Developer Goals
I have an upcoming meeting with my manager at work to discuss my development goals for the year (I’m just coming onto this team so it’s a bit late) and I have of course been thinking about not only what my developer goals are, but what should a developer goal look like. I could easily list a ton of different technologies/APIs or frameworks that I want to learn, but in my opinion knowing a lot of frameworks isn’t enough so I am trying to think about other things that would make me a better developer. I know a fair amount of different technologies so I would rather spend the upcoming months refining my knowledge with what I am currently using. Here are a few of the things floating around in my head right now as far as areas I want to improve in:
Tech
I want to increase my level of knowledge of these
Methodology
I would like to improve my abilities in these areas
- Test Driven Development
- Agile/Scrum
- Software Estimation
Projects
I want to continue to work on
- Finish PlayWithYourPeas XNA game
- Contribute to an Open Source Project
- Write more
These are just a couple of areas that I want to either learn more about or improve upon. I have also been pondering whether or not to pursue the Certified Associate in Project Management certification. I have already met the requirements so it would just be a matter of a bit of study and to take the exam. I currently have no desire to be a project manager, but I think having this under my belt would go a long way towards reaching my longer term goal of becoming a team lead. I currently don’t have any other certifications and am not planning on getting any.
When constructing the above list of items, I was also thinking about SMART which is an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Timebound. For example, applying this to my above list I could do almost all of these by building a small web application. However, to make any of these official goals I need to make them more specific like “build a website with Grails that does CRUD operations to a database as well as make use of a webservice” (that covers about 90% of the tasks I would use it for at work). I would make this a bit more specific by outlining the type of site that I wanted to build, most likely something data heavy with a lot of complex forms like I have to deal with at work. This is also definitely attainable. I don’t need to build the next big thing but I could easily build a website that flexes all of the technology I need it to in a few months with spare time. Even if I am not using Grails as an everyday technology, it is completely relevant as it uses technology I do use every day. Also, laying out the UI and handling form data is going to be a great exercise that I can apply to every other application I build. Timebound is the tricky one. I would want to set a time frame on when these goals should be completed that isn’t too aggressive but also not too far off in the future.
I will most likely refine these items and remove or add some over the next few days, but whatever makes the final cut, it is important to stay focused and to complete them.