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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.

Are you sabotaging your coding career with lines like this?. Oh it doesn't matter, I'm just playing at the moment. This is a sentence that gets my attention, and not for good reasons. When people say this it's usually not after discussing something that would actually be considered play. No, it tends to be after mentioning something actually quite serious and important like investing, learning to code, starting to apply for jobs.

Avoiding burnout must be one of the most Googled work related terms of 2020 and 2021. As we all adjusted to the new world of enforced work from home, economic uncertainty and wide spread heath concerns due to the pandemic people were coming to terms of significant blurring of work and home life.

Developers have many options for where to focus their time, skills and career. These ares all share the similarity of writing to code to solve problems, however there are enough differences and technologies involved that if you specifically want to work in one area then it is worth guiding your learning and development in that direction sooner rather than later.

Everyone wants to work for a sexy, up and coming startup .... apparently! I've even seen people say that if your first job in tech isn't at a start up or on a new team at one of the big tech companies then your tech career is basically a bust before you got out of the gate

I had a fun chat with two people trying to address the same problem as I am yesterday, that is how to get new developers their first job. They have an amazing site called Troopl and its primary focus is to help new developers create a portfolio as quickly and simply as possible.