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Leveling up as a Junior Engineer

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Re: Leveling up as a Junior Engineer

#21

Post by striking »

Double_a_92 wrote: post #3
boona wrote: post #2

If you're interested in php and/or laravel I highly recommend laracast. He'll go through the exercise of creating a certain feature, and then refactoring that feature with an explanation as to why. And often, that refactor is the difference between entry level code that just works, to intermediate code that's scalable and easy to read. I highly recommend it.

Would you recommend Laravel and PHP? I know PHP is seen as outdated by some people... But now that that NodeJS/MongoDB hype is finally receding, PHP actually seems like a sane alternative.

Laravel is a lot of fun and has a lot of helpful opinions. Sometimes you outgrow it, but generally it covers like 90% of use cases.

If you use Laravel and not raw PHP, you'll be fine.

Re: Leveling up as a Junior Engineer

#22

Post by y-c-o-m-b »

This posting really irks me. It's reminiscent of those "agile coach" marketers that tell you "this is the REAL way to do agile". The only thing I agree with is the mentoring. If you have a desire to learn and you can find a strong and supportive mentor, then you will go far. All the other stuff in the article feels like high school popularity contest tips. You don't need to do all those things to "level up". Side projects are nice, but you'll find most people - especially in corporate/business software - don't have side projects. Nor should they have to. People have families and duties outside of software, so I hate how there's a cultural push to be a huge github contributor; it pressures ordinary folks to take time away from their other passions. Just be a good person and willing to learn, that should take you far enough.

Re: Leveling up as a Junior Engineer

#23

Post by mrisoli »

My opinion for the article:

Finding a mentor is good, finding multiple mentors is better, just like the article says you don't need someone to be with you at all times, you need to learn from someone, if you have the chance to learn from multiple experienced people around you please do.

Do not involve in the community just because you want to level up, do it because the community helps you and you want to contribute.

Reading should be advice for any human being, not just for leveling up tech skills, you could say the same for soft skills.

Side projects are not obligatory, but if you have the drive to do them you should, it can be a fun and learning experience.

Re: Leveling up as a Junior Engineer

#24

Post by philsnow »

haburka wrote: post #10

In my opinion, side projects don't have to ship. Some people do need to ship side projects, some people do not. It's important to challenge yourself with code, absolutely, but enforcing deadlines on yourself is usually just met with disappointment when you don't do it. Additionally, by allowing yourself to stop working on side projects when you want, you can focus on doing the parts of coding that you enjoy which mea…

If you don't already have experience / are trying to break into the industry, side projects that have actually shipped are one indicator of potential impact.

"Potential" because some people farm out side projects on upwork etc. That kind of project management is also a valuable skill but it's not the same thing.

Re: Leveling up as a Junior Engineer

#25

Post by plinkplonk »

enraged_camel wrote: post #15
jandrewrogers wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of the very best engineers are effectively prohibited from having Github projects. The deeper down the stack you are, or the more hardcore the computer science you work on, the more likely this is to be true because your primary work area is deemed a trade secret. This isn't a major issue if you are an app developer because a side project app is unlikely to convey valuable trade secrets. A database kernel engine…

>>Many of the very best engineers are effectively prohibited from having Github projects. Many, sure. But the OP's comment was "Of the 10 or so water walkers I've worked with, 0 have github accounts." Surely people understand how asinine it is to believe that a sample size of 10 of OP's "water walkers" is a representative sample?

fwiw I know 6 'water walkers' and none of them have github accounts.

Not saying this is universally true. Just another anecdotal sample.

Re: Leveling up as a Junior Engineer

#26

Post by scottLobster »

My continuing critique of posts like these is that they miss far more fundamental keys to "leveling up": energy level and psychological issues.

I bring this up because in my experience the people who outright fail to "level up" and are actively seeking out posts like this often lack the fundamental ability to follow through on any advice they're given, regardless of whether they agree with it or how good it is.

Perhaps the best example is side projects. The first thing you need isn't a good idea, "soft skills", or even being particularly skilled at coding. The first thing you need is enough time and energy to keeping going after an 8+ hour workday, combined with enough confidence to push forward.

For most people that means getting in shape, eating healthy, getting a full night's sleep every night, developing a growth mindset of some variety, dealing with anxiety, making day-to-day tasks more efficient, etc. Otherwise all the good advice in the world is only going to lead to fragmented, half-baked sputtering efforts that ignore the root of the problem.

As for the people who have all that stuff taken care of, then I guess this information is of some value if it's the first time they're seeing it. Otherwise it's largely a rehash of other innumerable professional development blog posts. Which doesn't mean it's bad, but the people who really need the help probably can't use it, and the people who can use it likely don't need it.

Re: Leveling up as a Junior Engineer

#27

Post by enraged_camel »

chasote wrote: post #18
enraged_camel wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Many of the very best engineers are effectively prohibited from having Github projects. Many, sure. But the OP's comment was "Of the 10 or so water walkers I've worked with, 0 have github accounts." Surely people understand how asinine it is to believe that a sample size of 10 of OP's "water walkers" is a representative sample?

This comes off a little aggressive to me. People should be able to provide opinions and anecdotes on HN without the constant "citation needed" for everything. We all know everything isn't fully backed by 4 studies that will be presented here and now. Just say you disagree and offer why. It will probably be an anecdote too.

On the other hand, if everyone used "anecdata" to support their arguments, we would never get anywhere.

If you want to make qualitative arguments, make qualitative arguments. What I absolutely can't stand is lame attempts to lend weight in such arguments using completely unverifiable and most likely non-representative numbers.

Re: Leveling up as a Junior Engineer

#28

Post by neivin »

scottLobster wrote: post #26

My continuing critique of posts like these is that they miss far more fundamental keys to "leveling up": energy level and psychological issues. I bring this up because in my experience the people who outright fail to "level up" and are actively seeking out posts like this often lack the fundamental ability to follow through on any advice they're given, regardless of whether they agree with it or how good it is. Perha…

Agreed.

Finding the motivation/discipline to keep up the conscious effort of improving at anything is the hardest task of all.

Re: Leveling up as a Junior Engineer

#29

Post by CardenB »

scottLobster wrote: post #26

My continuing critique of posts like these is that they miss far more fundamental keys to "leveling up": energy level and psychological issues. I bring this up because in my experience the people who outright fail to "level up" and are actively seeking out posts like this often lack the fundamental ability to follow through on any advice they're given, regardless of whether they agree with it or how good it is. Perha…

This is so incredibly on point. I wish I had something else to contribute, but this is already so well stated. I just want to highlight for others how important this advice is.

Put in your 8+ hours, then stop, and work on yourself.

Re: Leveling up as a Junior Engineer

#30

Post by softawre »

enraged_camel wrote: post #27
chasote wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comes off a little aggressive to me. People should be able to provide opinions and anecdotes on HN without the constant "citation needed" for everything. We all know everything isn't fully backed by 4 studies that will be presented here and now. Just say you disagree and offer why. It will probably be an anecdote too.

On the other hand, if everyone used "anecdata" to support their arguments, we would never get anywhere. If you want to make qualitative arguments, make qualitative arguments. What I absolutely can't stand is lame attempts to lend weight in such arguments using completely unverifiable and most likely non-representative numbers.

But the guy was just giving his opinion...
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