One of the best pieces of advice I could give to someone who’s early in their Software Engineering career is to surround yourself with good engineers. Many of the things I’ve learned throughout my experience in the industry thus far have in some way shape or form been imparted to me by my teammates, tech leads, and managers throughout the years.
People say that you’re the sum of the five closest people to you and there’s a reason for this. I find this also holds when applied to the workforce. Where you work and who you work with have a massive impact on what you learn, how well you learn it, and how quickly.
Because of this, it’s essential you think critically about who you spend your time with. The first step in surrounding yourself with good engineers is understanding who they are. Wherever you are in your Software Engineering journey, pay attention to who people gravitate towards when they have a problem to be solved.
In my experience, these are the engineers who you want to stick close to. Oftentimes just being around these individuals will be enough to help expedite your learning, but you can go further. Jump at the opportunity to work with them on projects, oncall shifts, or to debug production issues — you’ll be surprised how much of their knowledge and expertise begins to rub off on you.
If you’re in the unfortunate position where there aren’t many good role models for engineering excellence start considering how to address this. First and foremost figure out where these engineers are — while it might be a tough pill to swallow, this might involve switching teams or even companies, but remember, it’s for a good cause. Continuously learning and up-levelling your skills is essential as a software engineer.
If it’s any comfort, every time I’ve decided to switch companies it’s been a hard decision for me to make. It always involved giving up what I knew and was comfortable with to explore something unknown following the belief that it would benefit myself and my career. So far looking back, changing companies has been the right decision every time.
Surround yourself with good engineers, they make a world of difference.
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Yes, 100%. One of the fastest ways to grow is to join a team of growth-minded individuals who are willing to help you grow.
I joined a startup in 2020 with 3-4 amazing engineers. They ran circles around some other engineers I’ve worked with. I learned so much from them. I felt dumb sometimes joining in to their conversations, joining oncall with them, but wow embracing the uncomfort and leaning in helped me grow massively. 🚀🚀👏🏼
Find where people are growing and join them.
Absolutely agree, it applies to everything. And they not always have to be your teammates, you can "surround" yourself online as well, being part of some open source community for example.