Understand what success looks like for you in 5-10 years. Not planning is planning for failure. Is it being a millionaire employee at big tech? Is it working a

Understand what success looks like for you in 5-10 years. Not planning is planning for failure. Is it being a millionaire employee at big tech? Is it working a little from the beach and starting a family? Is it not having a boss and running your own business? This is one of the few fields where you can actually shape your life and leverage the need for developers to your advantage. Don't waste your opportunity and try to work Try to work towards the best version possible of your future. If you build something to scratch your itch, try to polish it and market it a bit online, so that you can use it as something to show off in an interview or as the start of a new side business - or even just as social media post to build an audience for a future business. If you're working as an employee, try to grow your career and think how projects and roles would look like on a CV, no matter whether you're working on your career or not. Maybe one day you'll be able to use that line on the CV, that side project or that side business. I'm not saying you should disperse your energies too much (for example: I wouldn't recommend going crazy on OSS contributions, I did that and it didn't bring me nowhere), but if you're doing something that could be useful, do that extra 5% and create value for your future self. Best of luck