Whatever advice I gave myself at the beginning of my programming career

In the last article, I talked about how you can increase your productivity at times and free up time for your favorite activities. This time I would like to talk about more strategic things. How, by making the right strategic choice, you can improve your career path (in the long term). Once I was asked: "What advice would I give myself at the beginning of my career?" This question was the beginning of this article. And if you are interested in the answer to it, then you are welcome under the cat.

Disclaimer

This article is based on the Java Hexlet community screencast . If you have already listened to this release, then the material is already familiar to you.
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Revelations

Revelation number 1. There is no perfect job for you!

This revelation is perhaps the most important thing that I would really like to know at the beginning of my journey.

Any person wants to self-actualize, and self-realization occurs through creativity. Creativity is possible only from a certain level of professionalism. From this it follows that no matter what path you take, it only matters how good you are in it and how close you are to the stage when you can create?

Moreover, if you naively think that doing work that you think is “super cool”, you can easily reach the creative stage, I hurry to disappoint you. Three stages await you:

- naive perception;
- study and the formation of a mature opinion;
- creation.

The second stage is when there is no naivety anymore, but there is no creativity yet, and there is a huge amount of material in front of you that is not tangible. How long to learn to reach the level of the creator? Where to start and where to go? There are no easy answers to these questions. At this stage there is nothing interesting, except for the routine and once again the routine. You are not yet at the level to create something, but you have long understood that your dreams of a profession are broken into dust: there are no ponies, rainbows, or castles. There is pain, sadness and hopelessness.

Revelation number 2. No matter the direction, it is important how far you have come in the development of the direction.

Revelation number 2 can be summarized even more: the direction is not important, but it is important how deeply you excavated it. The Marxists at one time said a very important thing: it is impossible to learn everything, but any specific thing can be learned (or almost so;)). If you have an infinite number of topics in front of you, select one and start digging in that direction. As you go deeper into the topic, you will understand the directions adjacent to it and it will become clear what related topics you need to learn. It is much easier to become a pro in a certain area, and then find a place in the world where you need a professional in this area than constantly trying to learn what is popular in the market today.

Example

Let's move from a similar general advice to a simple example. During the course of data structures, we looked at various implementations of the List interface. Take two implementations, re-read the code, compare the difference in each method. During the comparison, you will have to learn a huge part of the new information. How does arraycopy work? Is it really faster? What platform? Does it work as fast on Windows as on a Mac? And in different versions of the JDK, and how it is implemented at the C ++ level. In principle, starting to study the sheet, you can cling to this method and, having analyzed it, prepare a whole report with graphs. Such a report will give you a pass to Habr. And, even if you are the most initial juna, you can write an article in this way, which will give a lot of useful information and signoras. Further more. Such a deepening will allow you to understand the list of related topics (from the one into which you went deep). Moreover, this list will consist of consciously selected (as important) topics. For example, how to use jmh correctly (and at the same time understand how naively we use it in our course). Focusing on one topic is always important, do not try to cover everything.

Dead end

How to make sure that the direction you have chosen is not a dead end? The main criterion is simple - money. Money, although it is a bad measure, can still save you from choosing an absolutely unpromising industry. Later, when you reach the level of understanding which technology will fire, you can begin to take risks, taking positions, even with decreasing salary, but with the goal of rising substantially up in a year (hello quantum PCs).

Trap

Keep in mind that your interests and the interests of the employer do not always overlap. Came to work, and you will find the first trap! The employer is interested that you do not grow professionally, but grow productively (more than the same type of responsibility). In your best interest to learn. It is interesting to the employer that you go deep into the stack of the technologies that he is using now. If the stack suddenly changes, then it is better to find a signor with many years of experience with the new “X” technology than to wait for you to relearn. Therefore, from the point of view of the employer, it will be strange if you want to learn C ++ while working with Java. A trivial question may be addressed to you: “Why do you need this at work”? It is in your interest to increase your productivity, but not to increase the work of the same type, but to spend more time on studies. From a management perspective, you will do the work, but you will not grow. If you are lucky and your company is big enough, then you can start looking for inter-team projects to start exploring technologies adjacent to yours. If not, then you just have to accept that in a year or two you will not be upgraded and the s / n will not change. Although in this year you can already claim to jump through one or even two steps. Perhaps the current employer will not be able to accept the fact that the average employee suddenly magically rose to the Architect or you will have to prove your suitability. If you find yourself in a similar situation, then it is probably easier to just go to a place where you will be perceived as an architect from day one.

Total

The bottom line:

- Any work will turn into a routine in the second stage;
- There is no work where it will be easier to overcome the second stage and come in a simpler way to the creative stage;
- Dig in the direction in which you have maximum chances;
- Do not lose focus and do not spray;
- Periodically stop and look at the level of salary asking yourself: “Do I dig there”?
- Increase your productivity in order to learn more and solve problems of a new type, and not to do more tasks of the same type as before.