The Ruby programming language first appeared in 1995 as a general-purpose language developed by Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto in Japan. He is best known for his role in web development. The Ruby Sinatra and Rails frameworks are used by companies such as Disney, Airbnb, and Shopify to perform a wide range of functions such as online payment processing.
Besides using it to create web resources, developers may find Ruby useful to learn because it’s always good to know programming languages other than JavaScript when working in web development. Given its similarities to other languages, it’s also a good starting point for learning Python or Elixir.
Naturally, learning the language is not enough to become a good Ruby developer. They must also focus on quality, solve problems, be willing to learn new approaches, and be able to work well alone and in a team. So, if you want to become or hire a good Ruby developer, you should look at these characteristics. Here are a few qualities of the best Ruby developers.
1. Technical know-how
Ruby is “a robust, dynamically typed, object-oriented language with a syntax so easy to understand and high-level that it is considered as close as possible to programming in English.” Matsumoto said that he designed the language to help programmers be productive and enjoy programming. However, there is a learning curve that a developer must overcome in order to be considered a Ruby proficient.
As a beginner Ruby developer, you should first learn the basics like syntax, control flow, and loops before moving on to elements like hashes and object-oriented programming. Once you have mastered these concepts, you can create your first project that you could use and solve a problem in your own life or business.
It’s also important to join communities where you can share your wins and challenges with other Ruby developers. Stack Overflow, GitHub are two examples of online spaces where Ruby developers gather. There you can ask for help on the projects you are developing. Finally, practice! Keep working on projects for an employer or on your own until you go to those communities where there are more answers than questions.
2. Focus on quality
While quality can be a subjective term, it usually means something that works well and works the way it should. Quality code is usually clean, reliable, and secure. It should be consistent, well tested, and easy to understand for other developers who may need to learn it in the future. Quality oriented developers use methods throughout the coding process and checklists at the end to make sure their code meets all of these criteria.
A few things that can help improve code quality include understanding what the end result should look like, using a coding standard, testing throughout the process, and using a methodology (like Agile) to ensure the process runs smoothly.
3. Problem-solving mentality
You are bound to run into problems while using Ruby for coding. You can respond with disappointment, anxiety, or anger, but the best approach is to be patient, logical, and willing to learn how to remove any obstacles. If you think of problems as part of the process, and not as things going “wrong,” then you have the right mindset to solve them.
4. Curiosity
As with problem solving, there are more and less productive approaches to learning new skills. A less productive way is believing that you already know everything there is to know and not wanting to learn from your mistakes or from other people. A more productive way is to be open to new approaches, no matter where they come from, including online sources, community members, colleagues, or your own insights.
Believing that you already know everything there is to know about Ruby, or about coding in general, is especially problematic in an industry that changes so quickly. In addition to being open to learning from existing sources, it is important to change and adapt to new technologies, languages and methods that are emerging and, in fact, stay informed about them.
5. Ability to work well alone and in a team.
As a Ruby developer, you will most likely spend many hours working alone, but in the end, you will have to collaborate with other people to make your work come true. You need to be good at both. First, you must understand the nature and requirements of the project and clearly state your questions and initial ideas. If a paying customer is involved, you need to distinguish between their goals and desires.
The coding phase is when you will need the self-discipline to complete each part of the project on time. At this time, you can also communicate with other team members working on individual parts of the project. There may be meetings, testing and direction changes, and you will need to serve in a useful capacity, again using your communication and collaboration skills to move the project forward.
What should be considered when hiring a Ruby programmer?
What to consider when applying for a job, in addition to the benefits of Ruby? A Ruby developer is a developer of back-end software. The main work is the creation of databases, libraries and logic that makes up a web application. Generally speaking, a Ruby developer needs experience with Ruby on Rails and other frameworks and programming languages, as well as experience with APIs and API development.
When looking for a Ruby developer, you want to hire someone responsible for building dynamic web applications with Ruby on Rails and designing and developing those web applications with the rest of the team.
Responsibilities of a Ruby Developer
- Design, build, and maintain efficient and reusable Ruby code
- Integrated Storage Solutions
- Ensure compatibility with custom elements developed by front-end developers with server-side logic.
- Identifying and discovering bottlenecks and bugs with creative problem solving
- Helps maintain code quality, organization, and automation
Ruby developer skills
When hiring a Ruby developer, you should always strive to be knowledgeable in JavaScript, HTML5, and CSS3. As we said before, Ruby is an object-oriented programming language that requires automated testing procedures. In addition to learning new trends, your future developer will collaborate with other team members. And so, teamwork, reliability and excellent written and oral communication skills are fundamental requirements.
Depending on the scale of your project and the level of expertise you need, here are the core skills based on years of experience:
Beginner level Ruby developer skills (from 0 to 2 years)
- Knowledge of the Ruby framework for fixing bugs, writing unsupervised code, and providing solutions.
- Familiarity with the HTTP protocol, such as protocol structure and host types.
- Understanding MVC, ActiveRecord, assets, deploying a Rails application on Heroku.
- Basic knowledge of other programming languages and Linux.
- Knowledge of Redis, Sidekiq, HAML/SLIM and AWS infrastructure.
Intermediate Ruby Developer Skills (3 to 6 years old)
- Good knowledge of the Ruby standard library.
- Conducts a comparative analysis of code from public repositories in order to choose the best option for a working project.
- Advanced unit testing, feature testing, mock web services and third party APIs.
- Uses automated linters, style checkers, static code analyzers.
- Design patterns and AWS.
Senior Ruby Developer (6+ years)
- Metaprogramming skills and advanced parallel programming.
- TLS architecture and DN protocol construction.
- Integration of code style checkers and static analyzers.
- Deep knowledge of AWS to create a flexible architecture.
- Optimizing the performance and speed of HTTP, SPDY, HTTP / 2 at every stage of data exchange.
- Familiarity with libraries/frameworks/architectural solutions such as ROM, Hanami, dry-rb, RabbitMQ.
- Customize the library behavior to facilitate this.
- Team management skills.