[onion2k]

At 1 year: Be kind. You don't know everything; accept that the devs around you might know things you don't. Focus on making things better. Try to add value.

At 5 years: Be kind. You don't know everything; accept that the devs around you might know things you don't. Focus on making things better. Try to add value.

At 10 years: Be kind. You don't know everything; accept that the devs around you might know things you don't. Focus on making things better. Try to add value.

I have 23 years experience now and the advice hasn't changed yet. Maybe it will next year.

[codegeek]

Well said. I would also add that if you start somewhere new, don't judge too quickly that everything is garbage there and you could fix it all. There are many layers of reasons/issues on why certain things have been done certain way and even though you may have better solutions, listen/learn first. Don't be a Know it all even if you are that good.

[kkirsche]

I would add context is key to some forms of code. Yea some things may be sloppy, but they also may have been added at 3 am during an incident. While hopefully these gets cleaned up, sometimes they get forgotten or de-prioritized. Even the best devs can write bad code, so always remember what could of been. It helps, I’ve found, in having empathy for other people’s code

[taf2]

Just one minor revision - replace dev with people. Learned lots of neat things that translated well into software even when they are not devs :)

[theoblank]

Good point. I’ll add that it’s important to remember you’re part of a larger team with a mission that is (most likely) not to just build software. From my experience, the most valuable software engineers are the ones who excel at both programming AND at interfacing with the other teams in the company (design, biz dev, etc).

[Kim_Bruning]

Very good advice. I agree!