[beagle3]

Always strive to be the stupidest person in the room, despite being as smart as you can be - as long as the people you interact with don't make you feel bad (either because they are being a-holes, or because the difference in knowledge/experience/attitude is too big to be useful).

I've had the fortune to be in that position for a very long time, and I wouldn't do it any other way. Many people / teachers / mentors don't know the limits of their knowledge, regardless of how well meaning they are (and some aren't). Intellectually aim the highest you can afford to. Luck has a lot to do with it, but you can (and should) help luck.

That's true about your career, but also about other stuff like sports, music, or any other hobby.

[swaggyBoatswain]

I'm in the unfortunate situation where I'm not the dumbest person in the room. It sucks, having to learn things the hard way digging through stackoverflow questions / blog posts when you can ask a question right away / get an answer.

I learned everything about programming myself with just online materials available to everyone. When I started stagnating & had issues managing this work project, I set aside a budget to subcontract more a much more experienced developer. Then I started attending meetups, starting working on nonprofit projects so I can learn from others smarter than me.

The lesson here is that even if you aren't the stupidest person in the room, you can make yourself not the smartest either. You are just a few emails away, a small sized budget to pretty much getting any teacher / mentor you want, and communicating via slack. You can always crowdsource answers and advice on reddit/stackoverflow