Go is a relatively young but already popular programming language on the market. In March 2023, this language entered the top 10 most popular programming languages according to TIOBE. Go is well suited for building microservices, testing and deploying applications, and working with multithreading.
In this article, we will analyze who a Go developer is, and the pros and cons of the profession. We’ll share what soft and hard skills are needed and also tell you how to prepare for an interview and share the story of our developer of how he got into the profession.
WHAT IS A JOB OF A GO-DEVELOPER?
A Go developer is a person who writes software using the Go language. Features of this programming language allow you to support various hardware platforms. Using the power of Go, you can control which OS and architecture your project is designed for.
Essentially, the responsibilities of a Go developer are the same as those of other developers. The difference is only in the use of the language.
WHAT HARD AND SOFT-SKILLS DOES A GO-DEVELOPER NEED?
Hard Skills
Basics. For every developer, regardless of the stack, there is a base that needs to be learned:
- Algorithms and data structures (objects, arrays/hashmaps, linked lists, stacks, queues, trees, graphs);
- OOP, fundamentals of functional programming, SOLID design principles, KISS, DRY and other programming principles, design patterns;
- SQL and NoSQL databases;
- Protocols for data exchange between applications (HTTP, REST);
- Git version control systems
You also need to be aware of:
- Architecture of computers and UNIX systems;
- Software development methodologies (Agile, Scrum, Kanban, XP, RAD and others);
- Architectural approaches in software development: MVC, Clean Architecture;
- Patterns of microservice design, principles of package-oriented programming
Libraries:
- Must have knowledge of all standard Go libraries
IDE and infrastructure. We prefer to use the GoLand IDE for Go development. As full-fledged IDEs, they also use text code editors, such as Visual Studio Code and Vim/Neovim. It is possible to connect the Delve code debugger to Sublime Text.
In the future, when you gain experience, knowledge of these tools will come in handy:
- Message brokers such as Kafka, RabbitMQ, NATS;
- High-performance object storage, such as MinIO;
- Ways to implement remote procedure calls: JSON-RPC and gRPC;
- Docker and Kubernetes;
- Unit Tests, integration tests, functional tests;
- ELK Stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash and Kibana) – allow you reliably and securely receive data from any source in all formats and work with this data.
Soft Skills
For developers, it is important not only to have a good understanding of the technology stack, but also to make their work comfortable for themselves and others. Pay attention to the soft skills that we have described below:
Teamwork. The developer interacts daily with a large number of people – with the project team, with related development departments, testers and analysts. To make work productive and comfortable, it is important to interact with colleagues, share ideas, thoughts and help each other. Also, when communicating with a client, sometimes you have to argue your decisions and listen to criticism, calmly reacting to it.
Time management. Any specialist needs to know how to properly manage their time and prioritize tasks. In order not to burn out but to keep work and personal life in balance, you should cleverly distribute your time.
Ability to learn and develop. Every year the IT industry develops and becomes more advanced with new technologies. The developer needs to keep up with the times and be able to use new things in their work, as well as adapt to changes.
Stress resistance. There is a lot of stress in the work of a programmer – production falls, the code no longer works for no reason and you can’t figure it why. There are plenty of things that can “knock down” your working frame of mind. It is important to be able to manage stress and cope with difficulties when approaching purification.
PROS AND CONS OF THE PROFESSION
Pros
- Demand. As of May 2023, around 700 Go developer vacancies for beginners and experienced developers have been posted on the indeed.com website.
- The developers of Go have gone to great lengths to simplify its syntax compared to other programming languages. Therefore, writing in Go is a little easier. But at the same time, a beginner needs to know a lot of related technologies.
- A large number of educational materials. Go comes with detailed technical documentation. And also on the Internet there is a lot of useful information – ranging from articles to training courses.
Cons
- Language specifics. If you’ve written in scripting languages before, like PHP, there’s a lot going on in Go that you’re not used to. It can also be difficult for programmers who are not used to statically typed languages.
- Although it is easier to create projects in Go, due to the simplified syntax, it is necessary to additionally learn a lot of related technologies in order to “create easier” was painless.
HOW TO GET READY FOR THE INTERVIEW
To be invited for an interview, you will need:
- Good theoretical knowledge – understanding of the basics and specific concepts for Go-development.
- Successful completion of the test task. Based on its results, the employer will understand how good you understand the technologies and methods used in the company.
- Portfolio – this is usually a GitHub account. It will come in handy for you when writing a resume and for a potential employer to assess your skills.
- Correctly written resume. The invitation to the interview mostly depends on how professionally you resume looks. If you want to know how to write a resume correctly, you can read our article “How To Build A Cv In IT: Hr Tips”.
Remember that you cannot get ready for an interview in one day – you need to not only constantly expand your horizons, but also deepen your knowledge, return to what you have already learned and practice more and more.
Theory
To consolidate the knowledge gained in your head, you can use the roadmap of a novice developer on Go – for example, Go-Developer.
You can also watch a video on YouTube, where it is told about the features of interviews in IT, in order to roughly know what to prepare for.
Practice
During the interview, you may be asked to solve several tasks. A potential employer will pay attention to how you act when solving a problem, how quickly you get to the answer, how you reason and navigate the code.
We advise you to surf the Internet for a solution to typical problems in Go and see how to solve various kinds of tasks.
Don’t worry if you don’t know something, that’s fine. It is important to show how you think in case you do not know the answer to the question, and then everything will work out.
HOW OUR GO-DEVELOPER CAME TO THE FIELD
I started to be interested in programming at school. My teacher took me to IT events. On my own, I began to learn Java through courses from the Internet. After school, I entered the technical university with a degree in Computer Science. At the university, I got acquainted with the basics of programming, algorithms and data structures. There I also got acquainted with the C language. But it was quite difficult to write large projects in it, since I had to devote a lot of time to working with memory and not allowing any leakages.
After graduating from the university, I was advised to learn the Go language. Due to the fact that the language is quite young, there are not so many specialists in it, and the demand on the market is high. I liked the language, because it had a lot in common with the C language, but at the same time it had automatic garbage collection, which was a plus in development. I was focused on web development, and Go provided a great toolkit in this direction.
CONCLUSION
At the beginning of the journey, it is not necessary to know everything that we have described in this article. The main thing is to have a high motivation to work. Learn and develop, find new sources of knowledge, you are already on the right track 🙂
Pay attention to the training materials below, they will help you gain the necessary knowledge!
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
- Go documentation;
- A Tour of Go — programming language tour with tutorial slides;
- Loop patterns in Go;
- Books “Introduction to Go Programming”;
- Official webpage of Go on GitHub.
