The latest articles on DEV Community by Kate Beard (she/her) (@sbinlondon). https://dev.to/sbinlondon https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F268332%2Fb10a83e0-13bf-4851-923a-11a546cbfc20.jpeg https://dev.to/sbinlondon en Kate Beard (she/her) Thu, 14 Nov 2019 20:20:53 +0000 https://dev.to/sbinlondon/let-s-get-philosophical-how-do-you-know-when-you-re-a-dev-130g https://dev.to/sbinlondon/let-s-get-philosophical-how-do-you-know-when-you-re-a-dev-130g <p>This might be a bit of a weird, fuzzy one, but...</p> <p>I recently was talking to a PhD student who has been sitting in with my team at work. His chosen line of study is how teams use Slack for communication. During our interview the other day, I mentioned that I had used Slack at many offices, both before I became a developer and after.</p> <p>This turned into a tangent about my journey learning to code, and eventually he asked me this question:</p> <h3> <em>"How do you know when you're a developer?"</em> </h3> <p>It made me pause for a moment, mostly because I realised I had no idea what to say!</p> <p>So what do you think?</p> <ul> <li><p>If you did a course (university, bootcamp, etc) are you a developer when you finish? Before you finish? Some time after?</p></li> <li><p>What if you are self-taught? When do you pass this invisible line?</p></li> <li><p>When we know a certain number of things or have learned a certain number of skills?</p></li> <li><p>Is it some other metric?</p></li> </ul> <p>I know that this is one of those questions where nearly everyone's answer will be different, and of course every answer will be valid because of our different experiences. So let's hear it 👉🗣👂</p> explainlikeimfive career beginners discuss