新晋软件工程师破解成功密码3步曲

    你已经被聘为软件工程师？恭喜你！

    不过，这只是完成了一半的挑战。另一半呢？从一开始就迅速有力地行动起来。因为，不管你是在谷歌山景城总部豪华舒适的环境中编程，还是在旧金山尚处于起步阶段、只有10名员工的创业公司里努力工作，还是在其他什么地方坚持不懈，对软件工程师的需求一如既往非常高。如果你擅长这份工作，谁知道你的面前会出现什么机会呢？

    如何让新工作变成展示才华的机会？教育创业公司Codecademy联合创始人扎克•西姆斯提供了下面几个建议：

    尽早设定期望值。搞清楚雇主依赖的工具是什么。一家公司使用的技术平台常常会决定他们内部的工作方式。一些工具，比如MongoDB，能够帮助开发开源技术。而管理源代码可以通过Bitbucket、GitHub或者Subversion这样的系统实现。了解这些工具以及自己团队使用它们的方式，这些对你在团队中正常发挥作用至关重要。

    了解公司的架构同样很重要：是不是所有人都在一个地方工作，或者说是不是有一些员工是进行远程办公的？西姆斯解释说，一些公司，比如应用开发商37Signals或者问答网站StackExchange是由很多远程办公人员构成的。这些公司的企业文化往往有别于那些所有人集中在一起办公的公司【37Signals创始人杰森•弗里德曾就这个主题写出了《远程》（Remote ）一书】。如此以来，在这样的环境中工作常常涉及大量的沟通，同时也要求擅长独立开展工作。

    企业文化是否允许失败？所有人都会犯错，但每家公司应对错误的方式不尽相同。一些规模较小的公司通过快速迭代获得成功。如果公司能够快速行动——硅谷企业家埃里克•莱斯曾在2011年出版的著作《精益创业》（The Lean Startup）一书中介绍过这种方法——那么只要你能汲取教训，改正错误，失败就是可以被接受的。但其他规模更大的公司通常拥有固定的发布日期，而且不允许产品代码中存在漏洞。西姆斯说：“了解生产和稳定性的标准指引着一件产品的创造流程。”

    寻找一位导师。如果没有导师的指引，公司里的后起之秀通常无法做出令人印象深刻的成绩，软件工程师在这方面也不例外。西姆斯建议在公司内外寻找一位导师。这个人显然要有更丰富的经验，但“也只是领先一步”，而不是那种层次太高的大神。西姆斯说：“想要为新手设计一种学习过程，这个人就得了解、记得一无所知是什么样的一种情形。”（财富中文网）

    译者：王灿均  

    So you've been hired as a software engineer. Congratulations.

    That was half the challenge. The other? Hitting the ground running from day one. Because whether you're coding from the plush comforts of Google's (GOOG) Mountain View headquarters, toiling at an early-stage San Francisco startup of 10, or plugging away elsewhere, the demand for software engineers is as high as it has ever been. If you excel at this job, who knows what opportunities will come your way for the next?

    Zach Sims, co-founder of the education startup Codecademy, offer several tips for ensuring that new job becomes a showcase for your talent.

    Set expectations early. Figure out which tools your employer relies on. Companies use technology stacks that often dictate how they work internally. Some, like MongoDB, help to develop open source technologies. And managing source code may happen via Bitbucket,GitHub, or a system like Subversion. Knowing these tools and how your team uses them is essential to functioning well on a team.

    It's also important to understand the company's structure: Does everyone work in one place, or do some employees work remotely? Some companies, including web app maker 37Signals or question-and-answer network StackExchange, are composed of lots of remote workers, explains Sims. These cultures tend to be different from those where everyone is located in the same office. (To wit, 37Signals founder Jason Fried penned the book Remote on the subject). As such, working in this kind of environment tends to require over-communication and being adept at working independently.

    Okay to fail? Everyone makes mistakes, but each company handles them differently. Some smaller companies iterate their way to success. If the company moves quickly, an approach Valley entrepreneur Eric Ries explained in the 2011 book The Lean Startup, failure is acceptable so long as you learn and can fix your mistakes. But other, larger companies usually have solid ship deadlines and can't permit bugs in production code. "Knowing the standard for production and stability guides how a product goes through the creation process," says Sims.

    Find a mentor. Rising stars within a company don't often impress without a mentor guiding them, and software engineers are no exception. Sims recommends finding someone inside the company or outside who clearly has more experience, but also is "just ahead of the curve from them" as opposed to some advanced wunderkind. Says Sims: "To design a learning process for a beginner, you need to remember and understand what it's like to not know everything."