
How to grow into your best developer self - siruelise
https://www.reaktor.com/blog/how-to-grow-into-your-best-developer-self/
======
xzion
I just can't agree with the recommendation to read the comments before
articles you find online.

Critical thinking is such an important skill for everyone, not just engineers,
and this habit all but eliminates it. You go into an article with a framed
opinion of what it's trying to convey, and spend the time reading the article
looking for confirmation of that opinion rather than thinking critically for
yourself.

This might be OK in some communities like HN where people are usually pretty
reasonable and the site seems fair. But it becomes a habit and can be
dangerous in other places where the top comment could be paid for or
manipulated without you knowing, seeding opinions and confirming them as you
view the content.

Definitely read the comments. The author is spot on about the gems and lessons
to be found. But do it after you've read the article, and thought about what
it meant for you.

~~~
nizze
The comment section is pure gold for discovering contrasting opinions - which
will feed critical thinking. Reading what ever article while remembering
different opinions from comment section gives a really nice insight.

Totally agree about the top comments. Not that valuable and some times even
misleading/manipulated/bought/nasty.

~~~
NobleLie
His whole point is that reading comments first is the mistake. It primes you
with thoughts and opinions with little to no cognition required (recognizing
they still may be valuable, but those comments will be there after your
analysis...)

What we really need is to develop our own critical reading skills, how to
connect dots on our own etc. I agree that seeing others comments first before
starting that process might be a negative for many reasons.

~~~
treehau5
Most just don't have the luxury of critically analyzing things these days at
their work -- the goal is to produce as fast and as much as possible. I find
reading the comment sections first helps me gauge what exactly is important in
the article and what the takeaways are -- from both angles. Then I can go back
to work.

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k__
Finding a mentor probably helps most and is the hardest. I know a few good
people who wouldn't have got where they are without a mentor.

I never found one and I'm 10 years in the game now. So I'm probably cursed to
mediocrity, haha.

~~~
sjclemmy
I too would welcome a mentor!

I've often thought this would be a good social network - online mentoring.
Lots of upside for the mentee, not sure about the mentor...

~~~
marcosdumay
People like mentoring, it's human nature.

But that will challenging to capture online.

~~~
moosingin3space
At university, I hold office hours for a mid-level CS course, and it is
incredibly rewarding to do so in person, as you can see the flicker of
understanding on their face when they get it. That's going to be very hard to
capture online.

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mvindahl
I think the common denominator is to optimize for happiness.

Most of us ended up in software development because we were curious about
technology in the first place. Learning stuff and tinkering with stuff makes
us happy. We should continue to do so.

The section about optimizing your career is also about optimizing your
happiness. There will be plenty of times where the sirens try to lure you into
taking on tasks which are financially rewarding but boring. Take on some of
these but don't get trapped forever in a local minimum. Your strategic goal is
to feed your curiosity and your happiness.

The part about finding a mentor I'd phrase more broadly as: find a network.
Find friends. Hang out with people who are fun to hang out with and who care
about tech and life in general. They'll probably have strong opinions, and so
will you. You'll learn a lot from these people; they'll be the mentorship that
you need. And why would they want to hang out with you? Because you are
bright, curious, and because people that optimize for happiness are great to
hang out with.

------
nizze
Author here. Long time reader, first time writer. Just wanted to say thanks to
HN community for such an enlightening discussion here. Helped me to grow and
learn especially at times when there were no mentors around.

~~~
minhajuddin
I am not sure you wanted to use 'crafty' :)

> clever at achieving one's aims by indirect or deceitful methods

~~~
nizze
Sorry, I'm not native English speaker. Will fix! Also, that kind of approach
would entitle own blog post ;)

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throwthisawayt
I have a question for senior developers like the author. I've been a developer
for 1.5 years and on this article's checklist for switching jobs I have
everything except a mentor (that's probably more my fault). According to the
this article I should not switch jobs. However I live in the Bay Area and
there is a huge COL and also salary difference between top and "2nd tier"
companies. Junior engineers at Google/FB/MSFT make 180+ while I would say
market is 120+ for the Bay Area. This is a sizable income difference esp when
you compound over 3-5 years. Dan Luu explains it better:
[http://danluu.com/startup-tradeoffs/](http://danluu.com/startup-tradeoffs/)

Does it make sense to stay at my job where I am learning well or should I try
to switch to a larger tech company since it has a material impact on my
financial well being ? I want to raise a family and hope own a home (or rent
one near good schools) and I don't see that as being possible in the Bay Area
without a Google salary. If I was living in a market like Texas I would stay
at my current job because market salaries allow you easily have a middle class
family lifestyle (my parents live there and you can easily raise a family on
90k). The Bay Area however is another beast and that 50-60K Google salary
difference compounded over many years seems substantial (esp for that mortgage
down payment). I don't want to move out of the Bay (my wife is tied here too).
What do you guys think - are the financial reasons enough to consider
switching jobs for the Bay Area ?

~~~
digler999
Make sure you find out from several sources how many hours those engineers at
"top tier" companies are working. They could be making the same as a "2nd
tier" engineer, just working 1.5x more. Thats cool if you have the funds to
put your kid into a nice school, but you also have to _be present_ to be a
good parent.

~~~
solarmist
I work for a top tier company and I work hard, but mostly I do 40-50 hours a
week nowadays. I've also worked for second tier companies that I worked 60+
hours a week.

That said I have coworkers that work 60 hour weeks mostly because they're
fresh out of school and want to prove themselves.

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atemerev
"Optimize your career, not your salary" — and this is how gamedev is never
lacking those new fresh naive developers.

Poor souls.

~~~
noxToken
Optimize doesn't mean that you should completely ignore salary, work/life
balance or any other benefit. I read it as, "Don't immediately jump ship just
because someone offers you a 3% increase."

> _and this is how gamedev is never lacking those new fresh naive developers_

I think I know what you mean by this, but just in case, I really think it's
the over-representation of SV and startup culture on the Internet. One of the
biggest concerns I had before I started working full time as a dev was
work/life balance. I listened to the Internet rather than asking peers. It
turns out (in my experience) that it's fine in most places. Blogs, Reddit, and
HN had me thinking otherwise, and I'm sure the people who drink the SV and
startup Kool-Aid are the ones falling prey to this.

~~~
pmiller2
Do people really change jobs for a 3% increase? That doesn't even cover the
risk of starting over at a new company for me, unless there's something
seriously wrong with my current company or there's some other reason to move.

~~~
noxToken
Probably not. I pulled a small number out as an example of what not to do
based on some single criterion. A 3% increase is meager, but other benefits
could more than make up for it like better healthcare, 401k matching with a
better plan, shorter hours, better coworkers, etc. A new job that _only_ gives
a 3% increase probably isn't worth it.

------
jonahrd
And all this time I thought I was _wasting_ time reading comments on
hackernews.

~~~
clifanatic
In your defense, you're definitely wasting time reading mine.

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andy_ppp
Constantly biting the bullet and doing the right thing rather than continuing
with bad code is probably the best start.

You'll get bored anyway if you don't rewrite your program from time to time
;-)

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module0000
Your "best developer self" is the one who supports themselves and their family
financially - unless your mortgage is paid by good vibes, karma, or upvotes.
Tailor your mindset and skills to accomplish that goal, and you'll be alright.
Just remember, you never get to stop - the tools and needs keep changing, and
if you want to accomplish that all-important goal of supporting the people who
depend on you, then you must change right along with them.

~~~
echelon
Family and mortgage? I'm single and live in Atlanta where everything is cheap.

Optimizing for happiness and career path seem like more ideal goals for me
personally.

Just some different perspective.

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weberc2
I hate to be the guy complaining about the site's UX, but that popover banner
jumps over the text I'm trying to read whenever I scroll.

~~~
nizze
Let's see if we can do something about this. Thanks for the tip ;)

~~~
weberc2
No problem. Here's a screen capture, wherein the highlighted text is what I'm
trying to read:
[https://www.dropbox.com/s/zo9jmlxvs4mcqzc/banner_ux_bug.mov?...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/zo9jmlxvs4mcqzc/banner_ux_bug.mov?dl=0)

I also sent an email with more details to your contact page before seeing your
comment.

------
Kenji
How do you find a mentor?? When I was at uni, I would often go to the
professors and talk about some details and difficulties, and that helped me a
great deal, but now that I am out of uni, there is barely anyone in my
environment who could be my mentor. And those who could be a mentor know that
their time is extremely valuable and are terribly busy.

~~~
Clubber
Try your team lead. Don't expect long philosophical conversations, but if they
do a code review, make sure to ask "why?". Not like, "why, you dumbass?" but
"why did you make that decision, what are the pro's and con's?"

I used to send emails to my favorite professors just to say hi, or to ask
questions, I'm sure they enjoyed the conversation as much as I did.

~~~
larry_pi
I can definitely agree with this. Even though I've only held a couple of
individual training sessions, the worst ones are where nobody asks anything
and people just leave. No feedback on whether this session was any good or did
I just completely blew it.

I'll gladly hang around to address any questions. It shows that you're
genuinely interested in the matter. Don't be afraid of coming across as a
beginner either - asking questions is how you learn.

------
SolaceQuantum
Query: As a new software developer, how does one find or develop mentor-mentee
relationships? Unlike a technical book or code snippets, one cannot find this
information through their own research. There are books on mentorship but they
don't really apply specifically to technical fields and there may be nuances I
am missing.

~~~
dpc_pw
Mentors are hard to come by. I'd personally say that mentors don't have to be
more senior or wiser or anything in particular. Just be a friendly, likeable
person and listen to other people. Anyone cooworker that you respect can teach
you something. And people do enjoy when someone is listening and appreciating
they experience and skills.

------
grigjd3
I don't think enough can be said about having good mentors and having good
mentors that are good at things you aren't good at. My direct manager and I
complement each other pretty well and in addition to it being good for our
department, I get to learn a lot.

~~~
beebs93
When approached to work for my current company I met with my future manager
and asked:

Will I be able to have a more senior developer act as a mentor?

Will I have direct access to more experienced devs on my team?

What opportunites will there be to try something new and get it reviewed?

Are there any tech stack absolutes I will never be able to stray from?

The answers I received were great and ended up being accurate.

It was the first time I had ever decided to choose a company based primarily
on the potential for growth and not money/perks/etc.

Smartest decision ever.

~~~
grigjd3
I like how well thought out your questions are. I generally ask about the
company having an open culture for questions and ability to learn, but I'll
keep track of those questions in the future.

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UK-AL
Honestly, I have found salary has correlated strongly with responsibilities
you are given. Stronger than job title. Probably because higher salaries are
given to people who they respect.

If you optimize for salary, you will probably be given more responsibility.

~~~
autotune
The author is saying more that it's not just about how critical your
responsibilities are to the company and how much you're given, it's about how
much you enjoy said responsibilities as well. As an example, if you were to
spend your days learning COBOL to chase the cash and work on legacy systems,
you are probably having less fun than someone learning Python or Ruby or any
number of more modern languages to work in a modern environment for what may
be a lesser salary short term than that COBOL dev but can still give you a
comfortable lifestyle in the long term as you become more senior.

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slmyers
This seems like good advice for younger adults, or even teenagers, entering
the workforce.

~~~
xyzzy4
I don't agree. Good advice is to optimize for a high salary to save for and
support your eventual family.

------
known
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle)

~~~
seaborn63
I'm a bootcamp grad and I got lucky enough to find work. While I don't have a
mentor in the traditional sense, everyone here knows my background and I can
go to any of them for help. I may not be the brightest, but I work really hard
and they see it, which I think helps when I go to them with questions.

~~~
marklombardi1
Also in South Florida, and I'd be interested to hear about your bootcamp
experience. Contact info?

~~~
seaborn63
shoot me an email. zseaborn63 [at] gmail

