[natasham25]

I've been coding for only a little over 2.5 years, and especially agree with the point on learning technologies that are significantly different from what you're comfortable with. I started by learning Java to understand programming fundamentals, which made Ruby pretty easy to learn.

I then learned Ruby on Rails, which I thought was a bunch of "magic" until I started learning iOS development. A lot of the Ruby on Rails architecture concepts were very useful in figuring out how to architect my iOS application. Knowing some Java was also super helpful, since Objective-C is a strongly typed language. Learning iOS helped me understand both Rails and iOS better, and why people didn't like Rails. I also feel a lot more comfortable picking up JavaScript frameworks, such as Backbone.js and Angular.js, which were harder for me to understand and pick up when I was just doing Rails.

Next up, I'll be learning a little bit of Android development, hoping to learn the different philosophies for mobile and how to better structure my layouts for different devices, and will probably learn a bunch of other things I can't even think of right now!

Working with amazing engineers who are open to mentoring me has also been priceless.