Code for a Living

Pair programming, where two developers share a single workstation, has grown more common and less controversial over the years, but many still haven’t tried it themselves. In pair programming one participant is the “driver,” who actually writes code, and the other is the “navigator,” who checks the driver’s work as it’s done and keeps an…

Your cover letter is usually the first impression you make to the people at a company. Even if you got your foot in the door with one person, a bunch of people are going to see your cover letter and resume before you actually get hired, and that’s going to be your first impression with…

The ideal job-hunting situation is simple: You have a job, your bills are being paid, you’re comfortable, but you’re looking for a step up or a new challenge. You quietly apply for jobs while continuing to excel in your current role, find one that represents a comfortable advancement in your career, give your two-weeks notice,…

When you’re a developer looking for remote work, the last thing you want is to land on what seems like a dream job only to find you’re the lonely island of the company. Sure, they have some Slack channels where, ostensibly, you’re part of the team. You can hang out in them and hear about…

Mohamed Said got his first computer at age 13—they were just becoming commonly accessible in Egypt—and started learning to code almost immediately. Flash was what drew him in, he says, with its animations and color and, well, “flashy” stuff.

Last week we wrote about whether a college degree is a necessity for a developer in today’s market. We came to the conclusion that what you can do is more important than how many framed diplomas you can hang on the wall, and the most important thing you can to do make yourself hireable as…

Do developers need college degrees? Just a generation ago, it was a given that a college degree was the best way to maximize the likelihood of securing a high-paying job in the field of your choice. But the world has changed, and more and more you hear of successful developers who never earned a degree,…

Not too long ago, developers were treated as nothing more than interchangeable assembly line workers or typists. Developers were supposed to just write some code and let everyone else do the “real thinking.” Stack Overflow was founded by programmers, for programmers, in part as a reaction to this backwards approach. We don’t think developers are…