[codingdave]

This is where the dreaded question comes in: Where do you want to be in 5 years? Your development plan will be different if you want to be one of the contractors implementing projects vs. a tech lead in an enterprise shop vs. a coder at a FAANG or startup. Heck, being good at writing up specs for other people to implement is actually a useful skill in some roles.

So first, define your end goal. Then work backwards - if you want to be at point Y in 5 years, you need to be at point X in 4 years, W in 3 years, V in 2 years, and U next year... so how do you make that first move?

[markus_zhang]

From what I see "being good at writing up specs for other people to implement" could be one of the most important skills out there, but require a huge amount of experience in both business and coding.