Go to meetups and conferences. Listen to people who are more knowledgeable than you. Go to presentations where you don't understand what's going on. Take notes, and let those notes help you decide what you'd like to study and where you'd like to take your learning and career.
Make sure you're learning new things, either through work or through side projects. As soon as your learning starts to stagnate, your career will stagnate. Solicit code reviews from friends and community members for your side projects.
Write blog posts about things that you've learned and hard problems you've solved and don't want to solve again after you've forgotten the solution and moved on. Treat your blog as your own personal wiki of learnings, failures, and unexpected successes. This makes for interesting content and will have the side effect of boosting your brand.
If you're going to take classes or get certifications, try to stick to ones that are relevant to what you're working on now. If you're going to spend money (yours or your company's) on course material, make sure you get some practical use out of it. If you don't solidify your knowledge with practical experience, it will probably evaporate out of your brain.
At least, those were things that worked for me. I come from a background mostly in music and pre-law. I was initially self taught and went to a bootcamp in 2014, so I know what it's like to not have direct experience.
More than anything, keep in mind that your goal as an early career developer is to learn. Absorb everything you can. Find mentors. Ask every question that pops into your brain, even if you think it's stupid. Keep up with that attitude, and you'll do fine.
Thanks for the advice, Jess! I'll definitely take it all under consideration.
I've started using my blog here as a record of difficult problems that I've been able to overcome, which I hope will help other people who encounter those same problems in the future.
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Go to meetups and conferences. Listen to people who are more knowledgeable than you. Go to presentations where you don't understand what's going on. Take notes, and let those notes help you decide what you'd like to study and where you'd like to take your learning and career.
Make sure you're learning new things, either through work or through side projects. As soon as your learning starts to stagnate, your career will stagnate. Solicit code reviews from friends and community members for your side projects.
Write blog posts about things that you've learned and hard problems you've solved and don't want to solve again after you've forgotten the solution and moved on. Treat your blog as your own personal wiki of learnings, failures, and unexpected successes. This makes for interesting content and will have the side effect of boosting your brand.
If you're going to take classes or get certifications, try to stick to ones that are relevant to what you're working on now. If you're going to spend money (yours or your company's) on course material, make sure you get some practical use out of it. If you don't solidify your knowledge with practical experience, it will probably evaporate out of your brain.
At least, those were things that worked for me. I come from a background mostly in music and pre-law. I was initially self taught and went to a bootcamp in 2014, so I know what it's like to not have direct experience.
More than anything, keep in mind that your goal as an early career developer is to learn. Absorb everything you can. Find mentors. Ask every question that pops into your brain, even if you think it's stupid. Keep up with that attitude, and you'll do fine.
Thanks for the advice, Jess! I'll definitely take it all under consideration.
I've started using my blog here as a record of difficult problems that I've been able to overcome, which I hope will help other people who encounter those same problems in the future.