Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What skills do you want to develop or improve in 2026?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 433 posts

Re: Ask HN: What skills do you want to develop or improve in 2026?

#71

Post by ttsalami »

My main ones are career focused:

- Vastly and in depth expand my knowledge of data architecture approaches. I'm an analytics engineer but have no experience in high level planning of architecture and I feel like I'm missing a lot of knowledge of the field.

- Learn data engineering skills like handling event streams. I'm very happy with my analytics engineer position, but it seems like standard data engineering is a very desired skill for any new career opportunities.

- Learn how to manage a small SaaS company and the product. I'm in the finishing stages of a platform that I have been developing by myself(while my cofounder is the industry expert). Neither of us has knowledge on what it takes to launch and sell this product, for which we know there is demand in the industry.

- Create practical real life ML workflows. I have only theoretical experience since I never had the need or opportunity to work with a more real scenario. This is both from personal interest and for career growth.

- Start and actually approach university in a meaningful way. I have a respectable career, but no higher education, which has always weighted on me

Some non-technical:

- Force myself into more social situations, especially with absolutely non-tech people.

- Just started treating ADHD, so hopefully wrangle that

Re: Ask HN: What skills do you want to develop or improve in 2026?

#73

Post by sokoloff »

canpan wrote: post #21
kenrick95 wrote: post #7

I want to learn driving. I live in a city with well-connected public transport (Singapore) so I don't feel the need to learn. However, this year I travelled to some rural areas in Japan and started to feel the pain of relying solely on public transport which is either extremely sparse, or sometimes non-existent which limits the places I want to visit. That's why I felt like if I obtain this skill, I can explore more…

Same here! I lived in big cities all my life and am used to the convenience of good public transport. Want to travel and rent a nice car, just when needed.

I always feel the jump in price from standard to nice rental car is too much to bother with (like a factor of 2.5-5x). So I drive a lot of crappy rentals, but they’re just a way to get from point to point.

Re: Ask HN: What skills do you want to develop or improve in 2026?

#74

Post by intermerda »

fs_software wrote: post #50

I want to learn how to be bored again. I also want to learn how to ask better questions.

I didn't realize it was important to be bored until I read/watched this: https://hbr.org/2025/08/you-need-to-be-bored-heres-why. There are some pointers in there that you might find helpful.

One thing that's helped me is solo hikes which I've done many times before. I still do them for workouts and use them as an opportunity to get bored.

Re: Ask HN: What skills do you want to develop or improve in 2026?

#76

Post by windows_hater_7 »

gavinhoward wrote: post #72

I have had to put programming aside in 2025, probably for the rest of my life, so 2026 will be the year I reskill and reinvent myself. But most importantly, I want to finally become as kind, patient, and charitable as I have always wanted to be.

May I ask why you have had to put programming aside?

Re: Ask HN: What skills do you want to develop or improve in 2026?

#77

Post by kuerbel »

ekropotin wrote: post #63

My #1 goal for the next year is to find a job that would re-ignite my passion for engineering. I just can’t longer spend my life doing stupid corporate nonsense work contributing to widespread enshittification of the world.

Same here. I really want to stop peddling Microsoft stuff and support m365. Don't know where to go from here though. But if there's a will there's a way right?

Re: Ask HN: What skills do you want to develop or improve in 2026?

#78

Post by boricj »

I want to draw again.

I used to, when I was in a classroom or at a bar. Actually managed to get quite good at it through sheer boredom in grande école. Then life happened and that faded away, alongside my mental health. Recently I've rediscovered doodling while attending ACM CCS 2025 as an independent (long story) and I want to improve my mental health in 2026, to the point where I can draw regularly again.

Re: Ask HN: What skills do you want to develop or improve in 2026?

#80

Post by luiwammus »

I would like to learn more about Web development and related knowledge (networking, security). Currently my programming knowledge is primarily system languages+python. I'm thinking of building a few websites / apps from scratch, and perhaps hosting my own server. Recommendations for frameworks or do's/don'ts are very welcome.

Second thing is networking skills at my (future) job. One thing I regret from my PhD is not seeking collaborators out more actively and building my network. Although I'm moving to industry, I've realised that having a strong professional network is vital for job security and can make the job much easier and more fun.

Post reply on HN