Probably not working a more different types/sizes of companies sooner, and on a related note working at one company too long. I think the best thing was probab

Probably not working a more different types/sizes of companies sooner, and on a related note working at one company too long. I think the best thing was probably going into a co-op program. I worked at so many places and got to do a lot of interesting things. Interns often get handed great misc things that full-timers are too busy doing big projects to do. My greatest mistake was going into consulting, it really did not suit me at all. I was also really bad about doing paperwork which is required to get paid, keep up on giving the government their due, etc. It paid a lot, but not learning as much in that time isn't worth it to me in retrospect. Discovering working at growing startups was very refreshing. Get to/have to do many things fast but still well if you have any sense of craftsmanship or empathy. At first wrote off, and eventually found that a larger company can still do decent engineering and offer a great work-life balance and challenge. Unless a startup keeps growing at a good pace, usually top-out/get bored and move on in about 2-3 years. When bored, side projects to try out new stuff either at work if you can, or at home helped. Even working at multiple companies being too focused on my favourite language/framework/stack at any given time wasn't that useful. Accidentally getting into other langs/frameworks was worthwhile and so should have been more open to them sooner. I'd still like to know how using OCaml/F# on a real project goes.