Ask HN: How can I self-evaluate my programming skills?

Anyway, it looks like you're good enough at stuff to be a good generalist, so you should probably just study and work on whatever you're interested in and improve naturally.

I find that the best way to evaluate yourself is to look at your code all the time and think critically. Be careful not to overdo it though, maybe take a closer look in between projects or in some interval is fine.

What should you work on? What do you find interesting? I think you're a lot better off working on something you find interesting than forcing you into something that you don't find thrilling. As always you should do stuff you're not comfortable with: do some low/high level stuff, try a new framework or do something you think is hard.

I wouldn't obsess too much on how good you are compared to others, there's always someone better, period.

Instead focus on your relative improvement. If you read your old code (which you should) you should think "this is awful, I could write something better" or at least "this is ok... but if I did it this way it would be much better".

And finally read code, read books about code, try to code with other people and try to make something useful.

Some book tips:

The Pragmatic Programmer: Read this!

Introduction to Algorithms: If you don't know algorithms, here's a nice book for it

Effective Java, Effective C++, More Effective C++: Just good practices

The only metric that matters is the delta between what you know and what you need to know to build what you have to build. How do you find out what this is? By building that which must be built. When you get stuck, you will have to find a way to get unstuck: by getting educated, by consulting others, by finding others' solutions, or just by old fashioned figuring it out.

How often?

Continuously.

How should I decide what to work on?

Work on what needs to be worked on, not what you need to get better at. Any other approach would be backwards.

By definition, the "Competency Matrix" you cite is a bad goal. Every entry has different level of importance for every person and every situation. By trying to aspire to this flawed ideal, you will be wasting time on things that aren't important and missing things that are.

(Aside: When I reviewed the Competency Matrix, I had to laugh. Many of the items were so important that you couldn't help getting better at them just by building lots of stuff. And many will never be important at all.)

The best way to get good at what you should be getting good at is to build what needs to be built. Then trust the process and yourself to fill in the gaps.

Does my ability relative to others matter?

No! There will always be many people better than you. There will always be many people worse than you. You will probably be the best at something (or some combination of skills). You will probably never get very good at something (or some combination of skills). And you know what? It doesn't matter!

All that matters is whether or not you can successfully build that which must be built. The ability to figure out what that is and how to do that is the most important skill of all.

Moral of the story: Go find out what people need. Then build it. The more you become concerned with their needs and the less about your own, the sooner you'll take care of both.