Mid Level Developer Mistakes
It’s fun being a mid-level developer. You probably still enjoy writing code (this is true of seniors too, but it’s a different thing at this level). Everything is still fairly new and you haven’t seen the same old crap over and over again for years. Further, there is still more stuff to learn. And once you have the basics down, the whole world of development really opens up to you in a way that it didn’t as a junior developer. You will likely be trusted with more difficult projects and greater responsibility, as well as commanding an even better salary. However, herein lies danger. While these are probably going to be some of the best years of your career, there are things that you can do during this time that will make advancement more difficult than it has to be. Don’t worry. These mistakes are all survivable; they just make things harder than they have to be. You WILL screw up during this period. The point is being able (and willing) to recognize mistakes before they accumulate into a big ball of mud that makes your career less enjoyable and limits your potential future growth. While we are telling you that these mistakes are survivable, survivability doesn’t mean everyone survives. Lots of developers quit within their first five years (when they are still arguably mid-level) for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it’s burnout, and sometimes it’s boredom and lack of opportunity. You are going to want to avoid situations that make this more likely. The mid-level portion of your career can be some of your best and most fun years. However, amidst all the fun and interesting challenges, there are things you can do that will make this phase of your career more difficult than it has to be. Everyone screws up as a mid-level developer, but avoiding a few common problems will place you ahead of the pack as you work your way through “mid-level” towards “senior level”. While all the mistakes we listed are survivable and some are hard to avoid, knowing what they are will make it easier to quickly overcome them. Episode Breakdown Pretending that office politics doesn’t matter. Junior devs can play dumb. Mid-level and senior devs really can’t get away with that (you probably can’t get away with it if development is your second career). You also can’t assume that your manager or senior developers will cover for you at this point, because that is also a great way to make enemies. You need to be proactively building alliances rather than reactively trying to mitigate your shortcomings. This also means being aware of other people’s motivations. Not everyone out there wants to be the best developer in the world. Some people want to start businesses, move up into management, or just do well enough to keep their jobs for now. You have to respect those people. Being aware of the motivations of others will make you a better team player, because you more easily appeal to what motivates them instead of what is SUPPOSED to motivate them. Being arrogant towards other employees There is a point after you get your feet wet where you get more confident. Some people get a LOT more confident than their skills can really back up. It’s easy for this to become arrogance, or to look like it is. It’s especially important not to be snarky towards your non-coding coworkers. While there is a natural friction between developers and sales/marketing/project management/support, that doesn’t mean you can get away with sneering at them. Instead, you need to figure out where you fit in the scheme of things with respect to those people, and figure out how you can work more effectively in a way that helps them. Mid level devs often make a mistake in that they want to be highly regarded by their own team while not giving a crap about other people.