Got a good question in response to my post, Well then, what is time again?
NotLooking wants to know if there is career growth for those individual contributors in the Development world, from the eyes of the hiring manager or recruiter.
Dang straight there is.
For me, when I read a Developer's, or Tester's, or Program Manager's resume, and especially one where the candidate has been at it for more than 5 years, I want to see evidence of learning and maybe more importantly curiosity. Having said this, the evidence of these two items is different between a Contract Cowboy Coder and a Sr. SDE who jumps jobs after 2 or so major releases of a product.
The evidence I look for includes things like learning new languages, jumping into developing on new platforms, teaching adjunct programming classes, getting a degree. To me, this is evidence of self-directed growth.
One of the most remarkable interviews I conducted was with a very seasoned developer who had completed his J.D. a month or so before. I was interviewing this candidate for a Sr. SDE role, and of course I had to ask as to why he was pursuing a Development role when he had just completed his law degree. He said it was because he studied law to bring deeper understanding to his coding as he had noticed similarities in the construction of legal documents and software.
That's career growth.
Comments