Ask HN: As a software developer, what do I focus on next?

[Woberto]

I'm a young software dev who moved into SW from a different engineering background, so I don't have much formal CS experience. However, I really like the field and have enjoyed some CS-ish online courses. Since I don't feel like I'm learning a lot at work, I've taken it upon myself to bolster my software-related education.

The thing is, it's all been a bit scattered - some computer architecture, algorithms and data structures, playing around with new languages. As fun as it's been, I'm starting to feel like I could be making better use of my time and interest to build towards something, especially since it's all on my own time. So that's where my question stems from - what do I build towards now? - I use Kotlin and Python at work - is it worth it becoming more deeply familiar with these languages? - Or should I focus on software architecture and design patterns, concepts that transcend computer languages to some degree? - I could afford to learn more about algorithms and data structures too, is there a good way to do this that isn't just memorizing, but also implementing them? - Or should I try to learn new technologies that could maybe have uses at work now or later, like containers or databases?

I think related to this and also really important is a question about how to best go about these things. For example, do I read books (there's plenty of suggested reading that comes up oh HN)? How can I best make use of new knowledge - should I focus on things I can apply easily? Do I jump into open source software? Or should I find a job where the environment is better for teaching young devs? Though I'd probably have to learn more to prepare for an interview...so maybe there's other stuff to focus on first.

If anybody has any advice or suggestions it would be greatly appreciated.

[gardenfelder]

It seems to me...

There may be at least two forks in the road - take one of them.

Consider this: you can continue to improve a) your skills and knowledge and b) software engineering itself.

Or, you can use what you know and are learning to help fix the planet, by which I mean: look around: political polarization prevents finding solutions to massive, urgent, and wicked problems - problems made wicked because society has forgotten how to collaborate. Do we need WWIII to bring us together? Do we need complete collapse of some major region due to climate change to bring us together? Or, can we, as software engineers, scientists, and human beings use our massive and growing skills and knowledge to help society sort things out?

Couple of forks in the road. Pick one.

[readonthegoapp]

i was never a very good programmer, but i did have a decent understanding of some of the at-the-time favored design patterns (singletons, factories, facades, etc.) and how they were implemented in Java (potentially called 'idioms' -- that is, how to construct a design pattern in a specific language).

and i feel like you could not really understand one without the other.

i also feel it's a good idea to get really good at at least one language and its toolchain/ecosystem as opposed to trying to learn a little bit of every language/ecosystem. b/c being half-assed at everything is just not very useful -- being really good at one language can boost your productivity 10 or 100x from where you are as a beginner.

so part of that would be to continue increasing your expertise in whatever language(s) you happen to be using - b/c it's easy to get lazy - and you'll pay the price in productivity - if you care about that kind of thing, and presumably you do.

i suspect doing open source stuff is great for learning, and great for future job prospects, but no practical experience there. i've often built side projects and they've helped me land gigs, especially if i didn't come off as an entrepreneur-type.

one piece of advice i heard from an unrelated field (sort of) -- is to pick a problem that interests you, then try to solve it.