What you need to be a successful developer beside coding skill

1. Developer Breakthrough
Success
Vinh Nguyen

2. About me
Nguyen The Vinh, Technical Director, Pyramid
Consulting
Linkedin http://www.linkedin.com/pub/vinh-nguyen/19/915/62a
Twitter https://twitter.com/ngthevinh
More than ten years in software development, normal
guy with a normal life

3. Content
1. What are our problems
2. Prerequisite
3. Solution
4. References

4. What are our problems
Coding forever, no way out. Stuck
Can’t move forward, still looking for the same things for
years
Tired & bored, feel no power, no energy, no benefit
Project failures
Unhappy

5. Prerequisite
What is success? It’s different with everyone. You have
your own definition
If that success cannot make you happy, you are going
on the wrong way
It means if you are not interested in coding or software
development, let change your job

6. Prerequisite
So what is happiness?
It’s out of scope of this
presentation :)
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

7. Solutions
Having correct mindset
Seeing the big picture: know where you are, what your
destination, choose the best route
Know your rights and responsibilities
Follow principles
Analyze your passion: motivation & value
Win-Win interdependence
Become an expert

8. The correct mindset
seeing the big picture

9. The map
Will give you current
location, destination,
and the route
Use it to save your
time and efforts

10. Software development chain
Reference here

11. Know the chain
Where are you in that chain? What do you want to be?
Do you know every role in the process?
There are 3 roles affect to developer:
employer - who pay for your salary
customer - who pay for your employer
end-user - who make your customer survive

12. Know the chain
Normally the end-users who pay for product will drive the chain
The power will come to the one who can drive that role
What is the correct way
• Help the customers to develop correct products for their
end-users
• Help your employer to satisfy the customer
• Only two above are success, you are success

13. Identifying
Where you are
your current seniority
your current domain, characteristics
Destination
why do you want to get there?
does it make you happy?
The route
watch & get consulting from experts
it’s not same with everyone, just need to fit with you

14. The correct mindset
know your rights and responsibilities

15. Developer’s Rights &
Responsibility
Developer Bill of Rights
Developer Bill of Responsibilities
Customer Bill of Rights

16. The correct mindset
follow principles

17. The LightHouse Principle
There are lighthouse principles. You don’t break them.
You only break yourself against them. Don’t break
yourself against lighthouse principles.

18. Principles
In life - e.g the law of the harvest principle, true north
principle, etc
In software development - e.g. software design
principles, etc

19. Law of the Harvest
Law of the Harvest is an enlightening look at the true meaning of ‘reaping
what you sow,’ and the importance of a strong work ethic. Persistence,
patience and perseverance, as well as attention to the detail, are imperative:
with potato farming, it takes to four years from soil prep to harvest; short-
cuts simply don't cut it

20. SOLID Principle
SOLID — five basic principles of object-oriented programming
and design
SRP: single responsibility principle
OCP: open/closed principle
LSP: liskov substitution principle
ISP: interface segregation principle
DIP: dependency inversion principle

21. The correct mindset
analyze your passion

22. Analyze your passion
Passionate people are self-motivated. You will try
yourself to overcome difficulties and sharpen your
knowledge & skills
Analyze your passion keeps you go long with it. Think it
carefully about the motivation and value of each
decision will help you
The 5 whys

23. The correct mindset
win-win interdependence

24. Win-Win Interdependence
You cannot work alone. You have to work well in the
team.
Win-Win is fundamental to success in all of our
interactions.

25. Become an expert
seniority

26. Sharpen the Saw
Finally you have to practice yourself to become an
expert in your domain
Identify your seniority level. Aware of what you know,
what you don’t know.

27. Seniority
Seniority relates to people who can work independently,
produce on-time and high-quality work
Some developers confuse between on-time and fast. On-
time is enough. Quality is more important
Take efforts to produce high quality work will make you
proud of yourself. It needs passion and practice
Aware of what you don’t know will help you see a big
picture, know the trends and push yourself to move forward

28. Full stack developer
Server, Network, and Hosting Environment
Data Modeling
Business Logic
API Layer / Action Layer / MVC
User Interface
Understanding what the customer and business need
Reference here

29. Recommend books

30. Recommend books
Extreme Programming Explained - this book places
developers in the center of software development
Agile Principle, Patterns and Practices - will give you
solid principles of object-oriented design
Business Model Generation - give you an big picture of
business model
Seven Habits of Highly Effective People - cover
principles not only in software but also in life

31. Vinh Nguyen
Thank you