[electrichead]

As a programmer: trying to learn to program in a functional programming language after years of writing imperative code changed the way I wrote code and the way I thought about problems. As a developer: working at startups helped me learn a broad range of things around my code: how to test, deploy, harden, etc. You are also able to see the entire product you are helping to build rather than at a larger organization where you might be assigned particular tasks.