I recently had an opportunity to attend a Web Summit 2017 event, and was handed this card out of the blue. Which made me think, if a degree makes a developer, or countless hours on the StackOverflow and trying out new frameworks and stacks?

I worked on legacy software for almost 2 years and recently jumped into “real” programming. I was outdated big time. My team stays on top of the edge and strives to innovate at the slightest of opportunity. So, on the first weeks I was stormed by a plentitude of IT jargon that made little sense. Then, the googling started!

What is webpack? Why should we use TypeScript? Why Docker is so cool? Is React better than Angular? Will Kotlin eventually kill Java? “Who the hell is Kotlin and what Java did to that guy?”

I got lucky to be working with fantastic folks (being called FF from now on) who are willing to explain and discuss trends and best practices, instead of being full of themselves.

Every time you compile, a new JavaScript library is born…

Catching on so many things at the same time is impossible or at least exaggeratedly time-consuming. And IT people are not the ones known for liking the long (boring) way. Automation and shortcuts are our best friends (CTRL+C on a StackOverflow, I am looking at you -.-’)! How to take a shortcut to catching up on new trends? By constantly learning and having an eye for them.

For me its video courses. Each time I think about learning something new, the first thing is to find a good video course on Udemy about it.

Globalization is a thing, professional tutors are available worldwide within a click of a mouse, so why not use it to our advantage? I named Udemy, but there are tons of tutoring sites: Udemy, Udacity, Coursera, Codecademy, TED, EDX, Lynda.com, just to name few.

Not the right course? Refund it. Right one? Get a certification and move on to the next one!

I bet you are thinking “But certifications from those sites are not worth it”. Well, it depends. Of course it’s not the same, as taking a course at university but shows some things to your future (or current) employer will love to hear about you:

You are committed. You strive to learn more. You are autonomous.

It takes COMMITMENT to finish a 30 hours course in your free time.

You must really like what you are doing if you are crazy enough to sacrifice an episode of Mr Robot a day, to watch someone talk about React on the Internet.

In the end of the day, it’s what you do with your knowledge that is important! Try to make small projects that you can post free of charge on a cloud with AWS or Firebase and show off to your FF’s and your boss.

You can even bring your laptop to your next job interview and let your side projects speak for you. One “To Do App” is worth a thousand words!

GDG Devfest, an engaging community of google lovers!

Another way to stay updated and not to bore your FF to death with questions, is to take a part in tech communities. It’s almost certain you have some tech community or even a GDG (Google Developers Group) in your city. Those FF make tons of free events, talks and hackathons with latest google technology, like Android, Angular, Firebase, Google Cloud, etc. And going to those is a great opportunity to network and make new acquaintances.

Jump into meetup.com, enter your location, choose “technology” and start following some FF!

Thanks for reading,

G2G watch some guy talk about React on the Internet!