What skills should a programmer have nowadays? [closed]

Question

I have been programming using PHP, Javascript and have been a designer for a few years in a company. I am thinking of leaving I am wondering what skills do I need to have nowadays to become successful.

Answer 1

You seem to be inquisitive and interested in learning. That's qualification #1; things change fast in this field, and only the life-long learners survive.

Next step would be to scour job boards in your area (Monster, Craigslist, Joel On Software Jobs Board, etc.) and keep track of the skills you see coming up a lot. That's probably a fairly good representation of what's "hot", at least near you.

Then, you can check here on stack overflow by tags (e.g. PHP and javascript) and see if the kinds of questions that people are asking make basic sense to you (not that you need to know every answer, but if it sounds like Greek, you're probably not ready to get a job in that subject).

To more directly answer your question: there are web jobs out there for PHP and javascript, though a heavy dose of CSS and Ajax probably wouldn't hurt if you're going that direction. A design background will help if you want a general "webmaster" type job, but note that those are often NOT programming-oriented jobs, because most stuff you can do on an average website is typically better done with an off the shelf CMS (you don't usually need to reinvent the wheel unless the web site you're doing is highly functional in some way). As other posters have said, C# / .NET is probably good if you want something more corporate.

The real question is: what kind of work do you like doing? What makes you happy? Find that and do it well, and you'll get a job. :)

Answer 2

It really depends on what you intend to do.

I believe the following skills are important for all types of "programmers" regardless of their chosen language.

1. Accurate Estimation. Giving your boss accurate estimates makes their job easier, which makes your life much easier.
2. Communication. Being able to communicate effectively to everyone you work with is a must.
3. Knowing when to ask for help. Like you wrote, you can't know everything. I would rather have a developer ask a colleague for help, than try to spend days coming up with a solution.
4. Design Patterns. Every developer needs to understand basic design patterns.
5. Know a good scripting language. Perl, Python, Ruby, Bash, Powershell...take your pick.