Junior to Senior: Career Advice for the Ambitious Programmer — Holloway

8 min read Original article ↗

The missing manual for ambitious software engineers.

A practical guide to self-confidence, personal growth, teamwork, learning, communication, and delivering results—the soft skills that every programmer needs to succeed in their job.

  • 260-page online book
  • Lifetime digital access
  • Shareable access links when you purchase for others
  • Access to advanced search, bookmarking, and other features in the Holloway Reader

Language: English

ISBN (Holloway.com):

978-1-952120-39-8

Career Advice for the Ambitious Programmer

by David Glassanos

As a programmer, you’ve spent plenty of time learning technical and programming skills. Junior engineers—and even some who have been in it a long time—must constantly focus on improving their “hard” technical skills.

But writing code is only part of our job as software developers. It’s equally essential for developers to cultivate the soft skills critical for adding value for their team, their company, their customers, and their career—and it’s often neglected.

Junior to Senior is one of only a few books that gives practical advice on the soft skills needed to thrive as an engineer:

  • Dealing with lack of confidence
  • Learning from others and by reading unfamiliar code
  • Managing your time
  • Working effectively with your manager
  • Communicating clearly with business stakeholders and writing clear documentation
  • Understanding different ways to add value for a company and its customers
  • Managing risks and recovering from mistakes
  • Dealing with conflict
  • Balancing the demands of work and personal life

… and much more.

Improvements in these areas are important milestones on the journey from junior to senior software developer. Junior to Senior is filled with insights, from one engineer to another, to guide you along that path.

Whether you studied Computer Science, graduated from a coding bootcamp, or are a self-taught programmer, this book will help you manage yourself, build value, and earn the confidence of your team to take on roles with greater responsibility and impact.

Table of Contents

What Makes You a Senior Engineer?

Different Meanings Read Preview

Dealing with Ambiguity

Dealing with Accountability

Time Management

Attention to Detail

Engineering Excellence

Team-First Approach

Job Level Matrix

Working with Your Manager

Build Trust

Adapt to Their Management Style

Learn to Manage Up

Dealing with Conflict

One-on-Ones

How to Recover from Mistakes

Why Code Breaks

Murphy’s Law

What to Do during an Incident

How to Ask Better Questions

Asking for Help

Asking for Clarification

Asking to Learn

How to Read Unfamiliar Code

Find the Entry Points

Leverage Your IDE

Dig Deeper

The Blame Game

Read the History

Log Some Data

Fire Up Your Debugger

Tests Contain Context

Don’t Try to Understand It All

How to Add Value

Improve Productivity

Solve Pain Points for Your Customers

Ship Code That Increases Revenue

Ship Code That Reduces Cost

Add, Improve, or Automate Processes

Add Value without Writing Code

Wrapping Up

How to Manage Risk

Types of Risk

Contributors to Technical Risk

Mitigations for Technical Risk

Postmortems

Retrospectives

How to Deliver Better Results

Perfect Software Doesn’t Exist

Find Tools That Work for You

Find a Process That Works for You

Solve the Problem First

Take Ownership

How to Communicate More Effectively

The Golden Rule

Know Your Audience

Writing Skills

Speaking Skills

Listening Skills

Prepare for Meetings

Don’t Communicate through Other People

Communication Isn’t Just “Saying Something”

Dealing with Conflicts

Wrapping Up

Work-Life Balance

Time Is Your Most Valuable Resource

More Hours != More Work

The Work Will Always Be There

Side Projects

Friends and Family

Take Care of Your Body

Reading

Traveling

Wrapping Up

Asking for the Promotion

Preparing

Assess Yourself

What to Prepare

Build Relationships

Asking the Question

Put in the Work

David Glassanos is a seasoned software developer with over a decade of experience building successful consumer and enterprise products for international brands. David started his career in Silicon Valley at Mertado, an e-commerce startup acquired by Groupon in 2012. While at Groupon, he built systems to personalize emails delivered to 100 million inboxes each day. From there he joined NatureBox as an early employee, and helped grow revenues to $50 million annually. Since then he has helped build products and engineering teams in the e-signature, co-working, and transportation telematics industries. As a way to give back to the developer communities that have helped him succeed, he advises junior software developers on career growth, effective communication, soft-skills, and work-life balance.

Get lifetime access now.

The full book, interactive and searchable. Plus all future updates.

Instant lifetime access

  • 260-page online book
  • Lifetime digital access
  • Shareable access links when you purchase for others
  • Access to advanced search, bookmarking, and other features in the Holloway Reader

Does this sound like you?

I just started my first job as a programmer and I’m overwhelmed with how much there is to learn. How can I manage it all?

As a CS undergrad who will be looking for a role this year, what should I expect in my first job and what can I do to prepare for it?

After three years as a junior programmer I feel like I’m ready for a promotion, but haven’t gotten one.

I’m a self-taught programmer and sometimes I strugggle with imposter syndrome. How do I help myself and my teammates believe I’m capable?

What People Are Saying

The@hollowaybooksaresomeofthebestprimersoncomplextopicsI’veevercomeacross.Beautifulonlinereadingexperiencetoo.

IcouldreadonlineforeverifitwereUX’dlike@holloway.

Holyhell.HowamIJUSTstumblingacross@hollowayrightnow?ThisiswhatcuratedexpertpapersshouldbeforEVERYTHING.

CanwegetyourteamtoreformattheentirewebintothispleasantUXexperienceplease?:)

IamashamedtoadmitthatIonlylearnedabout@hollowaythisweek.HOWISTHISPOSSIBLE?Theirmaterialis✨fantastic✨BoughtseveralbooksalreadyandsharedafewexcerptswithcolleaguesfromtheGuidetoTechnicalRecruitingandHiring

Reallyenjoyinghowwell-writtenandinformativethe@hollowayguidesare.Finishedthe“GuidetoTechnicalRecruitingandHiring”and“EquityCompensation”andIcantotallyrecommendthem.

IneedmoretimeinmylifesoIcanreadallof@hollowayguides

Learn more.

Enter your email for more details, updates from the authors, and free samples from the book.

Frequently Asked Questions

  • What exactly am I buying?

    By purchasing a title on Holloway.com, you get full digital access to the book and all other resources that come with it, for unlimited use by you. That means you get lifetime access online for that title on the web, using the Holloway Reader. In contrast with Kindle and other ebooks, this also includes future updates from the author or editors. Finally, depending on the title, you get additional digital resources like PDF downloads, documents, spreadsheets, or audio clips! If you purchase a bundle, you get all additional resources for each title in the bundle.

  • What is the Holloway Reader?

    The Holloway Reader lets you read and engage with books bought on Holloway. Many of our readers call it the best reading experience for books on the web—you use it right in your browser, on desktop or mobile. In contrast to ebooks and paper books, online content in the Holloway Reader is always up to date, including updates when changes to the content are made, like responses to reader questions, new data, or new developments. It also lets us experiment with what the future of the book should look like, offering features you won’t find in Kindle or Apple Books.* It includes expert commentary in the margins and offers bookmarks and highlights, instant definitions of technical terms from a glossary, instant previews of links and footnotes, and a powerful search capability only available on Holloway titles—and we have a lot more on the way.

  • Are there any discounts?

    We do offer discounts if you select a bundle or more than one title during checkout. We also offer student discounts to individuals with a valid .edu email address.* Before a book is released, it is available for pre-order at a discount. By pre-ordering a title, you’re supporting us and our authors in their work and you may get a note from the author, early access, or other perks.

    Finally, if you sign up on our email list, in addition to excerpts and updates about our titles you’ll get any occasional special offers (infrequently—we don’t want to spam folks!).

  • Can I buy Holloway titles as a gift?

    Yes! You can purchase and instantly share lifetime digital access for any title in the catalog. You can do this for a friend or a small group by selecting the number of invites you want to purchase during checkout. You’ll also get a receipt, so you may easily expense it if it’s a business purchase.

  • Can I buy Holloway titles for my team or my company?

    Yes! It’s just like a gift for a few people, as above. For example, if you purchase 5 invites, you can forward the invite link or invitation email to the 5 people on your team.

    We also offer additional options for team access for companies, groups, and classes. Use the team access form (just 3 questions) to set this up and get full pricing information or contact sales@holloway.com.

  • I have more questions!

    Don’t we all. Check the full FAQ. And we’d love to hear from you at hello@holloway.com.

Other Titles

Readers of this book also purchased these titles

Remote Work

by Katie WildeJuan Pablo Buriticá

A comprehensive guide to building, managing, and working with distributed teams.

Admitted

by Soundarya Balasubramani

Admitted is a proven, comprehensive guide for students in any country looking to enter graduate or undergraduate programs in the U.S., Canada, or Europe. Used by thousands of students worldwide, it offers a unique combination of practical advice, mental frameworks to make better decisions, personal anecdotes, a philosophical touch, and illustrations to support and encourage you along the way.

Ask Me This Instead

by Kendra Haberkorn

Why should only hiring managers and recruiters decide your job destiny? Be empowered at every step of the hiring process, understand your own skills and priorities, and find the company that can give you what you want. No matter where you are in your career journey, it’s time you were in control.

Junior to Senior

by David Glassanos

A practical guide to self-confidence, personal growth, teamwork, learning, communication, and delivering results—the soft skills that every programmer needs to thrive in their job and be ready for a senior role.

Keep in touch.

We’ll send early announcements of new books from Holloway, free excerpts, and offers available only on our email list.

More Holloway Titles