I never thought about a career when I started coding 👀
Even now I don't (and I am a professional Software Engineer). If you ask me why I try new frameworks, languages, and trends, the answer is personal interest.
Little you know that skills stack up, but excitement comes first 🙌
Make it interesting
I remember the day I was introduced to coding.
"I want to learn how to code." My friend opened the browser console of google.com and said: "This is code, start here."
And then I went with PHP 😅
I was fidgeting at school, eager to come back home to my PC and start coding. Whereas everyone else was looking forward to play games, my favorite game was coding (I played plenty of games as well, don't worry 💁🏼♂️).
Nothing moves as fast as tech
I cannot phantom doing the same job for decades. Guess what? Programming is not "that kind of job".
I have been coding for years, and what I write today cannot be even compared to when I started. Well, at the current rate, it doesn't take years, but mere months for new features and patterns to emerge.
That's the biggest blessing of being a programmer: you can write code for years without being stuck repeating the same "job"
I always say that coding is a creative art, no different from writing, drawing, music. These professions don't get boring because there is always more to explore 🪄
Eventually it gets profitable
What feels like play to you, but looks like work to others?
What feels like play to you, but looks like work to others?
If the answer is coding, you choose the right era to be born 🤝
The best way to justify playing all day is to make it a profession. If the market agrees with you as well that's a great place to be.
Technology won't stop. That's one certainty that you can safely accept. If code is also what you enjoy doing, be reassured that someone out there is willing to pay you for it.
Just to be sure: become future-proof
No experience is wasted, but we can agree that some are more valuable on the market.
If you are looking to make your skills more appealing for future employers, here are my predictions (I am betting on these myself):
- Web development: The web is quickly introducing features that expand its scope to all platforms. Plus it's easy to set up, debug, and share. This trend is here to stay.
- Functional programming: Just learning the paradigm will elevate you above the rest. You may not use Haskell at your next job, but it's all about the principles. It's spreading.
- Local-first: I see local-first as inevitable. The promise is too good to be overlooked. It's only a matter of time and innovation. You want to be prepared.
Looking for something more actionable and specific? Here we go:
- Effect: It's not a trend. Don't sleep on it.
- TanStack Start: You will hear a lot more soon about this framework. It packs awesome features in a simple configuration.
These two are enough to gift you a couple of months of fun before the beginning of the next year 👆
Effect 3.10 and NextJs 15 are out. I have been hard at work to upgrade everything to the latest versions.
Just moved to @nextjs 15 stable and @EffectTS_ 3.10 Schema inside effect, new Effect Service API, async nextjs params Less lines of code 🤝
In my local-first journey lately I have been exploring Hybrid Logical Clocks (HLC). I published a snippet implementation in TypeScript (and Effect).
Expect more local-first practice soon.
See you next 👋