Hello 👋
(English is not my first language, please don't mind the mistakes)
I'm a web developer and I'm working for almost 2 years in the same place in Brussels after being graduated. I was hired as Javascript developer. Today, I don't give a shit of the role they can give to any developer.
Firstly, let me explain my journey as developer from the beginning to today.
I have written my first lines of code at the age of 14. I learnt C, PHP, Python in the field and to be honest, I have an experience that all graduated developers don't have necessary: self-educated from the beginning, how to work and learn alone without a teacher, to cope by myself.
As I said, I was hired to be a Javascript developer in my company. I didn't care of the technology I will use, so I accepted the post. Just arrived in my first mission, I was one of the best developer in this company. It was simple, always the same things with different clients, very basic. A day of August, I received a call from the internal web agency of my company, they are known to be famous, the cherry in top of the cake. They needed a Vue.js developer, I accepted.
I asked to stay in the web agency, I knew that I can learn so many things that I'll never be able to learn on any mission. I was accepted.
I did Javascript for months, successfully and sometimes with fails but there is a thing on my head...
You're a developer, you are able to solve any problem in any language. Why are you a Javascript developer ? You can get and give better !
We're in July, I asked to work with the PHP team. An interview later and I'm a part of the team. I'm still working with them sometimes but mostly alone. Last months, I spend my time to fix bugs on many projects with different technologies. Angular.js (seriously guys ? 🙄 ), Vue.js, give my expertise before the beginning of projects, etc.
I'm currently working alone on a project with Laravel and Vue.js, designing the UI. Something asking to UX experts if everything is good and it's often good.
I did a demo today on the project where I was alone these 2 last weeks, my boss was really surprised about it. He knows I worked on all sides, thing that I'm not supposed to do. He was surprised because they know me as a back-end developer, front-end only to fix bugs on projects.
I also build the docker infrastructure. It's the devops'es role. I don't care.
I'm a developer. I can learn any language or framework and use it in a few weeks. Development still my passion. So what ? Am I supposed to do the same thing, everyday for life ? I don't think so. 🤷♀️
What about you ? Are you blocked in a role which you don't want ?
Would you tell us your story ?
Top comments (3)
I agree that {language, or even worse, framework} Developer is a bad brand that no developers would like to wear (for a long time).
You can happily call yourself a "software developer" for as long as you want. But eventually, most people will figure out they love something and stay with it for some time. So you can be a "system developer" for 10 years, or "front-end developer", "full-stack developer", etc. Some people will love a technology so much they spend a lot of time on it and only want to work with it; they will happily brand themselves "Docker developer" (instead of container developer) or "AWS engineer" (instead of cloud engineer). And that's fine too.
But that's what we call ourselves (titles).
What the companies call us (positions) do not depend on what we do but rather what we provide them. So I'm a full-stack developer who currently fills a Rails developer role, for example, and I'm totally fine with that too. To that company, all they need from me is my Rails skill. I can switch to an Angular developer position in the company or elsewhere if I want to do that for a few years, and that's fine too.
I guess I'm rambling at this point, but the main idea is don't let the position define your title. One tells what your employers expect from you, while the other tells what you could provide; and these two only need to overlap enough to keep both sides happy :)
I've mostly been an "entrepreneur" developer, which usually means I have a lot of choices, but also means sometimes I have to change just to help grow the thing I'm building.
I became a Swift developer by almost pure necessity because it was a good choice for the job and I just had to learn it. Being forced into evolving has been an enriching experience so far.
Thanks for a great post Alyve.
You are a full stack developer 💯. Languages are just tools we need to focus on building things.