I'm 27 years old, started my professional career 4 years back in a startup company, and was involved in a startup for 2 years during my Undergraduate days which sums up to 6 years of combined experience.
Following are a few points that helped me achieve things professionally and excelled my career growth as a full-stack developer.
1. Choosing the right company to work
Talking about starting our venture and all is cool, but sometimes you also need the experience of people who have been associated with the same industry. I always dreamt of having my startup but I also realized that it's too soon to start something like this without much ground experience.
I joined a startup company of approx 15-20 people where most of my peers were joining MNC's I guess this was one of the best decision where I got to work with the amazing and experienced set of people who helped as a mentor and I am still learning from them.
2. Find good mentors
There is a big difference between a boss and a mentor, and I was lucky enough that I had found a few great mentors who helped me both technically and professionally. Today even if I am writing this article is because of the role that these mentors have played in my life
3. Own up to your mistakes
It's really important to own up to your mistakes, even if someone is yelling at you for your good. I still remember the initial days of my career where I was supposed to write an email to a client, which I messed up pretty bad. After a good scolding session which was a kind of self-realization session, I started working on my writing and communication skills and that was the first and the last time someone pointed out this mistake. Today I have been working with clients offshore where most of my time goes in communicating with them regarding project updates.
4. Hunger To Learn
Being a developer one very clear thing is that learning is a lifelong process, you have to keep learning things to evolve even if you are not asked to do so. Technology keeps changing and we should keep updating our tech arsenal to stay ahead in the race.
5. Adapt to the changes
As a developer, it's very important to adapt to the change, I started learning Jquery, later I moved to angular js and now I am only using Vue and React this is just about frontend framework. But it stands true for CSS or any backend framework as well, sticking to just one tech and not moving forward is not something any developer should do.
6. Keep Asking
No question is small, no doubt is silly. Make sure that whatever project or task you have been working on you have the full knowledge about it, even if you have to ask 100 or 1000 questions
7. Have complete ownership
Always have 100% ownership of whatever you do, Even if it's your teammate who made some mistake it should be the responsibility of the team lead. Also, having full ownership will keep you involved and you will always give the best version of yourself which will definitely add up to your career and you will come out shining
I hope you like this article, this was my small experience of working as a full-stack developer(Team Lead) in a technology consulting company.
You can learn more about my projects at https://www.kartikpuri.com/
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