What Software Engineering Universities Don't Teach You

With almost 10 years of working experience, I played several roles as a software engineer. And I am currently CTO of a video game company. Thinking back about my time at university, there are tons of subjects I wish I had been taught properly. Here is my list...

Time and task management ⏲️

• Partitioning time (ex Pomodoro)
• Avoid distractions, getting into the flow state
• Inbox Zero

Tooling 🛠️

• Hardware: computers, input devices, and network devices
• Tools to increase productivity, shortcuts
• Shell: bash, zsh, vi, or others
• Mastering IDE
• Test framework and test automation
• IT: resources inventory, resources management

Communication 💬

• With your technical colleagues
• With your non-technical colleagues
• With clients and customers: be confident and assertive
• Marketing: Self and Company promotion

Project Management 💼

• Agile: Scrum, Kanban
• Stories, task definition
• Task estimation
• TDD, DDD
• Performance monitoring

Leading / Mentoring 🦸

• Onboarding people
• Mentoring people
• Documentation
• Code reviews
• Peer reviews, Pair programming

Management 👨‍💼

• 1-on-1
• Delegation
• Feedback and Performance reviews
• Career management, coaching
• Personalized communication based on DISC assessment or others
• Objectives definition: OKR, KPI, SMART, etc.

Budget Management 💰

• Definition of budget
• Expenses monitoring
• Accounting

Entrepreneurship 🏢

• Corporate governance and the basics of corporate law
• Business development
• Business plan
• Business monitoring

Do you agree? Share your comments below. I also invite you to make your list and share it as well.

Photo by Adam Winger on Unsplash