Always Be Learning

Love to learn, it'll help you earn.

Welcome!

Hi this is John with this week’s Developing Skills - Skills for Developers looking to develop their careers.

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Tip of The Week: Always Be Learning

The speed of change in the software development industry is a myth (I explain why in this LinkedIn post).

But even if the speed of change isn’t as lightening fast as we might think, there is still change and there’s also change in us. We progress out careers, moving roles, jobs, industries and sometimes even career paths.

So there’s always more to learn.

That’s why we should always be learning, but how do we do that? There’s several obvious ways ways including:

• Reading books.

• Reading blogs.

• Attending conferences (or if your company doesn’t support that, watch the recordings).

• Attending Meetups.

• Watching YouTube.

• Online Courses - Coursera offers some great courses.

• Make use of the Coaching and Mentoring opportunities your organisation provides or try to find your own mentors.

• Pair with non-engineers - that is others outside your team or department - become T-shaped. Spotify wrote a great blog post about why you should pair with non-engineers.

But my favourite and an often underused approach is:

• Group Learning - Set aside some time each week to watch a conference talk, give a talk or take on a small project as a team. Use the second half of the time to discuss what you’ve learned.

Finally remember, it’s not just tech that you can and should be learning, include domain knowledge and soft skills. Having all of these is what will set you apart.

Two Ways I Can Help You Level Up As A Software Engineer:

1. I write another newsletter, Coding Challenges that helps you become a better software engineer through coding challenges that build real applications.

2. I have some courses available:

   1. Become a Better Software Developer by Building Your Own Redis Server (Python Edition) which guides you through solving the Redis Coding Challenge in Python.

   2. Build Your Own Shell (Go Edition) which guides you through solving the Shell Coding Challenge in Go.