From internship to full-time developer in four months

I joined as an intern on a WordPress plugin team and converted to full-time in four months. None of it was talent. It was a few habits that compound faster than they look.

Read the source before asking

Half my questions answered themselves once I actually read the function I was about to ask about. The other half became sharper — 'this returns null here, is that intended?' beats 'how does this work?'

Ship small, ship often

• A merged one-line fix teaches you the whole pipeline: branch, review, CI, deploy.
• Small PRs get reviewed fast, so you learn fast.
• Momentum is visible — people trust someone whose name keeps landing in the changelog.

Talent gets you the interview. Habits get you the offer.