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

I'm surprised at the responses for this post. Mostly because there isn't much family convo on hn. Great stuff, thanks to all.

I have 2 kids - 5 & 3. It's the best and hardest all wrapped in a unpredictive, non-linted experience. On top of that, being in tech, I feel, puts you at a little more disadvantage.

Maybe because we live in SF where it feels like most software gigs want to operate at Uber speed.

I have a medium sized company job now, but have been through contracting and 3 startups since my oldest was born. I was definitely pushed many times to making the decision of company first and I've had to do what I've had to do to keep the money coming in.

Luckily my wife has her own biz and could take time off for the kids, but we've both talked about how this has put us in the traditional roles and how we wanted it to be different.

I would never take having kids back vs. a more accomplished software career (I switch between mgr and sr. engr roles anyway). Kids have put this point of my life into perspective more than anything.

If I want to do a side proj (I've done a few over the last few years), then I double down on discipline. I'm up at 4 every day, put in a solid 2 hours and then stop. Kids and family are next, then day job. I come home, usually around dinner time, give kids bath, stories and bed time.

It is definitely clockwork and treadmill feeling at times, but it's how I've made it work. In those 2 morning hours I code and keep updated on latest. Luckily I have quite a bit of exp so most things I already understand and it becomes more about translation into other languages / frameworks.

In closing I would say this: we have all been our children. I reflect back on my life remembering what made me excited and happy and try to facilitate they for my kids and be present with them. When they are asleep, then I have me time.

Make ability to learn on the job a high priority. Save your money and take time off.

I wrote about my experience taking time off for a 'learning sabbatical' here:

http://karlrosaen.com/learning-sabbatical/

and now have a job where I make quite a bit less than my last job but have a lot of freedom to learn on the job (e.g spend several hours a week working through material that will make me more valuable on the job, learning stuff I'm really excited about in the meantime).

I have a family, and can probably squeeze out maybe 3-4 hours a week tops outside of work / family stuff, and usually don't feel like it because it's important to have downtime. Having a way to learn during the day is great and I think a sustainable solution for family minded folks.

Whatever happens, the message is that it's not as important as what happens on the conference call.

I think there's a difference between learning and having green boxes on GitHub. I've followed uncle Bob and he basically spent an hour and a half after his wife went to sleep. Your time does shrink to next to nothing but the answer to why people can't keep up can be summed up in a paraphrase by Gary Vaynerchuck. He talks of an imaginary truck driver named steve. It goes something like "In 10 years Steve won't have a job and Steve can start learning now when he's home so he's ready for that day. But guess what? All Steve wants to do is watch the football match".

Ultimately it comes down to being extremely hard on yourself. It is not a bed of roses. In fact just by being around to comment on HN I'm wasting time. Having a kid and still levelling up means becoming a machine which tbh is terribly unappealing. And it does suck from time to time. Dragging my ass out of bed early ( I still get 7 hours sleep by not watching any TV) so I can study before my son wakes up is crap. But if you want it, you gotta do it.

And that's what your coworkers probably don't have. It's one of those hurtful things to say, but for the most part it's true. They don't have the entire drive needed to keep learning. They aren't hungry enough for it.

I just want to clarify I don't advocate killing yourself over this. I don't advocate doing something you don't like. But I do guarantee however, there's time. To get there is an all or nothing road though. Screw TV. Screw games (I do about half to one hour per week max). Screw HN ideally unless you are here to check on actual important developments like security or _relevant_ programming language related updates. FB, twitter, YouTube, etc. Bye!

And that's tough really. So I don't fault anyone either. But I don't like hearing others trying to tell you "oh it can't be done". Can do.

They're with their caregiver. If you're looking after kids yourself you're not working from home.