Developer interviews: how to succeed and what are the pitfalls of the profession

Is there a certain list of knowledge and skills that will help you become a super professional developer? What should you do at the beginning of your career path? And why is this profession so popular today?

With this whole list of questions, we came to the development engineers of Integrity Vision — Viktor Ivanchenko and Serhiy Kuhar. Learned about the career path, pitfalls, and even picked up some valuable tips for aspiring developers!

Viktor Ivanchenko is the head of the Camunda developers team

What does your job consist of and what do you like the most about it?

My job is to create products/services that allow our customers to:

• To provide services to our clients faster and better;
• Increase the execution speed, transparency and quality of your internal corporate processes.

I like the fact that I can create something new with my own hands (although you can't touch it). Ideal for me - if it is new and useful.

How to become a developer?

You need to start developing something, maybe start with the banal automation of some routine actions (provided that your work is somehow related to IT - for example, administrator, content manager). Prepare a couple of bash scripts (you can download a booklet with examples and practical tasks, try to go through them, and then don't be afraid to apply your knowledge in practice). Or try to create an HTML page. It seems to me that starting to master development with HTML will be the easiest way to start. No additional tools are required for this. You can immediately see your creation and immediately understand whether the development is yours or not.

Then, of course, you should take professional courses to somehow expand your horizons and understand for yourself in which direction you should move and develop further.

For a person who wants to become a developer and has not worked in IT before, it is worth starting with specialized courses. But it is better to use script programming languages, they are easier to enter + you can write on them in any way. But one way or another, it is worth understanding - "it is yours or not."

The developer's profession is somewhat idealized in society. What does this sphere look like from the inside? And what are the pitfalls?

There is a widespread opinion that any developer, even a beginner, receives a sky-high salary from the start. I would like to note that indeed, with skills and experience, a qualified developer can earn good money. But these are clearly not cosmic sums and certainly not the limit for Ukrainian society. In itself, IT and the field of development are industries that serve the financial sector, energy, telecommunications and trade. Because of this, it seems to me that if a person wants to earn a lot, he should look in this direction. Another issue is that it is now easier to enter the IT industry and developers are in high demand.

From the outside, it may seem that developers work by themselves, constantly at the computer, do not communicate with anyone - this is not entirely true. Yes, indeed, there are partially true comments. However, development is primarily a team effort. Especially when it comes to high-quality development of a new product or support of an existing one. Today, developers need to communicate a lot in a team, share experiences, find, discuss and make decisions together.

What does a developer need to know today to be successful tomorrow?

I think, firstly, it is worth remembering what he learned yesterday and the day before. Nowadays, the trend of microservices, cloud development, etc. is very popular. But, despite all the new trends, it seems to me that they will not enter our market soon. The majority of customers are still focused on classic architecture, classic options for deployment and product support. With all that, sooner or later the trend will reach our market, and developers should definitely look towards the development of cloud-ready applications, the creation of software based on distributed and microservice architecture. And the most important thing is to understand where it is appropriate to apply all this, and where it is not.

What are your top 3 tips for beginner developers?

1. Learn to read stack traces and error logs. This is very helpful in resolving incidents and issues.
2. You need a good understanding of how the TCP/IP protocol stack works, along with application protocols. And especially TLS.
3. Write unit tests as you develop/learn. The skill of writing tests is not only important during interviews, but also helps you very well during development. Besides, writing tests is a must-have for any quality development.

Serhii Kuhar is a software engineer

What does your job consist of and what do you like most about it?

I started as an IBM BPM developer in the company. My job was to write JavaScript scripts. Currently, I work in the team that integrates BPMS Camunda, as a Java developer.

How to become a developer?

I didn't study computer science right away. Already having two educations (financial and aviation engineering), I studied at the "Shag" computer academy, majoring in software development. Therefore, ideally, you should immediately go to university for computer science — but my path was different.

The developer's profession is somewhat idealized in society. What does this sphere look like from the inside? And what are the pitfalls?

If you dream of becoming a development engineer, you must be ready for constant training and overtimes. And you often have to sacrifice time with your family in your free time and on weekends to study. If difficulties do not scare you, then feel free to choose this profession!

What does a developer need to know today to be successful tomorrow?

A very important point in this profession is that the developer needs to develop and maintain his knowledge up-to-date to the technology stack on which he works. And also constantly monitor trends in the field.

What are your top 3 tips for beginner developers?

1. Study a lot to have a strong base and understand how everything works "under the hood"
2. Lots of practice.
3. Don't give up when it doesn't work out - have a little patience and perseverance!