[hannele]

Find excuses to learn things outside your comfort zone, at your work or through pet projects.

The pet project can be easy, as long as you have the time and motivation - pick a tech and make a small hacky thing. (I must admit to being an unrepentant procrastinator so this is advice I have rarely followed myself.)

The work route can also be rewarding though, given the appropriate work culture. I haven't found it too hard to take the time to learn about a thing that is blocking my team, and in my case I've gradually built up my knowledge of infrastructure and deployment practices where previously I'd mainly only written code.

When you run into a bug, make sure you dive down into _why_ it broke in the first place, as well as what. This will help you avoid [cargo-culting][1] and can also give you some [pretty fun stories][2].

  [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult_programming
  [2]: https://medium.engineering/the-curious-case-of-disappearing-polish-s-fa398313d4df