Discover Essential Skills for Java Development in 2023 and Build a Successful Career

In software development, Java is considered a foundational coding language. It is used for building web-based applications and software for multiple platforms. As such, Java is a general-purpose programming language, but there are specific skills that you must learn to become a Java developer.

The overall skills you need to land a job will depend on the job’s responsibilities, but here are the essential skills to become an ace Java developer.

1.Core Java skills

You must master the core Java concepts to be an ace Java developer. While there are dozens of concepts, you must know these four aspects of the Java programming language.

• Object-Oriented Programming: OOPs, commonly called, is a programming model that organizes software around data and objects instead of logic. It is an essential concept in Java that allows developers to combine objects, improving the code’s stability and security.
• Abstract classes: While OOP brings more security to your Java code, writing code is complex. Abstraction is a concept that makes OOP coding simple. It allows developers to use a Java interface for coding.
• Design patterns: In software programming, some problems occur frequently. Design patterns are the programs that provide easy solutions to the most frequently occurring problems. Java developers must know the basic design patterns.
• Serialization: In Java, serialization is a critical concept to convert an object into a sequence of bytes. The mechanism is carried out by the Java process that serializes Java objects to transport them between Java Virtual Machines.

2.SOLID principles

These are the principles that improve the quality as well as maintainability of any object-oriented code. Any Java developer must be familiar with the SOLID principles to write scalable and easy-to-maintain Java code. These include:

• Single responsibility: A single class must be responsible for one item to avoid any interconnected problems with a program. Too many items within a single class complicate the code structure and make it prone to errors and bugs.
• Open-closed: In your Java code, functions, classes, and modules must be open for extensions to make your code robust, but not for modifications for security reasons.
• Liskov substitution: The principle advocates that developments should replace related superclasses with subclasses.
• Interface segregation: Interfaces must be explicitly created for a single client to keep program design simple and avoid irrelevant interfaces.
• Dependency inversion: This principle asks Java developers to create dependency objects as abstractions, not as specific items. Simply put, dependency inversion states that high-level modules must not depend on low-level modules.

3.Apache Kafka

It is a distributed data streaming platform that Java developers can use to publish, subscribe, store, and process record streams in real-time.

Apache Kafka is an essential tool for Java developers to create a unified, high-throughput, and low-latency platform to handle real-time data feeds that can solve the data-related problems of modern systems that produce huge volumes of data. Apache Kafka is a technology that is becoming massively popular, with Apace claiming that 80% of the Fortune 100 companies use Kafka. Therefore, it is a skill that can open up exciting Java career opportunities for you.

4.Knowledge of essential Java frameworks and libraries

Spring framework is essential whether you apply for a junior or senior Java developer position. To fully utilize the capabilities of Spring, you must also know Spring-Beans, because the objects in the Spring framework are handled in the Beans. Also, you have to learn the concepts of aspect-oriented programming or AOP. This programming paradigm allows developers to break the code into modules where an aspect is the key unit of modularity.

Jenkins is a project management framework that Java developers usually use for continuous development. Experienced Java developers must know Jenkins and Jira to manage large software stacks.

Knowledge of Java libraries is no longer considered an additional skill but a mandatory requirement. Some essential libraries that a Java developer must be familiar with include Apache Commons, Google-JSON, Java Standard Libraries, Maven, JUnit, Google Guava, and HTML libraries.

Conclusion

A skilled Java developer has technical programming skills with the ability to deploy predefined design patterns and use coding principles for effective solutions. Technologies associated with Java are regularly updated which is why developers must keep a tab on these changing technologies.

As a Java developer, you will be expected to be aware of the latest development in Java. Also, you must be a good team player and a problem solver. Soft skills are equally important for a Java developer. Here are some resources on soft skill development:

How soft skills transitioned to become the new power skills
7 Most valuable soft skills of exceptional software engineers
Essential skills to be a software engineer
In-demand skills for a backend developer

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