Three Impactful Ways to Improve Your Career
With the advent of the new year, it is tradition to evaluate our careers. Often, we set goals to improve in some way. I want to share some suggestions that have helped me in my career.
Become A Mentor
Regardless of skill level, knowledge, or position, you have valuable experience to share with others. Sharing this experience with others in an easily understood manner is a skill. The only way to gain this skill is to do it. When someone asks for help, be genuine and make the experience a good one for them. Take the time to answer the follow-up questions and avoid quick, condescending answers.
I’ve learned over the years that the best way to find out how well you know something is to try to teach it. One of the incredible things about working in development is the intelligent people it attracts. When teaching devs, you will be asked questions you never thought of yourself. It may point to holes in your learning. It may force you to re-evaluate long-held beliefs. The most significant benefit of teaching others is that you can also strengthen your understanding. There are other altruistic benefits, but this article is about making you better. 😁
How can I become a mentor? Should I rush up to the next person I see struggling and try to help them? If done with tact and care, this is a viable way to help others. However, in my experience, telling someone you think they are struggling can be insulting. So instead, here are some ways that I think work well:
- When asked a question, be polite and give a complete answer. Take the time to show that the question is important, and you take it seriously. Take time to understand the question. Avoid rushing into long-winded dissertations. This shows the person asking the question that you are a safe source of information. Naturally, they will start seeking your counsel and advice. Over time this can evolve into a mutually rewarding relationship.
- Spend some time online where new programmers are asking questions. Take the time to write good responses. There are a lot of toxic places where new devs often get burned asking questions. Take the time to make a good experience for people asking questions. This is my current favorite way to help others. I have made many good friends worldwide by just being a positive experience online for others.
Create Content For Others
As developers, our thirst for knowledge is often insatiable. We consume tutorial videos, conference talks, blogs, podcasts, articles, and any other form of media that provides information. Without that access to knowledge, where would your career be right now? If every piece of information was gated or held as some form of secret, how would our industry look?
If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.
The famous Isaac Newton quote is a powerful reminder to us as devs. Be one of the giants helping others to see further. Produce something that will help another person learn.
Taking something you know and sharing it in a public forum is a scary proposition. Every time I write an article, there is a piece of me that says, “What if people hate it and ridicule what you wrote?” This fear helps me take the time to make sure what I am writing is correct to the best of my knowledge. I do additional research. I read what others have said on the topic. I spend more time learning the topic in depth. This is the benefit of sharing in a public forum. You get a more robust understanding of the topic than you had before you started.
Feedback is vital in this process. Be prepared for the feedback you will receive. There will be trolls that will hurt your feelings. You will earn fans. You may have to defend a position you took. You will often need to evaluate your beliefs and possibly change them. Feedback helps you to become better. Embrace it!
I want to share one small note about feedback. If you are providing feedback to another, take the time to make it productive. Realize that people producing content often do it in their free time for free. One small positive comment can help a creator to feel like they matter. Remember, your comment can be the one that propels a creator to make more, OR it could potentially be the straw that breaks the proverbial camel’s back and causes a creator to give up. The Angular community is very positive in my experience. Take the time and effort to help it stay that way.
Participate In The Open-Source Community
I think the open-source community is the biggest reason for the success of software worldwide. As devs, open-source software impacts almost every action we take. This is especially true for the Angular community. Our entire framework and toolchains are built on open-source software. A significant majority of these projects are labors of love with minimal (if any) monetary gain for the participants.
To keep this benefit alive, we need to propel it forward. Find a community and participate positively. Remember that they have rules and procedures when you join an open-source community. Take the time to learn the rules for reporting bugs, providing code changes, and communicating with the members. Once you understand where you can help, do it. Every project can benefit from your help. Almost every project needs help with documentation or bug triaging. These are simple ways to get started.
If you have an idea for your own open-source project, go for it! So many of the tools we consider essential started as an idea someone had. Your idea could be impactful and change the course of programming as we know it.
I’m doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won’t be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones¹.
— Linus Torvalds
Always remember that you are working with humans when doing anything open-source. Contributors have lives and concerns outside of the software they maintain. Too many times, I have seen bug reports demanding fixes for a bug in production. Too many times, I have seen the frustration of maintainers being treated poorly over the software they provide for free. Please make sure to be a source of positivity in the open-source community. It is because of this community that we have jobs.
As I look back on my career, these three things have been the most impactful. You may notice a theme of helping others. I have seen that the more I help others, the better my career goes. The interesting thing about helping others is that it isn’t a zero-sum game. When I help another dev, I wind up helping myself more. Many of the devs I am currently working with are much smarter than me. They will produce ideas and tools that will make my life better in the future.
Happy coding and I wish you a prosperous 2022!
[1] Torvalds, Linus (1991–08–25). Post. news:comp.os.minix.
Now that you’ve read this article and learned a thing or two (or ten!), let’s kick things up another notch!
Take your skills to a whole new level by joining us in person for the world’s first MAJOR Angular conference in over 2 years! Not only will You be hearing from some of the industry’s foremost experts in Angular (including the Angular team themselves!), but you’ll also get access to:
- Expert panels and Q&A sessions with the speakers
- A friendly Hallway Track where you can network with 1,500 of your fellow Angular developers, sponsors, and speakers alike.
- Hands-on workshops
- Games, prizes, live entertainment, and be able to engage with them and a party you’ll never forget
We’ll see you there this August 29th-Sept 2nd, 2022. Online-only tickets are available as well.
