Originally published here

Starting on programming can be very exciting but at the same time scary. A lot of times I've come across articles and people highlighting the importance of having a mentor to help get your foot in the door in the industry. However, not everyone is lucky to get one. I for starters haven't had the opportunity to get one during my one and a half years of coding. You shouldn't beat yourself up over this as there's a ton of cool people who though you may never meet personally, can offer some form of "mentorship" and guide you.

This is my list of people who have in one way or another shaped me to not only be a good developer technically but also boosted my social and soft skills.

Soft skills

soft skills can be defined as

"personal attributes that enable someone to interact effectively and harmoniously with other people."

These skills are not only crucial for you as a developer, but also enhance your day to day interactions with other people. Some of the people that I find particularly helpful in helping me navigate the terrain are

Youtubers

1. Mayuko

She's an ios developer who's channel I stumbled upon earlier on while starting to code. Her videos are not your typical coding ones. Rather she focuses more on having a work-life balance. Her latest playlist has helped help me gain knowledge on how to kickstart my career in software engineering. {% youtube mmXJ2cbF6PQ %}

2. Joma Tech

His videos offer an invaluable resource as he interviews different people in tech from who you can learn quite a lot. I find his sense of humour enjoyable to watch as well. Find him here.

3. Tech lead

This channel is run by Patrick Shyu who likes to emphasise he's an ex-google tech lead. He offers his views on the tech industry in general as well as advice on personal finance in a very sarcastic way which I find very informative. You'll find him here.

Podcasts

1. Ladybug

I recently started listening to podcasts and the ladybug podcast has been an awesome introduction to podcasts. {% link ladybug/the-ladybug-crew-s-learn-to-code-stories-icb %}

Their latest episode( at the time of writing) was very informative. The hosts had a very erudite conversation on career paths in tech.

2. Kent C.Dodds

His posts are javascript centric but he mixes it up with interview-style episodes which help me in gaining new perspectives from different people in tech. Find him here.

Blogs

1. Chris Blakely

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This is someone who I strongly feel is dedicated to helping junior developers ace it in their careers. He writes great blog posts ranging from structuring your resume to writing clean, readable code as a junior dev. Find him here

Technical skills

The list will be mainly python focused as that is the language I've been concentrating on for now. I, however, came across a thread as I was writing this that should provide more links to your area of expertise. {% link andrewbrown/who-what-should-i-follow-on-instagram-for-web-dev-55d2 %}

Youtubers

1. Corey Schafer

There're great tutorials, then there's Corey Schafer. His passion for teaching can be felt based on the quality of the videos he makes. You can feel he puts in the hours to ensure that you understand concepts and I can't recommend him enough. Here's a link to his channel.

2. Traversy media

According to his bio

Traversy Media features the best online web development and programming tutorials for all of the latest web technologies including Node.js, Angular 2, React.js, PHP, Rails, HTML, CSS and much more.

He's been making great content for a while now and was among the first tutorials I used while starting. So do check him out.

Podcasts

1. talkpython fm

This podcast was introduced to me by a friend recently and provides great content on all things python. Featuring some of the best interviews from various industry players using python in one way or another.

You can find it here.

Blogs

1. Real python

Finally, one can't conclude a list of python resources without mentioning realpython. The blog has content on almost everything you can do with python. The content is normally beginner-focused and hence easy to learn from.

That's my list of resources I've been using to gain more knowledge of the tech industry. If you have any additional resources, post them in the comment section.

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Thanks.