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In our time starved lives it can be hard to find the time to study and practice programming every day. When you’ve got a day crammed full of chores, a long drive or you simply can’t face more time at the keyboard sit back, relax and get your daily does of coding from some of these amazing podcasts instead.

Learning Python is one of the best ways to get a job as a developer. Learning Python lets you write code for the web, machine learning, artificial intelligence and solve complex problems. Python is widely held as one of the best first languages to learn as it make the fundamentals easy to grasp but doesn't limit what you can build and scales to the largest software projects in the world.

One of the most important things to consider when looking at a career switch to being a developer is what your typical day will look like. Software developer roles can all look the same from the outside but what your day consists of can vary significantly depending on the type of software development you are doing, the age and scale of the business and the type of work they do.

Being a developer is about constant learning and improvement. The systems that developers build are complicated and the underlying technologies are constantly changing. Many developers think about improving as learning a new framework or programming language, when in fact some of the best improvements you can make are minor changes that can be build into you daily habits with minimal disruption.

Take home coding tests are seen by many as the ideal alternative to stressful in person live tests. While that may be true to a certain extent, it doesn't mean that there aren't pitfalls to be wary of, here are my 6 top tips for making sure you crack your next take home test:

There is so much to learn and know in software development that it can be overwhelming. When you first set out to learn it's like you're a child in the middle of a huge field full of toys that you know are amazing but have no idea how to play with, or what they even do.

The way we choose to write our code is as important as what the code does, poorly structured, poorly name or plain old confusing code is hard to maintain. While the problems we solve are often mind bendingly difficult, the way we write our code does not have to be.

It's hard to know what projects to make when trying to flesh out your portfolio, often we get caught up thinking it needs to be something unique. Projects need to be small, complete and functional, making your own take on any of these well trodden paths would be a great project for your portfolio. Each idea has a suggested rough tech stack you could use but in reality you could make all of these in pretty much any technology.

It's important to be open to code review requests but we've all been there. You've got comments on your code from a reviewer and it feels like you might as well rewrite everything from scratch. It's demoralising and feels like a waste of time, especially since you know it works and fulfils the requirements of the task.

Coding interviews are universally considered pretty horrible. You have a set amount of time to complete a task that has little resemblance to the day to day job of being developer, in front of someone who knows the answer to the question and holds your fate in their hands.