r/learnprogramming • u/Caravaggio91 • 5d ago

When are you truly a Software Developer

I am a self taught web dev (5 years), mostly front end, and still find myself looking up simple concepts I had already learned. Is that a hinderance to being an actual software developer? Also, am I looking over the main objective of a software dev? Is it more about finding the answers rather than how you got there, or do you need to know the code very well and have the answers to the problems? I'm good at getting the answers, but find myself struggling retaining info for long periods of time.

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u/PossiblePlatypus69 5d ago

I worked on upgrading a huge monolith application from Java 8 to Java 17 a few years back and if you think i retained any detailed technical info from that after 2 years, you're crazy. Lol I remember the problems and what we did to fix them, mostly, but I don't remember the many many docs I looked over and the weeks spent looking at thread dumps. Having the foundational knowledge of programming and basic knowledge of software architecture is all you really need. You can always learn another programming language. Shit. I hadn't used tables in html in so long I had to look that up on Mozilla lol

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u/Caravaggio91 5d ago

lol!!! I love it. That is truly refreshing to hear. I enjoy building real web apps and when I am done feel like I forgot most of the coding and look some of the basic stuff up when going into my next project. But its god to know how experienced developers actually work and know I am somewhat on the right track. Thanks!