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"I’m a junior in college studying math, physics, and CS. My goal is to become a world-class full-stack engineer who can build real-time systems, intelligent app
by billy99k 2y ago
"I’m a junior in college studying math, physics, and CS. My goal is to become a world-class full-stack engineer who can build real-time systems, intelligent apps, and scalable infrastructure from scratch."
The systems like you describe aren't built by 1 person and for good reason. They are built by teams.
"What are the best projects, open-source repos, books, systems to study, or skills to master to reach the top 1% of engineers in 1 year?"
While a good goal to have, I think you should be focusing on soft skills (talking to people, communicating, translating business needs to code/plans) in addition to your engineering skills.
All of the best engineers that I know have all of these skills and even a passable amount will put you ahead of most engineers.
- minimaxir 2y ago> The systems like you describe aren't built by 1 person and for good reason. They are built by teams. And to proactively address the obvious counterargument, the influencers on LinkedIn/X who are supersuccessful solo developers are a) survivorship bias and/or b) tend to overexaggerate.
- admingirl 1y agoYes, thank you for calling this out. It’s so easy to fall into the “solo genius” myth. I’m aiming for range, not virality. I'd rather build things that last than chase a highlight reel. Survivorship bias is real.
- admingirl 1y agoYou’re totally right, systems at scale aren’t solo efforts. I think my goal is to be the kind of engineer who can prototype ambitious ideas from scratch, understand all the layers, and be dangerous across the stack. Also really appreciate the reminder about soft skills. I'm starting to realize that being able to talk to people and translate messy needs into clean systems might be more rare than knowing five frameworks.