How to Become a Python Developer: Top Skills to Learn

Python is an easy-to-use, readable, and intuitive language. Over the last couple of years, Python has evolved from "the language for beginners" to a development language of choice. According to the TIOBE index, it is the most used language in the world. Why? Because it is very simple, very versatile, and very useful. Companies of all sizes use it, while developers swear by Python in building intuitive web applications. If these pointers have you hooked and you are keen to learn how to become a Python Developer, then you are at the right place. Go on!

Eligibility to Become a Python Developer

Worth noting is that there is no specific educational qualification for becoming a Python Developer. Focus on some essential skills to start your career.

Core Skills for Python Developers

As a Python programmer, you need specific skills, discussed below.

Python Fundamentals

Python is simple and easy to learn. Go for the basics first. 

Object-Oriented Programming (OOP)

OOP principles keep your code neat and reusable. It further makes it easier to structure your projects professionally. Here are some essential concepts that you should learn:

• Classes and objects: Creation of blueprints for objects.
  
• Inheritance & polymorphism: Reusing and extending code efficiently.
• Encapsulation & abstraction: Internal code structures are hidden, and their complexities are not revealed.
  

Web Development with Python

Python provides robust frameworks to create websites and web applications. Some of those are listed below-

Data Science and Machine Learning

Python is the best programming language for data science and analytics domains. If you want to have a career with a specialisation in data science, AI, analytics, or research, it would be a great idea to learn the following:

5. Automation and Scripting

Python is widely used to automate repetitive tasks and boost efficiency. You can write scripts to:

• Automatically rename or relocate files
• Web scraping using tools like Beautiful Soup, Scrapy or Selenium
• Interact with web services and APIs to retrieve or process information
• Schedule system jobs or monitor logs

6. Version Control with Git

Using version control to track changes and facilitate collaboration with other developers isone of the best practices of using Python. Git is a distributed version control system that has achieved industry-standard status for source code management. To manage Python projects, learn to:

• Create and manipulate repositories
• Basic Committing, Branching and Merging 
• Use GitHub, GitLab, Azure DevOps or Bitbucket for collaboration

7. Virtual Environments

Python projects normally use many libraries and different versions. In order to avoid conflicts between versions and to isolate our projects totally from other projects, a virtual environment is very useful. Learn to use:

8. Soft Skills

Apart from technical stuff, you should also work on your business skills, also popularly called soft skills.

• Communication skills
• Logic building
• Problem solving 
• Adaptability
• Teamwork & Collaboration
• Time management 
• Critical thinking
• Willingness to learn
• Project management
• Empathy
• Active listening