Balancing your growth as a developer
As a developer who’s recently graduated from a boot-camp and looking to start my career, I often find my self spending countless hours on side-projects. Everything from full-stack feature projects to small scale front-end React Apps. Almost daily, I wake up with a new idea or a new concept for a project and lay down some groundwork on it with the intention of building an impressive app that will surely get the attention of a hiring manager.
After spending so much of my time on those projects, something became clear to me. I’d been neglecting to work on my JavaScript skills. Not my React skills, but my JavaScript data structures and algorithms skills. What I realized was that in my effort to produce more tangible work, I’d slowly shifted into a pattern of following the same design principles and building the same react apps with different faces, so-to-speak. I’d shied away from putting work into my problem-solving skills and as a developer, it doesn't matter how pretty you can make something look; if you can’t solve problems and think programmatically, it’s time to work that skill some more.
This is where Data Structures and Algorithms comes in. Data Structures and Algorithms are the marks of a good Software Developer. If you look into the hiring process of any tech giant (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google, etc.) you’ll find they have some pretty difficult technical interviews that are focused on gauging the knowledge of Data Structures and Algorithms of the candidates. Even in the few technical interviews I’ve had, it’s become extremely evident that the more proficient you are with Algorithms, the better chance you have at landing the job. This is because Data Structures and Algorithms show a candidate's ability to pick up a problem and solve it. The interviewer gets to see how you think when presented with a challenge. They work with you to de-construct the problem and see which tools you pick to solve it.
That being said, just as Data Structures and Algorithms will help you in the interview phase, oftentimes it's your projects and portfolio that get in you in the door in the first place. This brings me back to my original point of balance. How do I find the proper balance between building projects and working through tough Algorithmic challenges? The answer to this may look a little different for everyone but for me, I’ve decided to start every morning with a challenge to get my mind going and start exercising those skills early. I typically spend about 1.5hrs or more in the morning on challenges and spend around 5hrs on project work. This gives me enough time to really dive into an algorithm and learn something new every day. Oftentimes I even find myself discovering new ways to use functions that I already have experience with.
