The Best Gifts For Your Software Engineering Career This Holiday Season

March 07, 2023
Best Gifts for Your Software Engineering



This one’s a special Christmas post for software engineers assisting you in giving yourself or your loved ones the gifts of skill improvement, personal development, and wellness this season.  There are so many different categories and options of tech gift ideas that it can really make one overthink and go crazy when deciding on the best tech gifts for software engineers.

How valuable a resource you become in your career largely depends on how up-to-date your technical and non-technical skills are and your habits as a software engineer. Give yourself a lifetime gift this holiday season. We think you really deserve it and therefore have a list of options. Let’s get started!

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Top Software Engineering Skills to Give to Yourself This Holiday Season

To succeed as a software engineer, one needs a special combination of hard and soft skills. These abilities include the knowledge of computer programming necessary to create, test, and debug software. Living in a competitive world, we understand how computer programmers must stay up-to-date with top software engineering skills. Many online courses are also perfect Christmas gifts for software engineers.

Here is a list of top software engineering skills one should like this holiday season.

  • Java
  • Java Script
  • Python
  • C#/.Net
  • Mean
  • Ruby
  • Object-oriented design
  • SOLID principles
  • Data Structures
  • Kotlin
    Swift
  • UI/UX Development
  • Cyber Security
  • Software Quality Testing (SQT) Automation
  • Angular
  • SQL

It will help you make a better and well thought decision if you check out the Top 14 In-demand Tech Jobs Of 2024. If you want to know 15 Powerful Tips To Become a Software Engineer (Even Without A Degree), check out this article.

Best Books on Software Engineering Your Future Self Will Appreciate

Suppose you’re one of those software engineering professionals who care to invest in a secure future or plan a career trajectory. In that case, you must give yourself a book this Christmas that will benefit your present and future selves. You can consider gifting books like Python: For Beginners A Crash Course Guide to Learn Python in 1 Week by Timothy C. Needham that can help beginner-level developers looking to polish their python skills.

You will understand why Fortune 500 or FAANG favor using python in their core goods, services, and business processes after reading the book and putting it into practice. NASA, Google, Mozilla, Yahoo, Facebook, IBM, Dropbox, and many other large corporations use Python. The career opportunities are endless if you get started today.

Here is a list of software engineering books for which your future self will be thankful. These are the ideal Christmas gifts for software engineers who enjoy reading:

  • Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship by Robert C. Martin
  • The C Programming Language by Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie
  • Cracking the Coding Interview by Gayle Laakmann McDowell
  • Designing Data-Intensive Applications: The Big Ideas Behind Reliable, Scalable, and Maintainable Systems by Martin Kleppmann
  • The Pragmatic Programmer: 20th Anniversary Edition, 2nd Edition: Your Journey to Mastery by David Thomas, Andrew Hunt
  • Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software by Erich Gamma, Richard Helm 
  • Clean Architecture: A Craftsman’s Guide to Software Structure and Design (Robert C. Martin Series)
  • Software Engineering at Google: Lessons Learned from Programming Over Time by Titus Winters, Tom Manshreck, et al
  • A Common-Sense Guide to Data Structures and Algorithms, Second Edition: Level Up Your Core Programming Skills by Jay Wengrow 

Develop Habits that Boost Your Career and Health This Christmas

Our habits impact our physical, mental, and emotional health and inevitably help or hinder our careers. For a happier, healthier, and wealthier future, consider giving yourself these healthy habits this Christmas:

Learn A New High-Demand Programming Language

The “survival of the fittest” theory applies to the software ecosystem. You must keep getting better if you want to survive in this cutthroat world of modern technology. Employers today want their workforce to be knowledgeable about current software and industry standards. You can enroll in skill development programs, online trainings, read tutorials, watch videos, and other activities to keep up with advancements. Your career as a software developer will undoubtedly take a turn for the better after you upgrade your skills.

Paying Attention to Details

Any successful developer will tell you that you must pay attention to the specifics of the client’s requirements and work according to them to write flawless code or successfully complete a project. Because of a small semicolon, you overlooked adding when ending a line of code. You wouldn’t want to work on a particular section of code repeatedly. To be successful developers, keep your eyes open and pay special attention to every little detail of the code and the project.

Ask for Help When Needed

Mostly, working alone is more challenging than working with others. Working alone can have drawbacks, but asking for assistance from others while working can make things much simpler. Many facets of software development may be challenging to grasp or understand right away. To avoid wasting hours trying to solve a problem, seek outside assistance! Asking for assistance from a professional will only benefit you because no one is an expert in everything.

Develop Discipline and Persistence

Every developer should adopt the success-oriented habits of discipline and perseverance. Being disciplined enables you to complete your current task on time. On the other hand, persistence is another quality of successful developers that allows them to overcome all obstacles and finish their work ahead of schedule, regardless of their challenges.

Practice Writing Clean Code

Writing clean code is a vital positive habit that has the potential to help you become a successful developer. Any coding convention is acceptable as long as your code is readable by humans. Because of how quickly technology is developing, there can be instances when your code requires to be modified or improved. Therefore, make sure that your code is maintainable so that others can make changes to it as needed in the future.

Learn Not To Preoptimize

Early code optimization can result in less readable, more difficult-to-understand code, and most importantly, it won’t be time well spent.

Everything you write will probably need to be modified at some point while it is being developed. Pre-optimizing will, therefore, not benefit your productivity; on the contrary, it will likely hinder it.

Non-Technical Skills and presents to Give to Your Future Self This Holiday Season

Did you know that refining your non-technical skills helps you handle technical tasks better? This holiday season, look at these essential non-technical skills that will benefit you in various areas of life.

  • Skills in communication—verbal, written, and nonverbal
  • Skills for collaboration and teamwork, as well as a team player mentality
  • Being able to deal with ambiguity
  • Maintaining composure and a solution-focused attitude in a crisis
  • Knowledge of time management and people management
  • Leadership qualities
  • Negotiating techniques
  • Empathy
  • Sense of humor
  • Creativity and aptitude for solving problems
  • Accountability and responsibility
  • Flexibility and self-improvement
  • Cooperation, flexibility, and patience

Conclusion

By now, you must know all the options that will be the perfect gifts for software engineers this holiday. We hope the knowledge we’ve shared will help you make up your mind and make this Christmas a blissful one for yourself and your loved ones. Happy Holidays!

Also Read: Top 10 Remote Work Tools For Better Productivity

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