Nowadays, almost any business needs talented IT specialists to function effectively and be lucrative. The IT industry has affected almost everything from paying bills and making online purchases to medicine applications and bank services. Statista survey estimates that the global population of developers will increase from 24.5 million in 2020 to 28.7 million specialists by 2024.
Software developers are specialists responsible for automating processes, setting up and managing platforms, creating apps and websites. An IT specialist’s role is to create optimized, neat programs, software systems, or apps to help satisfy businesses and clients’ needs and make everyday life more comfortable.
What Makes Software Developers a Valuable Asset to Any Company?
With an unprecedented need for digitalization of all products and services due to a global pandemic, it’s vital to ensure that digital products and technology services are available and working correctly. Software developers are specialists that enable people to use services without leaving their homes.
And in the tight competition having an intuitive, user-friendly platform, your business will have more visibility, and your revenue will be stable and constantly on the rise. That is why businesses value and need experienced software developers in their teams.
If the price for a specialist is too high for the company, they can opt for IT outsourcing and hire a nearshore programmer company. The most common and attractive destinations for getting designated specialists are Eastern Europe in recent years. The same effective platforms can be managed from any spot with a stable internet connection; hiring Romanian software developers can be more beneficial than getting in-house workers.
Besides, software development specialists can help automate repetitive actions, simplify the employees’ lives, increase the positive customer experience, and scale your business without much expense. That is why any small business that strives to enhance its productivity and boost sales needs to hire a software developer.
Top 5 Difficulties Programmers Face at Work
There are no jobs without difficulties. Among all struggles and challenges that programmer meets during the workday, the most prominent are the following ones:
1. Undefined requirements
One of the primary sources of programmer’s frustration is the constantly changing requirements during the work at a project. It makes the process tiring, more time-stretching, and demotivating as the end goal is unclear. Stack Overflow Developer Survey reports that 33% of coders find the inconsistency of requirements their main difficulty at work.
2. Disproportionate distribution of tasks.
For some days, the workload can be pretty low. For others, when the deadlines are burning to complete and release a new update, you work non-stop on the bare dread of the upcoming deadline. This disproportion of workload may cause a quick burnout in a specialist.
Besides, the programmer usually deals with multiple requests for troubleshooting and can work under tight deadlines, putting extra time in solving emergency issues in a time of system error or persistent bugs.
3. Unrealistic Development Expectations
The everyday scope of work of software developers may be unseen as a significant portion of time is dedicated to ensuring that the software runs smoothly. It is easy for a manager to expect that a coder will fix the issue within an hour due to a limited understanding of the field. However, the coder’s work is unpredictable and simple bugs can be persistent and require deep testing and research to fix it and not make it worse.
4. Working Surrounded by Attention-Stealers.
Many IT workers complain that coding takes a smaller portion of their work time. Constant conferences, zoom calls, and meetings eat up almost half of the workday of any office worker. For a coder, it can disrupt their workflow and decrease their productivity.
Surprisingly so, the stats of the covid period showed that 55% of the efficiency of coders actually increased by the time working remotely. Partially, it is caused by the decrease of unnecessary meetings and flexibility when the workday begins.
5. Procrastination
However, remote work can also cause coders to shift their daily schedules, and with more freedom comes significant procrastination. It is harder to focus on the task at home when so many distractions surround you, from PC4 to the new screen that needs installation. Here is why the amount of productivity tools has increased in recent years, especially programmer-focused tools that help them close their tasks faster.
Tools for Software Developers That Help Boost Productivity and Fight Procrastination
As the large portion of responsibilities for developing a digital product lies on IT engineers, optimizing their work is of first level importance. Developers may be bombarded by requests from their production team and overwhelmed by the scope of work.
Therefore, making a clear streamline of the work process and automating the activities lift the anxiety off of IT workers and ensure their focus on primary tasks, and as a result, provide comfortable conditions for sustainable progress and efficiency.
More than 85% of software specialists actively incorporate tools in their work, with source collaboration tools, desktop editors, and issue trackers being on the top of popularity. Workflow management tools are also actively used by almost half of the programmer population (up to 42%).
Here is a list of well-recognized and effective tools that can boost the software programmer’s productivity, decrease the attention-stealers and help focus on the main task.
1. Sublime Text
Sublime Text is a text editor with a wide range of advanced features. It supports various programming languages and can highlight code syntax. It has many additional extensions with which you can achieve the most comfortable and convenient work and forget for a while that you are using a regular text editor and not an integrated development environment like Visual Studio or Eclipse. Some of the more exciting features include case-shifting, rearranging and sorting strings, using regular expressions, and using multiple cursors simultaneously.
2. Mantis
Every programmer needs a reliable bug tracking system. Mantis is a tool that detects and reports any software defects. The developer can adjust the type of issues they want to receive notification about, which helps to prioritize and detect the first-level bugs. Also, the tool tracks all changes to the code the programmer made, so every progress of the project can be easily reported. Mantis also generates the graphics to demonstrate the issues within the system and how they affect it.
3. Codeanywhere
This cloud-based editor also supports many different programming languages for backend development, including Python, PHP, Java, Ruby, C ++, or Node.js. The editor can be easily used on phones and tablets, which allows you to run your application from anywhere and deploy it to a remote server. If you need to share your project for collaboration with someone else, you can use this opportunity at the project, file, and folder level.
4. F.lux
People who spend a tremendous amount of time working with computers know how dim or bright screens can irritate the eye and make you get tired much quicker than desirable. It also causes long-term adverse effects on sleep quality, consequently decreasing your productivity. This MacOs-based program automatically adjusts the screen’s brightness based on the time of the day, including blue light on your screen.
5. Clockify
Clockify is a time-management tool with a gamification option that tracks the amount of time the programmer has spent on the task. You can set your goals and beat your records within the tool. It also helps to analyze what tasks are most time-demanding. For iOS users, Clockify is also used as a stopwatch for the Pomodoro technique, which, despite its disadvantages, has a proven positive effect on focus and productivity.
6. 7pace Timetracker
While it is efficient to set timers for better focus, having a tool that would help track the amount of time spent in various programs or platforms allows you to evaluate the work done and analyze what can be improved. 7Pace is an integrated tool that can help solve these issues. Also, it helps to see the progress of the current project.
7. Focusmate
Focusmate is a free virtual service for coworking. It randomly selects a partner with whom you can work together on a webcam for 50 minutes. This service utilizes the psychology of responsibility and accountability and is created specifically to increase productivity. You find a partner, list the tasks for the session, and then the feeling of social pressure makes your brain focus on a task.
8. Habitica
It is another time-management tool that incorporates a gamification element into its functions. It is a perfect tool for RPG games lovers, as you can level up and get rewarded for accomplished tasks. It actively uses a reward system and transforms tasks into quests. First, you need to create your character and set daily tasks, habits, or to-do goals, and the system will track your persistence in achieving them. The system also has group activities and guilds. Moreover, it can be used for habit tracking.
Wrapping Up
Procrastination is a common sin of any person, and it became a more alerting issue in the time of the pandemic. When the working and home places are not divided, it’s even harder to focus and make yourself work.
Software developers are prone to human sins as any other person. Thankfully, the developers can find a solution to any of the problems they face; therefore, the invention of the productivity tools was just a question of time. Using tools can help significantly decrease time spent on less productive tasks, focus well, track your progress, and set clear goals to achieve outstanding results.
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