Mike BifulcoThis is Tiny Improvements. I'm Mike by ko At the beginning of my career, I worked in Microsoft consulting organization. Every week, I would travel to a customer's office somewhere in north America to help them solve their technical problems. Apart from knowing a little JavaScript and CSS. I really had no business being there. I was fresh out of college and was faced with the challenge of becoming Microsoft expert on whatever it is I was doing in front of the CIO of a fortune 500 company.
Truly it's no joke. My first project was rebuilding dell.com from scratch. And I was the lead front end developer on that project because I was the only one in the room who had ever heard of something called jQuery. So I was the expert and they were paying for my expertise, which was a problem, really, because, well, I didn't have any. Nonetheless, anytime I had a problem, I couldn't solve on my own. I had the entirety of Microsoft's 100,000 plus employees at my disposal.
And trust me, I definitely use them. I would send out emails to internal mailing lists, getting advice from developers.\ The kind of people that they put in charge of building windows itself. The responses I got from these people were always helpful. And honestly, I learned a ton from that alone. Fast forward seven years.
And I was leaving Microsoft to work as technical director for gymnasium, the best damn online code school for creatives who were looking to dip their toes in the cool waters of web development. I would be using completely new tools in this job. I was going from.net and C sharp to Django and Python and from a massive network of people to a crack squad of just five people where I was going to be the only developer. I was an astronaut in a space station, cut off from the world I was used to.
I had no one to ask for help, and no one to bounce ideas off of. There was no one there to tell me if I was doing something stupid for the first time, I was really on my own. And it didn't take long for me to realize that developers have a unique advantage. Most of our peers are chronically online. The most knowledgeable people in the world are at your fingertips. As long as you know where to look. From forums to blog posts, to open source projects.
There's no shortage of places to find answers and to learn. For me, the key to truly benefiting from this wealth of information came from active participation and engagement with the developer community. It can do the same for you, but you're going to need to put yourself out there. Here's three things that you can do right now to get started. First joining the community. Whether it's a local meetup, a slack channel, a forum, a discord community.
Find a community that has people you can engage with. It's a great way to meet like-minded people to share your knowledge and to get advice from others. Give helpful feedback. When you're starting out, it can be intimidating to contribute, to open source projects or forums, but remember you don't have to be an expert to provide good feedback. By giving constructive criticism and suggestions, you can help others improve on their work and you'll learn a bunch in the process.
Finally, it's a good idea to keep an eye on trends. The tech industry moves really fast and it's important to stay up to date with the latest trends and technologies. This doesn't mean you have to use every new tool or framework that comes out. But having a general understanding of what's happening in the industry can help you make informed decisions about your own work. the Pavlovian power of constructive engagement.
Some of the best career advice I ever received is from my old pal Thomas: give and receive feedback in good faith. And you'll find yourself surrounded by people who are willing to help you grow. To me, this means being honest, respectful, and open to new ideas. It means that you're willing to admit when you're wrong and that you learn from your mistakes. You're generous with your time and knowledge and you should be willing to help others when they need it.
The inverse of this situation is all too common online. I'd wager to say that the vast majority of Reddit, Twitter and YouTube comments are people who are not engaging in good faith. They're there to tear down to be little, to make themselves feel better by making others feel worse. I'm sure you've seen and felt that, and it sucks, but it also means that when you come correct, you will really stand out.
It's a simple concept, but it's incredibly powerful by engaging with your community using constructive, meaningful, and thoughtful feedback. You'll build a powerful reputation for yourself. And I bet you'll find yourself learning along the way too. Before long. You'll be the one that people come to for advice.