Ask HN: What is your best advice for a junior software developer?

Don't stress about not being good enough when you see other people's work. People show off their end result and not the hundreds of broken iterations it took to get there. You can build exactly the same stuff with a bit of effort, learning and time.

Start off by going deep, not wide. You'll pick up other languages and technologies over time. Pick a stack that appeals to you and focus on it for a while, learning its idioms and best practices and improving your development fundamentals.

Focus on a niche and specialize more than “software”. As a junior you have some time to figure it out (but don’t take too long). Software is everything these days, so if you can focus on a subfield you’ll maximize your future earning potential and lifestyle. It’ll also help you stay technical well into your career.

To do this, keep your eyes open for opportunities to go deep into something interesting at your job and be the company expert on that topic. This is a nugget of a personal brand. Then take this and expand on it outside your first job. Blog about it. Speak about it. Create open source about it. Find the next job that hires you for these specialized skills. Rinse repeat...

Worst case is you can still switch, or go back to just “software developer”

Start building your career so you have job security now. This means doing things to eventually move into management or doing projects/blogs/postcasts so that you stand out.

When resumes come across someones desk being a generic developer is not going to help, and it gets worse as you get older. Having something that you can show off even if its just a collection of blog posts about how you built a simple CLI tool using Nim will make you stand out.

Work on your soft skills. Being able to communicate and get your ideas across is more important then being able write the best code in any organisation. It will make you stand out. Learn public speaking and show what you have done. Be your own champion because its rare for someone to do that for you.

Lastly, learn some new technology and write posts about it. You will become the expert in it if you do this at the right time and frequently. This will open up new opportunities.

I’m not a “senior” developer but what I try to improve on is always my people skills not tech skills.

I’m not an algorithmic genius don’t get me wrong, that part doesn’t appeal as much to me.