Ask HN: Developers with kids, how do you skill up?

Children under age 1 are easy. From ~1 to ~4, they consume A LOT of your free time. For me, that was the hardest period to find time to continue to learn and to work on personal projects. From a mental health standpoint, it helped me to "give in" to being a parent and "let go" of the notion that I could live the same life as before. I put those in quotes because they are silly concepts. Embracing being a parent and the joys of interacting with your kids is a lovely replacement for spending time alone with a computer.

Eventually, I combined the two and ended up creating several apps for my kids. One was an OS X app that allowed them to bang on the keyboard without damaging my files, etc. Each letter corresponded with an animal. A full screen pic of the animal would appear and the sound would play. It was called Toddler Typer. While it's no longer on the App Store, my kids, now 6 and 4, both still like to play with it. The second was an iPad app called Toddler Taxonomist (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/toddler-taxonomist/id6423870...) that is still available for free (though I need to rewrite it in Swift or something). My older daughter sat on my lap and helped me make it.

Now, I have a full time job, hold a position as a Fellow, work on personal projects when I have time, and spend good time with my kids, when I can. The best advice I have for you is to try to avoid getting frustrated during those first few years and to pivot to parenthood as a learning process. Combine interests where you can, and don't lose sight of the fact that your kids will be intensely interested in the activities you do on the computer. When they're old enough, show/teach them what you're doing!

Is it a given you need to work in your free time to keep up? From my perspective that seems a little relentless.

I've mostly only pursued hobby projects outside of work when I've not been in work. Nap times on paternity leave with my first for example. Or more recently getting laid off and using my gardening leave as an extended paternity leave with the second. Otherwise that itch is usually beaten out by the working week.

Personally I experience a lot of value in having a broader range of interests and knowledge.

Young kids will definitely suck time and energy from you. Anything you do outside of home life will suffer. I can't really fathom how women in less equitable relationships cope with less help from their partners.

On my "geographically spread" team, I have no issue with a team memeber having their kid in their lap while discussing the intricacies of postgres. Perhaps, part of this empathy is driven by having a 3 year old myself. I can totally imagine myself in the same situation if I had to join a meeting before daycare opens (or if I want to drop off my kid a little later, for whatever reason).

Compared to my kid, all else is secondary. I realize that I may not always have the freedom to work with a kid-friendly employer, but it will be an overriding criteria in terms of my workplace/career choices. I'll happily negotiate on other terms, but my time and priority for my kid. And if an employer does not agree, it's their loss, not mine.

I have nothing to add on this yet, but I'm getting married pretty soon, so I just wanted to thank you for starting this thread and everyone else for sharing their opinions. Some of the responses here are very insightful!

For me, I skilled down.

I always told the people I supported, "You only get one chance to rear your child."

And now decades after first birth I can easily say "there is nothing _more_ important than than your children"

I'm not in tech any longer because of my actual ambivalence of technology. I was naturally good at it but hated the chase to keep up.

If you compare the outcome of effort in keeping up in tech to the effort in rearing children then it's a easy answer. The better outcome is always children.