16 Ways to Tell You're Not a Beginning Programmer Anymore

How do you know when you're not a beginning programmer anymore? We'll cover 16 attributes of an experienced, professional programmer (or software developer or software engineer or whatever the job title of the day happens to be). If you've got at least 10 of these 16 attributes, you're probably not a beginner anymore. You should set your sights on all of these, not just the minimum 10. Some are relatively straightforward to achieve, while others require a good measure of diligence, patience, and humility. These attributes are based on decades of experience as both a software engineer and a manager of software engineers at all levels. (Why 16? It's a nice round number, if you think in hexadecimal.)