3 Steps To Land A High-Paying Job As A Software Developer Without Losing Your Mind

Dragos Nedelcu - Jun 4 '21 - - Dev Community

Are you familiar with this?

If you are an ambitious software developer pushing your career, you probably experience this daily:

  • You want to improve your skills but feel lost in the amount of information out there
  • You are afraid of technical challenges, get nervous and underperform
  • You apply to jobs and get some interviews but is usually not the “hottest” companies
  • Your motivation and self-esteem fluctuate, so it is hard to be consistent in your process
  • You are stuck, lack direction and have little opportunities for growth

Well, there is a reason for that:

You lack a system.

You lack a systemised approach to building your career, an approach that can cut through the noise. A system that works regardless of your years of experience, whether you master or not the “hottest” tech out there or of how the economy goes.

Let me tell you a little secret...

Suppose you want to realise the full potential of your developer career. To be paid generously for your skills and to never worry about money again. Then, you must build a system around it.

Why does this matter?

Because, here is the thing: the lack of a system is the reason why most software developers are literally stuck in their careers. The reason why right now they just execute in a sprint, like a “cog in a machine”. The reason why they had to settle for mediocre average paying jobs, knowing they could do better.

A system helps you stay committed and holds you accountable for what you do. A system delivers predictable results.

You can’t get a high-paying developer job by improvising.

I’ve been there as a developer building my career.

After long nights doing all kind of courses and asking dozens of tech leaders for advice, I have built this system for myself. It allowed me to leave my “soul-crushing” job, enjoy the benefits of being a tech professional and get my life back. Now, I want to share it with you so it can help as many people as possible.

Here are three proven steps that are currently helping our clients get high-paying developer jobs:

Step 1 - Technical Mastery

You can’t build castles on sand. And you can’t build a successful career based on superficial technical skills. You must dominate programming fundamentals. That means a solid understanding of language specifics, design patterns and programming paradigms. It means learning professional software development disciplines such as testing (unit, integration and e2e), continuous deployment and infrastructure.

Technical competence will make you more productive and increase your self-confidence as a professional.

Step 2 - Specialisation

Step 2 - Specialisation

Jack of all trades, master of none. You must focus on a specific programming language and stack. Why? First and foremost, because time is of the essence. Software engineering disciplines are many and in-depth, try to know it all will burn you out at best.

Specialisation leads to proficiency, and proficiency impresses potential employers and clients.

Pick a learning path (frontend, backend, DevOps) and become damn good at it!


If you’d like me to coach you to master your craft as a software developer, book a call with me to see if this can help you.


Step 3 - Get visible and start applying.

You might think, oh now that I am technically well-rounded opportunities will fall into my lap. And that is partially true. You will get amazing opportunities by simply doing that. But to get the “creme de la cream” of tech jobs, to work for top tech companies (fast-growing startups or big tech) you will still need to hustle a bit.

You must optimise your professional image with surgical precision.

Afterwards, go out there, network aggressively and take the lead when selling yourself.

This is the most effective way to get a high-paying job as a software developer.

  • Forget the hot and shiny frameworks
  • Forget dozens of online courses
  • Forget going back to school
  • Forget contributing to open source
  • Forget hoping and guessing

All these things will become relevant and along the way.

The cure to your frustration.

Setting up such a system will put your developer career on auto-pilot. No more long hours, no more spending money and time on outdated online courses. No more guessing and no more hopping. This will automatically lead you better opportunities, better projects and a better life.

Sounds challenging?

Yes, but so is everything else worth achieving.

At CodeWithDragos we used this system for dozens of developers, and they are consistently getting results.

Last week one of our clients got her first developer job (with a salary 30% higher than the market average) for a well-known tech company. Without a portfolio, a website or a blog. Those things are part of week 7 and 8 of the program.

As you are reading this article, you are probably also a software developer or an aspiring one. Maybe you want to get a better job, to become a senior or even go freelance and have your own thing.

If that is the case: you will definitely profit from executing those 3 steps I showed you. This proven, step-by-step approach will get you closer to your goals.

For more content like this, follow me on LinkedIn.

But, let’s be truly honest.

Reading a simple article, getting inspired up and going back about your day won’t get you the results you want. If you truly want to build the developer career you dream of, then click on the link below and schedule a FREE consultation call with us.

The only thing you have to do is click the link below and apply.

I look forward to consult you personally soon.

Click here to apply now!

Together we will analyze your situation and build a step-by-step plan to help you get that developer job you dream of.

We usually get in touch with you within 24 hours.

Dragos Nedelcu

Founder at CodeWithDragos

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