[strikelaserclaw]

The trick is to learn during your working hours. I generally subtract one hour each day from the time i do actual work for my company and put that time towards learning. You'd be surprised at how in the long run i'm actually doing much better than my peers. I think this is because fundamentally, there is a large percentage of work that is just muscle memory. I'm speaking as a senior software engineer but 30% of my work is design (this actually involves the most research and thought, i put 100% of my focus here), 50% is just coding (after many years on the job, if i design it correctly, it should mostly be muscle memory and coding from the design) and 20% meetings. That 50% of coding, that is where you can slack off and use that time for self improvement.

[wonderwonder]

This really is it. Most knowledge / white collar / software developers (not all) have downtime during the day. We are posting on HN during work hours. Its within the realm of reality to pare off an hour 3x a week to learn. Now I generally spend that hour doom scrolling, but if I was dedicated I could absolutely study, thats on me.