How to build a good career in tech[Storytime Saturdays]
It’s rare to come across Podcasts this good,
Beyond Coding is truly exceptional. Both the host and guests are always very high quality.
I’m attaching an episode where they talk about how to start a career in coding. They discuss quite a few topics and to me the real golden insights as they discuss how to build a fantastic long-term career for yourself. In this post, I will go over some of the most impactful takeaways from this talk.
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Find what makes you happy
This is something that immediately stood out to me because too many people get into Software Development without having an interest in any one area of the domain. This is terrible for your long-term career growth because the only reliable way to progress in your career as a developer is to consistently get better. Your life will be a lot easier if you pick a field you’re actually interested in. Or at least in a field that you don’t mind studying up on.
With the rise of AI, this is going to kick up even more. GPT-3, AlphaCode, and other Code generators are already to the point where they can automate code. Take a look at the following example, taken from the famous Github CoPilot. Given a function declaration, and a docstring, it can generate functions that match the functionality described. As you can see, the instructions can be quite elaborate.
To those of you interested, I cover these and events in AI in my series Machine Learning News. For those of you who want to learn about the major events in AI without any hype of exaggerations, I would suggest checking it out.
As you can see, if you don’t bother constantly building up, your career won’t be safe. Most major companies have had some kind of layoffs over the last few years. This teaches you one thing- no one is sacred. No job/company will be completely safe. Find an area, make sure you consistently learn, and you will be much better off. Both in securing your career and progressing it.
The fact that you found me is a good first step. It shows initiative and discipline on your part. But you will have to add consistency to that. Read into the areas you’re interested in, constantly sharpen your skills and you’ll be in a very good place.
To those of you who don’t have a field that you are interested in, keep reading. This email/post covers how to find your perfect niche later.
Pursue Mastery
Once you have a field you like, it’s time to start actively start learning in the field. Emphasis on actively. Pursue interesting ideas, network with others in the industry, and establish your street-cred in the field.
The example discussed in the podcast was the person who tries to do everything (full-stack specifically lmao). Instead of being very good at one thing, he skips around a bunch. Such a person is easily replacable. While having a breadth is good, don’t cultivate it at the expense of your depth in one area. This will help you be clearly valuable to a team. There is no point in being in the top 30 in 20 tasks, because there are tons of people above you everywhere. Become top 10 in a few, and don’t worry about the rest.
The job market is competitive. I don’t need to tell you that. You’re reading this because (and some of you are paying for premium content) you understand that it is hard to go at it alone. Mastery will help you avoid the competition.
Last week’s Saturday introduced the concept, “Competition is for Losers.” Let’s elaborate upon that, in the context of your career.
As you start to pursue mastery in the field you chose for yourself, you will learn more about your strengths and weaknesses. This will allow you to refine your learning, till you become an expert at certain areas. For example, my mathematical base and general interest in Computer Science have allowed me to work with a very diverse set of people. It is what contributes to my ability to read and cover AI research from a variety of domains effectively. There are others who are much more specialized to certain roles/kinds of ML. Depending on your strengths, you will be more suited to one thing or another.
Now to cover the important part of this post. How can you discover your areas of interest/your strengths? I will now give you a plan that will help you. Interestingly enough, this newsletter is a direct consequence of this approach.
Now for the most important part of this post.
Are you ready? Take some more notes.
No more stalling. I promise. …or maybe
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