The 10 Most Valuable Lessons I Learned As A Developer — 21 Years Of Programming Experience Distilled

I’ve developed software for over 21 years now, which is way over half of my lifetime, both professionally and as a hobby.

Here are some of the most valuable lessons I learned along the way.

1. You will never know everything

Especially at the beginning, I thought I could learn everything, and I thought this for a good portion of my developer career. But each time I learned something new, a whole new world of other concepts and techniques opened up.

It may seem tempting to try and learn it all, but it’s a never-ending endeavor. There will always be another library or framework and another cool thing you could also learn.

The only thing that happens is that you slowly start to burn out because you seem never to reach your goal. Better settle on what you know well and learn on-demand when you really need to learn something new. This keeps you sane and your motivation up.

You can also transfer this to any other domain. It’s possible to be effective without knowing everything. Use this to your advantage, learn along the way when necessary.

2. A good team doesn’t scale your capabilities…