One career or life advice for starters in the web development world you wish you knew back then.

holman commented 8 years ago

Always hard to do advice (and to pair it down to the "top x" or so!), but here's two areas:

Technology: This I feel like I got right, early on... I always had a side project to hack on (in my case, Good-Tutorials for about a decade until I sold it a few years back). Having multiple side projects is nice, but also having a single one that grows as I grow was really helpful. I wanted to learn PHP, so I built Good-Tutorials. Then I learned Java in school, so I ported it to Java. Then I learned Ruby, so I switched it to Rails. All the while, I was supporting a real business with real customers, so I had reason to really learn something, as opposed to just reading a blog post today and forgetting it tomorrow. What I built had consequences (even though the consequences weren't major, like having a real job, for example). It changes your perspective some.
Culture: Everyone at the company you work at is trying to take advantage of you, and you need to play politics early in order to get ahead. Don't fall in love with an employer.

anselmh commented 8 years ago

Wow, thank you, that are actually two great points! :)

ur0 commented 8 years ago

:+1: Stuff that I'm always gonna keep in mind.

harshasrinivas commented 8 years ago

Amazing answer! :+1:

mininaim commented 8 years ago

Loved the last one :100:

dideler commented 8 years ago

Don't fall in love with an employer.

This is useful advice that we all need to be reminded of every so often, especially at our highs. Enjoy your work but don't fall in love because you'll end up :broken_heart:

holman / ama

One career or life advice for starters in the web development world you wish you knew back then. #740