The Complete Software Developer's Career Guide: How to Learn Programming Languages Quickly, Ace Your Programming Interview, and Land Your Software Developer Dream Job

First, let me tell you that I do not know this author and I have not been asked to write a review.I was looking for information on careers in Software Development and there just aren't that many out there.I came across this book and read the reviews (much like you are doing now) and saw that there were a few negative comments.I honestly do not understand how anyone could say anything bad about this book.It's PACKED with information on absolutely every aspect of the Software Developer career. Seriously. This book is PACKED. We have all bought and read books that were nothing but fluff. This is NOT that book. John obviously took the time to write this book. Unlike some of the other books we download that were obviously written over a weekend and were never proof read. This book is solid. It is also quite large.Now you may haver seen where someone complained that John put a space between sentences. They claim that it was done to make the book appear longer. Let me tell you that not only does the author know how to write, having the the content spaced the way had did makes the digital version of this book easier to read on my device.Adding the spacing the way that he did may make the page count higher, but that is really irrelevant as the word count is still huge and the content is amazingly valuable.One comment complained that the author is including links to his other books/blogs/etc. I say GOOD. I'm glad that he included these FREE additional items for me. I can choose to click or ignore, but I have seen the information these links have taken me to and am grateful that he has included them. These value added items are a great addition to the book. Once you read through the book and ask yourself "What Next" you have additional resources from these links. Use them ... don't use them, that's your choice, but I'm glad to have them.I was really impressed with this book. It is so jam packed with information that is written in an often humorous fashion. It has absolutely provided me with the information that I sought.Once again, I am no way being coerced, bribed, tortured or manipulated in writing this review. You can click on my name and see the other reviews that I have left on Amazon over the years. I'm just so impressed with this book and how it has answered every question that I had about this career and many that I didn't even know to ask.John,Thanks for a great read. Keep up the great work and look for me on you blog.~ Tony Wilson

Because this book is so huge, I wanted to give an in depth review so anyone looking at this would be able to make an informed decision about buying it.First off, this book is the missing manual you've been looking for in a software career. That probably sounds a little bold, but it really does walk you through from beginning to end, soup to nuts, how to start and advance your career.Second, If you follow John on Youtube, he does cover a lot of the same topics, BUT not in the same way or in the same fashion. Now, you're probably asking yourself what I mean by that. Well, while John's videos are great, they tend to be one offs, while the book really is a guide where everything is connected and you can use it to create a really solid career plan.Okay, so you're probably wondering what's in the book and what specifically it covers and how can it possibly live up to what I've just said.There are five main sections of the book:1) Getting Started As A Software Developer - This section covers how to choose you first language; deciding what's best for you: college vs a bootcamp vs teaching yourself, and how best to go about all three.2) Getting a Job- This section covers the many varied ways to find a job in the industry, how to actually get a developer job even if you don't have any experience, and how to switch from another career-technical or otherwise-to become a software developer.3) What You Need to Know About Software Development-here John walks you through all of the different career options for developers, including the pros and cons of each (Spoiler Alert: Even though it sounds like working in video games would amazing, there definitely are some cons. Big ones. Definitely check that section out.), and how to deal with recruiters. Yes, I know some of you just shuttered. It's okay John walks you through the process of working with a recruiter and helps you to avoid getting taken advantage of or get misled.4) Working as a Developer- In this Section John goes over some of the career guide standards like work/life and getting a raise or promotion, BUT he also covers some really important things like how to work with QA so that you're not fighting with all the time. You'll probably still fight with them some of the time, but nobody's a miracle worker.5) Advancing Your Career - Here John covers one of the areas most overlooked by developers: Self promotion. Most developers aren't too keen on this area and feel like their skills should speak for themselves. John shows how this isn't usually the case and shows you how to promote yourself without feeling fake or scammy. You might actually like doing it. Yes, shocking, I know.All in all, this is probably the best career guide I've ever seen for developers. It's in depth, entertaining, and actually useful. Personally, I tend to feel like a lot, if not most, career books tend to be ra ra nonsense filled with stuff that most people already know. That wasn't the case with this book and I feel like I got my money's worth.

There is more in this book than meets the eye. When someone with a lot of dedication and education summarizes a bunch of details that the Software Industry involves and share thousand of lessons learned over the years; building a path for someone else who recently enrolled in the Software industry, trust me it is pretty useful.I fully recommend the book for students or interns who has no experience in the industry, which will help them to succeed in this cut-throat market; for experienced developers, it could become a bit boring because it is a summary of our day-to-day.Unlike other technical books, this one has clear basic English, easy to digest for any non-native English speaker, and it tidies up many ideas, concepts, and paths to follow that could be a mess for any newbie developer.One of the quotes I saved for my own is "I believe we all learn best by doing, but when it comes to technical skills, this is a paramount"

I like this book.John gives really great advices, which helps me a lot.The book is wetten on very simple way and it is easytounderstand. All useful topics are in book.I like to call this book my career Bible.

This book is really good, it have a lot of useful tips and things to take care that you can't imagine. I really recommend you this book event if you are not a software developer.

Another fantastic product from John. If you were blown away by how much detail was in his previous publication “Soft Skills: The software developer’s life manual” prepare yourself for hurricane strength winds.This book helps bridge gaps for anyone who is or is looking to get into software development. The book is logically setup into 5 main sections: getting started as a software developer, getting a job, what you need to know about software development, working as a developer and finally advancing your career.Getting started as a software developer is the first chapter of this massive almost 800 page book. This section addresses questions that seem daunting to new developers, such as how to choose your first language, should you do a boot camp or teach yourself. Even if your not a beginner, this section has some great advice especially if you are mentoring new or growing developers.The next section progresses after you have started learning and are ready to venture into the industry. John addresses points such as how to find a job in this diverse economy, how to switch from a different career path as well as the contracting vs salaried question.Section three and four cover most of the A-Z requirements of working in the software development field. Topics such as source control, debugging, maintaining code are all covered in section three. Section four deals more with the people aspect of working in software development. How to setup a good work / life balance, while setting yourself up for success. Even a seasoned developer can learn something from these chapters, as first impressions are usually the lasting ones.The final section deals with advancing your career though methods such as blogging, networking and even speaking at conferences.Although a lot of this material has been covered by John by way of his blog, youtube or his previous publication it is really nice having all this information quickly accessible (and mobile; if you have the kindle version) manner. I eagerly look forward to the audio book as John always provides some quality asides.

It will teach you about getting a job, whether you have experience or not.Then you can goes through several software development types like web development, mobile, Back-end and many others.It also helps you understand tasks that are no coding, but everyone involved in programming in general must know like methodologies, testing, debugging, source control.Oh man o wish i had this book available when i started into the programming world 8 years ago...And i'm not even done here!The book has has whole section as how to approach being a software developer, with chapters about work/life balance, teammates, getting a raise, how to dress and a really important one to all the women in the Tech world.The last section is all about how to advance in your career.It goes on talking about how to keep your skills up to date, the importance of creating a blog has on your reputation...Go check it out.

If you want to succeed in life, whether you're an IT engineer or anyone else, you have to build a solid foundation and shape your thinking around principles. To me this book brings you just that. It's kind of Ray Dalio's book "Principles" but applied to the IT field (although a lot of those principles can be applied to anyone) and presented in a very practical way, from starting in the industry, get a job to building your career, your network, your brand and creating a business. Everything is straight to the point and simply explained. Up to you to take action after reading that book. But at least you won't have the excuse of not knowing what to do.This book is huge and contains a lots of information. Each sections feels like a whole book in itself, so for the price and the great info you get, it's a great value.Being in the IT world myself, I found the most value in the last two sections. I already pointed out my weaknesses and stuff I need to work on. I will start from that book to take action and improving myself and build my career.