In this post I want to share a few pieces of advice I’ve collected over my years in the tech industry.
The title might be a bit misleading, as some of these insights could have accelerated my growth if I’d heard them earlier, while others might have been too early for me to actually act on them.
Each piece of advice stands on its own, and I encourage you to take a moment after reading each one and reflect on how you might apply it today.
Table Of Contents:
Learning
Read technical books
Technical books contain a lot of useful information, insights from the industry, tips and tricks, and it also provide you with new topics to talk about with co-workers. It doesn’t matter how experienced you are, this tip is timeless.
It can foster team collaboration, it will give you different points of view for common topics. I believe you could always take at least one actionable from each book you read. I’d also recommend you to take notes on the things that grab your attention the most.
Another great tip here, is to read with the mindset of applying the knowledge. Reading just for the sake of reading will not take you far. However, if you are on the lookout to apply the knowledge to your current work, you will quickly realize how this tip can help you become a better professional/person.
Read technical blog posts
The best outcome from reading the book Rich Habits from Thomas C. Corley for me was to read one technical blog post a day. The amount of knowledge that I’ve gained from this tip over the years is unmeasurable. The same tip of reading with the mindset of applying the knowledge applies here.
You can read more about this tip on this post: How to keep up with the industry standards
Ask many questions / Be curious
A lot has been written already about this tip, but, it never gets old. No matter how experienced you are, curiosity will always be your fast lane to success. Keep asking questions, talk with other engineers, expand your horizons and talk with people from other areas.
You need to study the domain of your work, it is not enough to just be the greatest coder of all time, you need to understand what your users want, talk to them, ask them how are their using your product and in which ways you could help them.
Talk to anyone who is willing to talk back. Your life is always 1 conversation away from changing forever.
Stay curious.
Work on side projects
I can honestly say that this advice is a life-changing one. When you work on side-projects your learning is exponentially improved. You have to do everything by yourself, and you need to figure it out, whatever it takes.
In the end, it doesn’t even matter what your side project is, or if it even makes sense at all, it only matters that you are spending your free time learning how to ship it.
Discover new areas (CI, backend, etc)
Keeping with the side projects theme, and even I do recommend specializing in a specific area, discovering areas related to your field is also a great idea. Once you dominate an area, you can expand your knowledge on the related things. This is commonly known as the T shape, where you know a little bit about different topics (the horizontal line of the T), and you know really deeply about fewer topics (the vertical line).
Growing
Be proactive
One of the key differentiators I’ve seen in my careers between top performers and the rest is that the former are always proactive, they don’t wait to be told what to do, and they don’t fear speaking out loud.
Being proactive is a hack in life, certainly more in this modern world, where most people don’t take initiative.
Don’t wait. You miss 100% of the shots that you don’t take.
Be a team player
Talk we instead of I. Help the people in your corner, this behavior will be noticed and rewarded. It’s more than ok to nerd out and try to be the best at what you do, but the team work is what gets you championships.
The power of unit testing and automation
This one is interesting, my first couple of years in the industry, I didn’t write a single unit test. Then I stared, I went all in, and eventually reached a middle ground. The same happened to me with automation. I believe this is one of the things that no matter if somebody tell you the importance of it early in your career, you need to find it by yourself through trial and error.
Networking
The sooner you start with this one, the better. Basically, the more strong and vast your network is, the most opportunities you will get. It’s not your closer friends who get you the biggest opportunities, is the people that know people that you don’t who do.
Documenting
Start a blog
Start early with this one, share the things that you learn, share your thoughts about different topics. You will get better and better with time, but you need to put in the work.
If you build a personal brand (may it be your blog, a youtube channel, or anything where you create content), you will get more opportunities.
Keep a weekly work log
I really like this one, create a document where you document with a few bullet points your work for each week.
In the best scenario, you can use this document to provide proof for a promotion.
In any case, a few years from now, you can take a look at this document and remember the things that you worked on, the struggles that you had, among other things. It will surely put a smile on your face.
Document your work
Part of being a team player is making it easier for others to work with you (and your code). Documenting your work is a great way to provide clarity for your co-workers, and it also provides collaboration and information for people in other areas.
It will also make you a better writer.
Documenting best practices
Having the best practices documented is an amazing way of avoiding repetitive discussions, and is great for on-boarding new engineers.
Some examples:
- Best practices for the codebase
- The Definition of Done
- Sprints Definitions
- Release Mechanism / Cadence
- Communication Guidelines
- Linter/Formatter rules
- Comms etiquette
- The Code Review Process
I want to close this post with my own advice for younger people:
Always bring great energy. This is something that can be applied to anything in life really. Basically, approach every problem you face with a “let’s f0cking do it” mentality. Your energy is contagious. From a personal standpoint, this is something that I am naturally good at, and that has been praised in all of my jobs so far. So I’d encourage you to put this one into practice, I am sure you will see big results!
Related Articles
- How to keep up with the industry standards
- The Definition of Done
- Best practices for the codebase
- The Code Review Process
- The Joy of Less
- Brain Rules
- The Compound Effect
- Excellent Advice for Living