I don't think enough can be said about having good mentors and having good mentors that are good at things you aren't good at. My direct manager and I complement each other pretty well and in addition to it being good for our department, I get to learn a lot.
I'm senior in many regards and act as a back end dev and system engineer. Plus I manage the dev group. I informally mentor some junior front-end devs on developer productivity and testing. After reading the article and comments I am going to step up my game some to help more.
Optimize doesn't mean that you should completely ignore salary, work/life balance or any other benefit. I read it as, "Don't immediately jump ship just because someone offers you a 3% increase." > and this is how gamedev is never lacking those new fresh naive developers I think I know what you mean by this, but just in case, I really think it's the over-representation of SV and startup culture on the Internet. One of…
Do people really change jobs for a 3% increase? That doesn't even cover the risk of starting over at a new company for me, unless there's something seriously wrong with my current company or there's some other reason to move.
Probably not. I pulled a small number out as an example of what not to do based on some single criterion. A 3% increase is meager, but other benefits could more than make up for it like better healthcare, 401k matching with a better plan, shorter hours, better coworkers, etc. A new job that only gives a 3% increase probably isn't worth it.
I don't think enough can be said about having good mentors and having good mentors that are good at things you aren't good at. My direct manager and I complement each other pretty well and in addition to it being good for our department, I get to learn a lot.
When approached to work for my current company I met with my future manager and asked: Will I be able to have a more senior developer act as a mentor? Will I have direct access to more experienced devs on my team? What opportunites will there be to try something new and get it reviewed? Are there any tech stack absolutes I will never be able to stray from? The answers I received were great and ended up being accurate…
I like how well thought out your questions are. I generally ask about the company having an open culture for questions and ability to learn, but I'll keep track of those questions in the future.