How to deepen your software engineering skills

A twenty-something CS major working in consulting asked "How should I deepen my software engineering skills? Should I get a masters? Or join a startup?" My thoughts are: - I encourage you to do your software training on the side . . .while you keep getting paid - You can do that by doing classes remotely, either for a degree or just on your own - In my experience that many of the best software engineers are self-taught - That's because technology is always changing, so your experience teaching yourself allows you to keep current - You can also contribute to a startup or an open source project on the side - double check your employment agreement to make sure you stay compliant - Lastly, build things on your own that force you to learn more CS tools - Building things on your own eliminates any conflicts with your current employer - Pick projects that you can finish - start small so you get to a v1.0 and then add more capability or start a new project - pick projects that force you to learn technology that interests you, ie, AI, or mobile apps, or data science - It also forces you to learn new tools and technologies - Best of all, you build a "portfolio" of your own work that will show future employers what you can really do - when you build things as a team, its hard to explain what you did I'm happy to talk about this sometime. - Reid

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