The
week of September 16 marks National Coding Week, an initiative created to
celebrate coding and highlight its importance in the modern world of work. Its
awareness drives such as National Coding Week, which help drive elementary
schools all the way up to college to realize that anyone of any gender and any
age can learn the benefits of coding. Below, a variety of technology industry
experts share their thoughts on why this week is so important.
Matt
VanderZwaag, director of Product Development, US Signal
"Coding continues to be
a key skill in today's job market, especially in a climate where the one-stop
IT infrastructure solutions rarely meet all the needs of a modern business. The
skillsets developers have are the key to empowering hybrid IT strategies and
creating a diverse mix of IT environments and technologies through their code.
National Coding Week is an important time to recognize and show appreciation
for the vitality of learning to code. It is an extremely valuable skill to have
within any team that greatly impacts fast-changing businesses. Coding is
powerful, and we are continuously seeing it push our digital world to new
levels of innovation."
Bob
Davis, CMO, Plutora
"In today's
software-driven world, organizations must be able to deliver high-quality
software in order to succeed and grow. Organizations can only gain this
competitive advantage through quick, efficient, and quality software releases,
orchestrated by development teams with strong and fluent coders. Coders are the
bricklayers of the software world, and they ensure every project starts with a
sturdy foundation upon which developers can build. It's essential for every
organization - whether it's a startup or an experienced enterprise - to retain
talented coders on staff who are able to meet the demands of fluctuating
software needs quickly and at scale. Coding is becoming the language of
business, and every organization needs to be able to communicate."
Alan
Conboy, office of the CTO, Scale Computing
"We are entering a new
age driven by big data, machine learning, and edge computing, so what does this
mean for today's developers? During National Coding Week, it's important to
recognize the value of coding skills in today's data-driven world. Within the
job market, the ability to code is powerful, and in the coming days, it will
continue to push our digital world to new levels of innovation. For instance,
developers today are turning to technology that can self-heal, designed to
eliminate some of the familiar complexities of identifying, mitigating and
correcting infrastructure problems is now being built into the design of
forward-thinking companies.
The addition of machine
intelligence is also growing, enabling developers to manage their workloads on
a daily basis, allowing them to re-focus on tasks, which are of much greater
benefit to the individuals and business overall. With the world currently generating
2.5 quintillion bytes of data every day, for those seeking a career in
technology, the need for developers will only increase, and the technologies
that better equip them with the tools to succeed in their careers will continue
to be embraced as well."
Jen
Locklear, Chief Talent Officer at ConnectWise
"This National
Coding Week, businesses need to highlight the importance of women in technology
by educating young women. More companies are moving to support and educate
females at a younger age about their prospects within the technology industry.
By supporting organizations and nonprofits like Girls Who Code, you equip young
women with the necessary tools and opportunities to succeed in the competitive tech
industry. As technology continues to infiltrate projects and daily assignments
as early as elementary school, young women learn how to deploy the skills
necessary to build confidence and authority within the space. Remember this
when hiring recent grads who have most likely grown up around technology. To
educate women already in the workforce, invest in seminars, training, and
conferences that will build upon existing knowledge while also forging
connections and empower them to break glass ceilings."
Svenja
de Vos, CTO at Leaseweb Global
"Events such as
National Coding Week are a great opportunity to bring tech to more people,
regardless of their age, and illustrate that you're never too old or too young
to learn to code. The week reminds us of the importance of keeping a balanced
range of talent in the technology sector, and shines a light on the benefits of
a career in coding - which will hopefully widen future pools of developers and
help close the tech skills gap.
Technical accuracy and
creativity go hand in hand when it comes to coding and programming - much more
than people think. It's thanks to coding that our technology has come so far
over the years and will only continue to evolve. Every day, coders create
innovative apps, games and software that are helping to revolutionize a variety
of industries, including healthcare, gaming and manufacturing. Their work is
being used to secure our daily lives and provide solutions to some of today's
biggest problems. The industry coming together around National Coding Week
exposes all these interesting facets of the job, and helps prepare people for
the reality of the career."
Bryan
Becker, DAST product manager and security researcher, WhiteHat Security
"With cybercrime
growing globally, the demand for developers, especially those with security
expertise, has grown to combat the ever-increasing threat. Fortunately in
today's world, coding accessibility has grown and it's much easier to become a
security-minded developer today. During National Coding Week, for those
interested in becoming a developer, I'd encourage students to dedicate themselves
to a project and self-teach as a starting point.
A great place to learn
the basics of programming is through online communities, such as the
‘/r/learnprogramming' subreddit. Contributing to open source projects, even
minimally, is also a great experience and gives you the chance to work with
code written by people with much more experience. For security experience, I
would recommend checking out the OWASP website, the ‘/r/netsecstudents'
subreddit, or one of the many beginner challenges online. By integrating
security into your developer training, it will absolutely set you apart in the
job market and also help combat the growing daily threat of today's data
breaches."
Anu
Yamunan, VP, Products at Exabeam
"In the past several
years, we have seen the emergence of a new standard of employee for the
technology industry. The modern-day tech worker has to be technical, but also
creative, innovative and an incredibly talented problem solver. Coders tick
every single one of these boxes. As a developer, similar to a painter, they are
taking a blank canvas and constructing something extraordinary out of
nothing-and have to navigate any issue that comes their way. When something
goes wrong with their code or the original code does not work, it is up to them
to fix it as fast as possible. Employees with coding skills are now essential
personnel in the modern enterprise. The demand for coding skills is already
high, but as we continue to see the evolution of AI and machine learning, it
will only become greater. These technologies are transforming the way we
process and analyze data, which offers incredible insight to inform sales and
marketing, network security teams and more. National Coding Week serves as a
great platform to highlight how we need more people with these skills to manage
evolving technologies."
Neil
Barton, CTO at WhereScape
"Automation is enabling
businesses to get things done faster and with greater efficiency. In the case
of machine learning processing, data infrastructure automation is the key to
ensuring organizations are leveraging trusted data, by generating repeatable
code and metadata that provides strong data governance and transparent lineage.
By utilizing automation in this and other ways, organizations are also able to
lift the mundane and repetitive coding off of the plates of its developers and
instead provide opportunities to contribute within other aspects of development
that will greatly impact the bottom line and be personally rewarding."
Henry
Jewkes, software engineer at Split.io
"National Coding Week
is an opportunity to shine a spotlight on and show appreciation to the coders
who work so diligently behind the scenes. Coders provide the backbone for every
website, application and technical project and are therefore also responsible
for fixing any issues or bugs as soon as they appear. With so many
organizations undergoing digital transformations these days, it's not just
convenient to have a coder on staff; it's necessary.
As
technology continues to progress - especially with the advances in AI, ML and
edge computing - the demand for highly skilled coders will continue to
increase. For that reason, it's important to begin teaching coding to students
at a young age. Coding is a language that should be offered as commonly as
Spanish or French, and it's a skill that will serve students well into their
careers."