How do you know if you’re actually growing as a dev?
Last week I was chatting with a developer who’d hit a wall. (I talk to a lot of devs now that I think about it!)
Like him, you might consider yourself a scrappy coder. You’re an all-rounder, can generally figure things out and write some sort of scrappy script to solve a problem.
It’s actually a badge of pride! I myself have a bunch of scrappy scripts running in my home lab to do various things.
The thing is, sometimes this confidence we feel being scrappy, may actually just be comfort.
For this dev, he was comfortable fixing bugs, but the idea of staring at a blank file and architecting an end-to-end solution from scratch scared the pants off him.
It was this form of “engineering” that he just couldn’t get down.
The chat inspired me to create 3 things you can check today to push yourself out of this scrappy zone and into the realm of senior development/engineering.
Have a look at a function or codebase you’ve written and ask:
- “Is this deliberate?” Did I write it this way because it’s the best way, or because it’s the first way I found on Google that didn’t crash?
Senior developers are intentional in the code they write. - “How do I prove this works?” If I had to write a test for this right now, could I? Are you writing tests for your code? If not, how come? Your code should be straightforward enough that you can write tests for it.
- “What happens if I leave?” If I disappeared tomorrow, would the next developer thank me or curse my soul?
This forces you to think about readability, context managers, and structure (like using uv or proper config files) rather than hard-coding values just to get it done.
These are simple questions that have real impact when you start considering them as you write code. You’ll be surprised how much more robust your applications become!
Try asking these three questions today. If it’s uncomfortable, good! That means you’re growing!
And when you’re ready to take the next step on your Python journey, (shameless plug incoming), click the link below to chat with us about 1:1 Coaching. We’ll help you get there!
Julian
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