want to do it? What will the outcome or result be? And third, will we be successful in doing it?
Questions to Guide Your Coding Journey
Similarly, we need answers to these questions for our coding journey: Why do we want to code? Why do we want to program? Maybe our goal is to prepare for placements, jobs, or internships, or perhaps we’re just exploring programming, inspired by an app or a website. Whatever the reason or goal, it should be clear to us because that clarity will prevent us from experiencing FOMO (fear of missing out) in the future.
Avoiding FOMO in the Tech Sector
Tech is a sector with such a variety of technologies and branches. One person might be working in app development, another in web development, some in AI, blockchain, or game development. With so many different sectors, it’s easy to feel FOMO. But with clarity about our goals and the tools and technologies we need to learn, we won’t feel the urge to change our tech stack every 6 months or a year just because of random new technologies.
Timeless Skills and Fundamentals
Now, they’re facing a funding crunch, and they see that funding is moving towards AI instead of blockchain. This isn’t specific to one person, startup, or technology. We’ve all observed this — several blockchain startups emerged, offering crore-level packages. Whether those packages materialized is unknown, but today, that hype has been replaced by AI.
The same is being said about AI today. In the next 5–10 years, we might see some substantial results in AI, or another new technology may emerge after 5 or 10 years. But we must remember that we can’t rely solely on one technology to sustain ourselves in the tech sector. We are problem solvers. Problem-solving is a skill that was valuable 10 years ago, is valuable today, and will remain so 10 years later.
Computer science fundamentals are similarly timeless. They were important 10 years ago, are important today, and will remain important in the future. Therefore, we should invest our energy in things that have stood the test of time, are still relevant, and have a significant use case in the future that companies are practically implementing.
Building a Career, Not Just a Job
Our goal might be preparing for a job, placement, or internship. But in the end, we are not just looking for one job or one technology — we’re here to build a career. So, our thinking should be long-term, keeping in mind the overhyped things on social media, whether it’s about technology or packages.
The Role of Deadlines in Success
The second thing we need to do is set a deadline. As human beings, we are generally lazy. Without deadlines, we won’t complete tasks. Without planning and deadlines, a goal is just a dream that might never come true. Therefore, setting major and minor deadlines is crucial.
Importance of Consistent Effort
For example, if we’ve decided to prepare for placements and do programming, we need to decide how long it will take to learn these technologies — one year, a year and a half, or two years. Additionally, we must set minor deadlines for smaller steps, like completing a specific project or learning a technology within a week or a month.
This kind of proper planning, structuring, and deadline setting is essential. Alongside this, try to accomplish something every day. It’s not necessary to code for 6–10 hours daily, but we should make some effort each day. At the end of the day, we should feel like we learned something new, worked on a project, or completed a feature.
This consistent effort is the key to success.
Thank you for reading until the end. Before you go:
