Assuming it's not a Windows shop, if you've never learned much about unix, work your way through this: http://www.compsci.hunter.cuny.edu/~sweiss/course_materia

Assuming it's not a Windows shop, if you've never learned much about unix, work your way through this: http://www.compsci.hunter.cuny.edu/~sweiss/course_materials/unix_lecture_notes/ http://www.compsci.hunter.cuny.edu/~sweiss/course_materials/.... Or study xv6 for four months. Or work through the coursera compilers class. Basically, picking a foundational area of CS and spending four months on it will pay off for the rest of your career. My career has been a constant process of letting go of being afraid of how the "low-level" and "wizardly" stuff works, and finding out it's not as scary as I feared.