Gain insights into launching your software career, managing development processes, and understanding the big picture to confidently advance in the industry faster than your peers.

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This course focuses on how to kickstart your career in the software industry and how to manage various operational and development processes. This is an excellent overview of the “big picture” and the many facets of software development that a lot of new developers lack. A great primer for starting an exciting career in software development.

By the end of this course, you will be able to confidently go into the workforce and make strides in your career quicker than your fellow peers.

New Programmer's Survival Manual

# Connections between roles
The connections between people exert influence in ways that are hard to gauge when we’re new to the team, and we won’t find a diagram of them on the human resources website of the organization. Consider these charts:

The top one shows the formal connections between people in a fictional engineering department, and the bottom shows some informal connections. Formally, Alice is the big cheese, Bob and Cathy are frontline managers, and the rest are programmers, testers, and so on.

Over time we'll discover the informal connections: Alice and Bob worked together at two prior jobs, so they have a strong bond of trust based on that experience. Holly, Ian, and Emma go out to lunch together every week, so they have a bond of friendship.

Some people are hubs that have connections to a lot of others. In our example, Frank is a hub—even though he’s just a programmer, he has many friends. Being a hub makes Frank an important connection between the two teams, since he is friends with both sides. Perhaps Dave gets stuck on a problem that Holly solved a week ago; Frank is the person who would tell Dave, “Hey, you should chat with Holly; I think she could help.”


Another type of connection is the gatekeeper, a person who has a strong and unique connection to a key figure. Bob is a gatekeeper to Alice. Because of their long-standing professional relationship and Alice’s lack of strong ties to others, Bob has a lot of informal pull with Alice—much more than his title would imply. Let’s say Cathy is trying to start a new project within the department, but she knows it will be costly. She would be wise to convince Bob of its value, because if he goes to Alice and says, “Cathy has this great idea,” that carries a lot of weight.

The final connection is that of a pulse-taker, one who’s on the periphery but knows a lot about what’s going on. Dave could be a pulse-taker because he’s friends with both Bob (the gatekeeper) and Frank (the hub). Dave’s conversation with these two gives him a big-picture view of the department that neither Bob nor Frank have themselves.

Understand various hierarchies of responsibilities and connections between different roles in an organization. 

Connect the Dots

Understand various hierarchies of responsibilities and connections between different roles in an organization.

Getting Started

Program for Production

Getting Our Tools in Order

Be Your Own Manager

Team Work

Inside the Company

Mind Your Business

Kaizen

Conclusion

Connect the Dots

Connections between roles