Developer Career Masterplan

Developer Career
Masterplan
by Heather Vancura
and Bruno Souza
Presented by Ed Burns @edburns
https://aka.ms/DeveloperCareerMasterplan/slides
Ed will give away three
free copies of the book!
Friday 24 November 2023
13:30 – 14:30 China time
Room 4029

Abstract
 Heather Vancura and Bruno Souza have a new book out on the topic of how to have a successful and
rewarding career as a software developer. The title of this session is the title of the book. Ed Burns wrote a
book on the same topic nearly fifteen years ago. In this 45-minute session, you will learn the most
important parts of the the new book from the author of the old book. Ed brings the insight he gained from
writing his book to the task of presenting Heather and Bruno's book which contains the lessons learned in
interviewing a diverse selection of 26 successful developers. Between the authors of the two books and the
interviews they conducted, there is over a century of developer career experience in this talk! This
informative and fun session will give you some practical tips to improve your own career.

My plan for your time investment
 Goals of the presentation
 What the book is and is not
 Part 1 The Basics: Learn and Practice the Technical Skills
 Stuff you can do on your own: How to learn quickly and deliberately and thrive outside your
comfort zone
 Part 2 Get Involved: Participate in the Community
 Stuff you need to do with others: Communities and conferences
 Part 3 Create Impact: Share and Lead
 Leadership and stuff you create that persists over time: Content creation, projects, standards
 Closing and call to action

What the book is: TLDR
 Distilled wisdom.
 Practical references to skill building resources.
 Interviews with experts.
 It’s kind of an update to my 2008 book
https://aka.ms/RockStarProgrammerSecrets

What the book is not
 Code samples.
 Advice on specific technologies.
 Full of advice from non-Java experts.

What this presentation is
 My extraction of the most useful parts of the book for this audience.
 The book is not long, but it cannot fit in a 50 minute session.
 Follows the structure of the book.

Part 1 The Basics: Learn and Practice the
Technical Skills

The Secret to Learning about Technology Quickly and
Continuously
 Knowledge versus skills
 Finding focus and priorities
 Applying just-in-time learning
 Practicing deliberately to learn a tech
 Implementing important good habits

Continuously
 Knowledge versus skills
 Finding focus and priorities
 Applying just-in-time learning
 Practicing deliberately to learn a tech
 Implementing important good habits
LAZY LOADING OF SKILLS

https://aka.ms/rockstarignorance
LAZY LOADING OF SKILLS

https://aka.ms/rockstarignorance

Continuously
 Step 1 - Have a broad vision of the market
 Step 2 - Go deep when you are ready to apply

Continuously
 Make learning something you do every day
 Example https://javachallengers.com/category/no-bugs-videos/java-
challengers-explanations-videos/
 Doing something every day is like compound interest in a bank
account.
 Being able to do something consistently is itself an important career
skill.
 "Motivation is a booster that you have at the beginning, but what
makes you continue is not motivation – it’s discipline. "

Choose Your Best Path for Learning, Training, and
Certifications
 Deriving maximum benefit from formal learning
 Expanding your opportunities through informal learning
 Learning how to learn – self-learning
 Acquiring and benefiting from certifications
 Combining several learning possibilities

Certifications

Certifications
 A huge employee benefit https://aka.ms/pluralsight
 MS Learning paths
 https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/credentials/
 https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/credentials/certifications/azure-fundamentals/
 Java specific
 https://mylearn.oracle.com/ou/story/40805
 Java SE 21 new features
https://mylearn.oracle.com/ou/course/java-se-21-new-features/127724/
"If you can find ways to work within the parameters that are given, add value, and
make things interesting and fun, then you’ll have much more joy in your career, you’ll
be much more effective in the work that you do, and you’ll be able to bring a lot more
value to the table. People will notice."

Optimize Your Support Network for Growth
 Taking responsibility for your career
 Finding support for what you need
 Holding crucial conversations
 Developing good negotiation skills
 Feedback – dealing with criticism and lack of support

 Asking for help: super important skill
 Package all the context. Put in the homework.
 Find a way to help the person you are asking for help first.
 How to have crucial conversations
 Book: Ask for more: 10 Questions to Negotiate Anything
 There’s a summary of this book in the book.
 The book is in MS Library.

 Receiving feedback.
 Especially negative feedback.
 "But showing we are good at taking negative feedback and applying it is a huge attractor for
our career success. Bosses love people who can grow from negative feedback.”
 Step 1: Is the feedback a fact?
 Step 2: Are the facts true?
 Step 3: Do you care?
Is there anything you want to or can do about it?

Acquire the Right Skills Deliberately
 Soft versus hard skills – the reality
 The science behind acquiring skills
 Enhancing hard skills
 Improving soft skills
 Combining soft and hard skills for maximum results

 The Talent Code
 Book in MS Library
 Fire. The first biological rule is to fire on activate neurons.
 Force. Force your brain to do it.
 Frequency. You have to do something frequently.

 Hard Skills
 Soft Skills
 The five skills called out in this book
1. Communication
2. Collaboration
3. Leadership
4. Problem-solving
5. Conflict resolution

Stepping Outside Your Comfort Zone
 Force your brain to take action
 Find the sweet spot
 Be consistent

 Step 1 – Create and visualize a great future
 Step 2 - Focus on why things can't stay the way they are
 Step 3 - Build a bridge from here to there
 SMARTER goals
 Step 4 - Plan small actionable steps
 Steps
 Tactics

 Specific: Goals have to be specific and focused on a clear result.
 Measurable: You must be able to track your progress.
 Actionable: Make your goals focused on actions.
 Risky: Make them larger, and push yourself to achieve more.
 Time-keyed: What’s the deadline? That will keep you focused.
 Exciting: Make them amazing and fun, so you want to achieve them.
 Relevant: Are they aligned with your vision for the future?

Part 2 Get Involved: Participate in the
Community

Become a Team Player by Embracing Communities
 The value of communities
 Identifying communities of relevance to your career
 Participating in communities to increase your networking
 Building internal communities
 Leading external communities

Become a Team
Player by Embracing
Communities
https://www.annfriedman.com/the-disapproval-matrix

Focus Your Growth by Giving and Receiving Mentoring
 It takes a village to build a developer
 Mentoring is not a one-way street
 Being selective and intentional
 Finding a good mentor
 Being a good mentor
 Home | Microsoft Careers

 Mentoring benefits
 Access to private information
 Access to people and networks
 Opportunities

 Benefits of receiving mentoring
 Access to private information
 Access to people and networks
 Opportunities

Be Part of a Larger Group – Meeting People at User
Groups and Meetups
 Where real developers meet
 Finding a community near you
 Making the most of your participation
 The benefits of getting involved
 Deepening your participation and your results
 Starting your own user group

Build Lasting Relationships
 How conferences can boost your career
 Finding the best conferences to attend
 Time and money – making your attendance worthwhile
 Making conference attendance an asset for your boss and your
company
 Goal stacking – how to guarantee results while attending a
conference

Build Lasting Relationships
 Keep track of conferences you attend and at which you speak.
 http://purl.oclc.org/NET/edburns/speaking-engagements/

Career benefits of conference speaking
 JakartaOne Livestream 2023
 https://jakartaone.org/2023/chinese/
 https://youtu.be/8UG0nKRr6Tg

Career benefits of conference speaking
 Increase visibility
 Solidify learnings
 Learn new things
 Expand network
 Improve presentation skills

Part 3 Create Impact: Share and Lead

Build Trust and Solve Problems with Open Source
Projects
 The value of contributing to open source
 Selecting an open source project
 Building trust and getting accepted
 Making open source a core part of your evolution
 Bringing value to your company and customers

Projects
 This is a very important career skill, and a very important chapter.
 I will focus one one practical application for MS internal people.
 Inner-source refreshing of learn.microsoft.com content
 This got me recognized: Contributor stories

Projects
 Docs contributor guide

Scaling Trust through Public Engagement: Speaking
and Blogs
 What public speaking really is
 Listening: public speaking for introverts
 Generating unlimited content ideas
 Building and presenting your content
 Finding the right places to share

Tips from Galia: translate books

Tips from Galia: become a technical reviewer

Scaling Trust through Public Engagement: Speaking
and Blogs
 Some myths about becoming a content creator
 You need to be a master to share.
 You have to be an extrovert to share.
 It takes too much time.
 Sharing is a waste of time because it does not improve your
expertise.
 Sharing is only done in events or public spaces.

Be a Leader: Manage Up, Down, and Across Your
Organization
 How to be a leader, even if you don’t have a leadership role
 Lead by serving and helping
 Lead by listening and asking questions
 Inspire people to take action
 Use your leadership to build trust in the market
 Tips for job opportunities and interviews

Organization
 The Leadership Challenge
 Book link
 The Leadership Challenge Workbook
 MS Library link
 Model the way
 Inspire a shared vision
 Challenge the process
 Enable others to act
 Encourage the heart

Be a Leader: Manage Up, Down, and Across Your Organization
 The importance of being able
to tell stories
 Ed’s blog post about Connect
time
 https://www.ridingthecrest.co
m/blog/2019/04/21/tdc-
floripa-career-tips-from-
someone-who-knows-a-lot-
of-rockstar-
programmers.2019.html

Organization
 Technical leaders
 Know what they don’t know.
 They realize that 75-80% of software projects are brownfield
maintenance projects.
 Have lived with technical debt
 Value and nurture teamwork

Organization
 Interviewing
 remember the acronym “ACT”
 Achievements – tell them about specific accomplishments you have
delivered
 Capabilities – tell them about your specific skills
 Transferable skills – tell them how your skills can be transferred to
their business

Stepping Up Your Technology Game – Defining
Technology Instead of Merely Using It
 How technology is standardized and what it has to do with your
career.
 Identifying technologies and organizations.
 Getting involved with standards organizations.
 Aligning your company with standards.

Build Your Personal Brand and Become a Trusted
Advisor
 What is personal branding?
 How to build your professional brand
 How to attract an audience
 How to leverage your personal brand professionally

Advisor
 Identify your professional brand
 Define your vision and purpose
 Assess your personal brand inventory
 Construct a narrative around this inventory

Advisor
 STAR method
 Situation
 Task
 Action
 Result

Closing
 Remember the goals of this talk?
 Get you to want to read the book
 Well, here it is: https://aka.ms/DeveloperCareerMasterplan
 Microsoft has already bought it for you.
 My book is in there as well: https://aka.ms/RockStarProgrammerSecrets
 Get you to take that first step

Closing
 Direct you to more resources
 Home | Microsoft Careers
 Thank you for your time and attention!
 Take the survey!

Developer Career Masterplan

More Related Content

Similar to Developer Career Masterplan

More from Edward Burns

Recently uploaded

Developer Career Masterplan