Being a Professional Programmer

Written 2026-05-04

These are notes for a presentation I gave on being a professional programmer. I gave this talk to two separate classes of programming students, so the advice is aimed at young adults looking to make a career in software development.

Soft Skills

• Caring for people

  • Every job is people-oriented. All work ultimately is about serving people.
  • Showing people that you care about them is one of the most important things you can do in work or life in general.

• Attention to detail

  • Attention to detail is “the act or state of applying the mind to something.”
  • Practical applications:
    • Active concentration on work.
    • Good note-taking (Lookup “zettlekasten”. Look into tools like Obsidian or LoqSeq.)
    • Studying the problem domain or documentation (more on this later).

• Connecting with people through small talk or humor

  • Not easy for most programmers, but it’s important for any job.
  • Second to caring, this is the best way to get people to open up.

• Good writing skills

  • Lots of communication happens through writing (email, messages, technical documentation).
  • “Besides a mathematical inclination, an exceptionally good mastery of one’s native tongue is the most vital asset of a competent programmer.” - Edsger Dijkstra

• Passion for the work

  • This has been one of the best skills for my career.
  • This skill motivates me to develop all the other skills.

• Ability to learn new things

  • IT as an industry changes incredibly quickly.
  • There will always be new technologies to evaluate and learn, but very few of them are worth learning.

• Good reading comprehension

  • As a programmer, I read a ton of technical content (articles, code, documentation) each week.
  • Skimming is a valuable skill.
  • Read to get a general overview, and then come back whenever you have a specific need.

Other Topics

• Web Development

  • Web development was my entry into the industry (I got a part-time job in it in college).
  • It is probably the easiest way to enter the industry because some web dev jobs have a low barrier to entry.
  • You can specialize in frontend or backend only, but I prefer full-stack.
  • Don’t focus on frameworks, focus on the medium: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, SQL.
  • But, also learn some popular frameworks because they are useful and good for your resume.

• Becoming a subject matter expert

  • Working as a programmer is rarely just about programming.
  • As a programmer, you are in a unique position to learn and leverage business knowledge.
  • Understanding how the business works can inform lots of technical decisions.
  • It also helps you comprehend and work with the business’ data.
  • Being a good learner is essential here. I have recently been learning a lot about accounting because I am working on our app’s accounting features.

• Being a Specialist vs a Generalist

  • IT is such a large field. Specializing in a specific area can help you focus on mastering a smaller subset of skills.
  • Large companies have a need for specialists, but smaller companies typically want generalists.
  • I would recommend being a generalist unless someone is paying you to specialize.
  • I have learned so much from being open to new tasks or responsibilities. Being a generalist lets me constantly work on new domains or new types of problems.
  • The hardest problems cross multiple layers of an application (frontend, backend, database, etc.), so being a generalist and having holistic knowledge puts you in the best position to solve difficult problems.

• Development Workflow

  • Knowing your tools can be a huge boost to productivity and makes work more fun.
  • I like using a non-standard editor (NeoVim), but learning some advanced shortcuts will make your experience better with any editor.
  • This ties in with the Unix philosophy where text-based tools start to compose, so your knowledge of different tools can compound.
  • Learning common unix/posix terminal utilities can be a big productivity boost.
  • Learning a little Bash (the shell & the scripting language) goes a long way. If you are on Windows, you can still use Git Bash for a similar experience.
  • The easiest wins:
    • Shortcuts to run/build your project.
    • Find a way to visually surface errors without tons of context switching (terminal or an in-editor LSP).
    • Shortcuts to switch between windows (lookup “tiling window managers” to get an idea).
    • If you are in web development, learn to use the browser’s DevTools! I use the DevTools on almost every bug I triage.
    • Learn Git or your VCS of choice well. Use a visual tool to make Git easier (lazygit, magit, or whatever VSCode plugin is popular these days).

• Functional Programming

  • Functional programming is an alternative paradigm to object-oriented programming (OOP).
  • Neither paradigm is the be-all and end-all, but learning both is beneficial.
  • Generally, functional programming includes:
    • separating data from behavior,
    • avoiding mutation and restricting side effects,
    • using algebraic data types (records, discriminated unions),
    • using recursion over iteration.
  • If you have used C# before, F# is a great introduction to functional programming.
  • If you are feeling more adventerous, OCaml and Haskell can be lots of fun, but their tooling and ecosystems have some rough edges.

• Modern Low-Level Programming Languages

  • I just mentioned F#, OCaml, and Haskell, but there are other languages that I think are worth trying.
  • If you are looking for an alternative to C/C++, Odin and Zig are lots of fun.
  • I especially love Odin because it’s very pragmatic and elegantly designed.
  • Odin also comes bundled with some third-party dependencies like Raylib, so making simple games with it is really easy.