Shvets / reaper / backend developer. Why programming is the best career plan B?

The world is experiencing a boom in the gig economy - a growing number of self-employed workers who prefer the independence and freedom to set their own work schedule and determine where to spend their time and energy over full-time work and a fixed salary. Well, the growth of the gig economy has spawned another trend that is gaining popularity - the “slash career”. About him, as well as why programming is the best suited for a slash career in the modern world, we will talk in this article.

What is a slash career?

In short, this is the combination of several jobs in different professions on an ongoing basis. “Slash,” if anyone does not understand, is the symbol “/,” which is used when describing the activities of a person with careers in several (at least two) different areas. For example, “Engineer/Programmer/Marketing Specialist” or, more recently, “Translator/Pizza Delivery/Uber Driver.” This simple concept was first proposed and popularized by journalist Marci Alboher in her book One Person/Multiple Careers. The concept of the slash career has received particularly strong support among the younger generation and those who prefer the mobility and flexibility of the traditional model, in which a person works for one company for a long time and makes a career in a single profession throughout his life. Initially, the slash career was associated mainly with representatives of the artistic and creative professions, but gradually this concept penetrated into other areas, including IT. A slash career has quite a few obvious, in general, advantages. Here are just a few of them:

• Flexibility and mobility. Allows you to independently manage your schedule and adjust the load.

• Multiple sources of income. You are not dependent on only one source of income and are not tied to a salary schedule.

• The opportunity to do what you love. It's no secret that any job eventually tires. A slash career allows you to replace one job with another and change focus regularly to keep the relationship fresh.

Why programming is a great choice for a slash career?

But why did we even start talking about a slash career? The fact is that programming is one of the best options for a second profession (not to mention the first), which can be effectively combined with other activities. For those to whom this statement may seem doubtful, here are a number of reasons to choose programming for your slash career:

• Knowing how to code is one of the most in-demand skills in today's world.

  The ability to program, or at least knowledge of the basic principles of writing code, will be useful not only for those who directly earn money by coding, but in principle for almost all specialists whose work is somehow related to IT. By the way, in the West, “Learn to code” (“learn to program”) is a fairly well-known meme that appeared after a number of large companies, including BuzzFeed, Yahoo and AOL, fired more than 1,000 journalists working on content . Thus, representatives of the technical professions advised the dismissed journalists (in a derisive way, of course) to study software development as an alternative career path, so as not to remain unemployed in the future.

• Knowledge of programming can contribute to success in other areas and professions.

  Many people, including CodeGym students, confirm that studying programming has helped them achieve success in their main profession and significantly increased their professional value and relevance. “I did not become a developer, but I solve everyday problems with the help of my knowledge in development. It’s easier for me to set tasks for colleagues, estimate the time of work, help to do analytics. I keep in touch with successful people. I consider developers to be successful people, because they do what they want - not everyone can boast of this. In the company, I am responsible for the key process, I communicate with TOPs, I study,” one of our students shares his experience .

• Programming can be done remotely.

  Despite the worldwide trend towards remote work , there are a huge number of professions that require working with people or being in the office, which cannot but tire even the most hardened extroverts at least from time to time. Programming allows you to temporarily switch to activities that are more suitable for introverts and often require loneliness and remoteness from society. Thus, programming as a slash career alongside some kind of “public” specialty is a great opportunity to balance your life.

• Through programming, it is easy to get into the industry that interests you.

  “Here is one approach to a technical career that successful people use. Working as a programmer, like other technical professions, is great for getting into a certain industry. Work for a few years as a programmer in an industry you are interested in to get to know it from the inside and earn more money that you can spend, for example, on obtaining an MBA degree, in order to become a manager later. Many people move from programming to IT management. Such work pays well, but requires quite a lot of complex skills. Others go into business or consulting,” Andy Goodwin, a former programmer and investment manager, shares his observations on the Quora Q&A website.

• Ability to learn new technologies and programming languages.

  Here it would be appropriate to quote once again, which we have already used a couple of times in articles on CodeGym, and which, perhaps, is the best advice for those who aspire to be a sought-after professional in the modern world. “The illiterate in the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn,” said Alvin Toffler, an American writer, sociologist and businessman.

  Programming as a slash profession is a sure indicator that a person knows how to “learn, unlearn and relearn,” which in itself makes him more successful and in demand in the market than most.

How to make programming a part of your slash career?

If the fact that it definitely makes sense to make programming a part of your slash career hardly seems debatable to you, then the realism of this transformation may certainly be found by many to be somewhat dubious. This is the case when it is easy to say, but not so easy to do. It is not easy, but, and we do not get tired of repeating it, it is quite real. Learning programming is more than a feasible task for almost everyone, if you know how to approach it, of course. By the way, the use of computer thinking, which we talked about in a separate article, is well suited for solving this problem . Let's try together to come up with a working algorithm that will allow you to make programming a part of your slash career without having to make a Herculean effort.

1. We set tasks.

   It’s worth starting by dividing a large and complex problem (in our case, this is “Make programming your slash career”) into a number of smaller and solvable problems. Let's try this:

   • Find time to learn programming regularly.
   • Develop the habit of learning on a regular basis.
   • Decide on a learning method.
   • Choose areas of study, starting programming language.
   • Apply newly acquired knowledge in practice, so that they are fixed in memory.
   • Stay motivated so you don't quit halfway through.
   • Overcome internal resistance, overcome procrastination and the fear of wasting time and effort.

2. We set priorities.

   Now, having decided on a set of smaller basic tasks, let's move on to prioritization.

   • Find time to learn programming regularly.

     Even one hour of training a day will allow you to notice tangible results in two to three months. Of course, for those who are already working and leading a relatively active lifestyle, it will not be easy to allocate even an hour for a new task, so it is important to think about your daily routine, look for the least productively used time in it, and make changes accordingly.

   • Develop and reinforce the habit of learning on a regular basis.

     On average, each habit is said to take about two months to form. With the formation of a habit, this collection of services for blocking stimuli and effective training planning can help .

   • Decide on a learning method.

     Programming can be learned in many ways. In addition to thoughtful, effective, and fun online courses like CodeGym, there are also books and tutorials , blogs and video lectures , offline courses , and more. To begin with, it makes sense to choose one, combining it with others if necessary.

   • Choose areas of study, starting programming language.

     There are quite a lot of programming languages, and their popularity and demand is constantly changing according to the needs of the market. Of course, we recommend that you start your slash career as a programmer by learning the Java language, which shows a steady increase in popularity from year to year . Here is a short article with a pretty compelling argument for why learning Java in 2020 .

   • Apply newly acquired knowledge in practice, so that they are fixed in memory.

     If your choice of the main way to learn programming did not fall on the CodeGym course, where theory is immediately supported by practical tasks, then, at the initial stages, games for programmers should help well , and at later stages, work on open projects on GitHub.

   • Stay motivated so you don't quit halfway through.

     Staying motivated is best done by focusing on your goals. Remind yourself why you decided to learn programming and make it part of your slash career - this will make you a more effective and marketable specialist, as well as a more successful and independent person who is able to balance and manage your life.

   • Overcome internal resistance, overcome procrastination and the fear of wasting time and effort.

     First of all, understanding how procrastination works, where resistance comes from, and why it is important to be able to maintain focus in order to successfully solve life's tasks helps to solve this problem. Here is a more detailed article on this topic: Just do it! How to save your mind from degradation and effectively study at home?

3. We find similarities with already mastered professions and skills.

   Look at the problems identified at the first stage and look for similarities in them with other problems that have already been solved in order to transfer already worked out approaches to them. For example, if you already have a habit of exercising regularly, this experience can be used with programming as well. At first, study will not be easy, you will quickly get tired and soon there will be a temptation to quit everything. But, if you continue to practice regularly, it will soon turn into a habit, and positive results, in the form of acquired knowledge and skills, will strengthen this habit until learning becomes a natural need for you.

   Since we are talking specifically about programming as a profession for a slash career here, you can use the patterns that you have already worked out during mastering your first profession to learn coding.

4. We develop an algorithm.

   Well, based on all of the above, we draw up an algorithm that will help us achieve our goal and solve the problem. The algorithm may sound, for example, like this: I will study programming for one hour a day on weekdays and two hours on weekends, I will start by learning the basics of Java, I will study online, analyzing my progress every two weeks, reminding myself of my goals to maintain motivation and, if necessary, revising or supplementing this approach to the task.