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Ask HN: Need advice for someone who just got first job as a software engineer?

• informatimago 10y ago
  Well, you basically got it. Your knowledge and know-how is not enough. You've been selected frmo tests, because you've demonstrated eagerness to learn, and probably some sound basic capabilities. Build on them, by keeping learning. Yes, software industry is quite different from what you learned from the university. Normally, what the university taught you should help you learn and adapt to each circumstances you will encounter in the industry. You will have to learn specific tools and environment used in your current job. And basically it's an impossible task: there area more than 3,000 classes and 350,000 methods in Android, and you've got similar numbers in every other framework (iOS, MacOSX, MS-Windows, etc). What's more, every year there's a new version of those framework, with new features, deprecated features, sometimes whole new languages (eg. on iOS you switch from Objective-C to Swift), etc. So you need to learn two things: the fundamentals of a give framework, the general flow, on one hand, and how and where to find more information when you need it. This means the internet and google, (you've got it easy compared to your predecessors!). Then you need to keep learning also more general and abstract topic, and for this you have MOOCs (cf. http://coursera.org http://coursera.org http://udacity.com http://udacity.com https://ocw.mit.edu https://ocw.mit.edu and others). I would advise you to subscribe and study at the very least one course all the time (3 courses a year). Don't overdo it, it takes more time to study them and learn than to just pass the quizzes, so aim for at most one course at a time). And plan to do that your whole profesionnal life! You're in to be studing for 50 years! You also need to set time apart for real life, find a wife, build a family. The earlier the better! Good luck!
  • 0x54MUR41 10y ago
    Thank you so much for writing this valuable long advice. I'll remember what you advised. Anyway, I have questions: 1. Any example about general and abstract topic? Is it like Economy, Psychology? 2. "... plan to do that your whole profesionnal life! You're in to be studing for 50 years!". What does it mean?
• JSeymourATL 10y ago
  > I am eager to learn something new... Learning is a life-long process. As it relates to the industry, consider these questions. 1) What are the most important problems in your field? 2) Are you working on ONE of them? 3) Why not? On this subject, Richard Hamming offers excellent advice > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1zDuOPkMSw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1zDuOPkMSw
  • 0x54MUR41 10y ago
    > Learning is a life-long process. You're right. Anyway, thank you for giving suggestions. I'll watch it.
    • JSeymourATL 10y ago
      Here's an idea if you want it-- Security is a Big Problem that will not go away. The demand drivers are human fear & greed.