Detailed Notes
Are you feeling stuck in your career as a developer? You’re not alone. In this episode of Building Better Developers with AI, Rob Broadhead and Michael Meloche revisit the topic of breaking through career plateaus with fresh insights and AI-driven strategies.
We discuss: * How to recognize career stagnation before it derails your growth * Why developer career growth is about more than just coding * Practical strategies like stretch projects, side hustles, and mentorship * How AI is shaping the future of developer roles * A weekly challenge to help you take control of your growth today
👉 Episode Challenge: Identify one area where your growth has stalled and take one intentional step forward this week.
🔗 Subscribe to Building Better Developers for more insights on technology, growth, and thriving as a modern developer.
*Follow-us on:*
* [email protected] * https://develpreneur.com/ * https://www.youtube.com/@develpreneur * https://facebook.com/Develpreneur * https://x.com/develpreneur * https://www.linkedin.com/company/develpreneur/
00:00 Preshow & Setup 02:12 Episode Start: Introduction & Overview 04:10 Podcast & Host Introductions 06:30 Good Thing / Bad Thing 08:45 Why Developer Career Growth Matters 12:20 Recognizing Career Growth Roadblocks 15:15 Growth Beyond Coding 18:30 Michael’s Story: Breaking Out of Stagnation 22:00 Strategies to Accelerate Developer Career Growth 26:10 The Role of AI in Career Development 29:20 Side Hustles, Mentorship & Teaching 31:30 Episode Challenge & Wrap-Up
Transcript Text
[Music] All right. So, let me go back to Oh, we just hit record and we are going to find this episode title podcast ideas. Here we go. Breaking through career plateaus tips to accelerate your growth as a developer. Wow, this will be a fun one. Um, let's see. >> We must have done these close to GLS last year. >> Oh, I don't know when we did this. I would have to look at how far back this was. >> Oh, three seasons might have been >> because we had I mean we've done a lot of that kind of stuff. I think I trying to remember what came out of GLS last year. Episode title, Breaking the Plateau. Level up your dev career like it's the final boss. [Laughter] >> All right. It's going to be fun. Oh, no. No, you don't get to share. Thanks for mentioning that because I wasn't about to. There's you. Let's do this one. We go. Cool. >> And let's do this. Let's do this. And we're going to do our little countdown. What was the original one? That's what it was. We're going to go th Oh, no. Ola. We are back again. We are continuing our season where we are doing a prior season doing all of our uh topics that had to do with becoming a better developer basically and now we're doing it with AI. We're taking those topics and we are putting them through AI. We're getting its results, its recommendations, and we're basically telling it what we think about it. We're adding on to uh that conversation just like we've added a new guest to talk about that subject. So far, it's been working really well. We'll see how it goes today. Uh this time, we're going to talk about breaking through career plateaus, tips to accelerate your growth as a developer. But before we do that, this is the developer podcast. Building better developers is also our name. I am one of the founders. My name is Rob Broadhead. I'm a founder of developer, but also the founder of RB Consulting, where we help you do technology better. Let's face it, technology is a big ugly must out there. If you go to developer.com, you're going to see all these different topics, all these different things that have evolved over the years. uh whether it's AI, whether it's the latest in you know streaming technology, whether it's the latest in UIs, all of that stuff. There's a lot of technology out there. We spent a lot of time with it. We've also spent a lot of time in businesses across a wide range of of areas and lines of business. We sit down with you, help you un like really define your business. Make sure first that you get that stuff out of your head, get it on, you know, paper or digitally. And then we can talk through your processes, your procedures, and through simplification, integration, automation, and even innovation, we can help you craft a plan, special recipe. We're going to call it a road technology roadmap that comes out of this technology assessment that helps you get a good plan for today but also for tomorrow and growing forward to match the needs of your business. Good thing and bad thing. Oh boy, this is like I got to think of what has been going on lately because it has been it has been a lot of stuff. Um very much in this thing. So, good thing is is that I have been uh as I've been shifting gears a little bit at the RB consulting world and and doing a little more working on my business. Um there are a lot of those things that I enjoy and that suck me in. Even some of aspects of networking. I'm an introvert. I'm not normally I'm not into the whole networking thing. Forget that. But there are pieces of it I do like. there is like the the problem solver in me, the you know get to know the deep details of a problem, that kind of stuff. It's really fun. I've been doing a lot of that and so I've been able to do some things that are different as we've talked about in the past. Helps me out because now I'm doing a little bit of different work. Uh the downside is that is sucking up a lot of my time. And so like every day I will get stuck into something where I'm like, "Oh, I got all these meetings that I've lined up that I really need to do, but also I've got this other work that I need to do. So, I'm actually working on my business when at times I like I really need some time to work in my business. So, I'm getting into that good thing, bad thing. Uh, the good thing though right now is that Michael is going to introduce himself and allow me to take a breath. Hey everyone, my name is Michael Malash. I'm one of the co-founders of Building Better Developers, also known as Developer. I'm also the owner of Envision QA. We help startups and growing businesses build software that works the way it's supposed to from day one. You probably heard stories of software projects going over budget, launching late, or breaking once the user gets their hands on it. That's where we come in. At Envision QA, we make sure that your project is tested, stable, and ready for the customers. We handle the behind-the-scenes quality checks, and support development so you can launch faster, avoid costly mistakes, and protect your reputation. In short, we help you build software that doesn't break your business. Learn more at envisionqa.com. Good thing, bad thing. Uh, let's see. Good thing, bad thing. Uh, well, I'll go with good thing this time because really I talked about the bad thing and thankfully so far nothing else bad has happened since that. Um, good thing we finally got some rain yesterday. Uh, the grass was looking dead, looking dry. Uh, got just enough rain, not for the grass to grow, but for it to be a little bit greener. So, that was very cool. And then I got a little notification that in a couple months Pokemon Legends comes out. So I'm very stoked for that. I am stoked to go through this conversation today because it started out with okay. It recommended a different topic. So it recommended breaking the plateau. Level up your dev career like it's the final boss. Opening hook. You've been coding for years. You're good at your job, but lately it feels like you're stuck on the same level. Today we're talking cheat codes for your career and no, not the kind that gets you banned from the server. Episode flow, first part, setting the stage. The comfortable but stuck feeling. Projects are fine, paychecks fine, but growth growth feels flat. Why plateaus happen? Routine work, lack of challenge, or not marketing yourself internally. Analogy. Your career's XP bar is filling, but the level up screen never pops. Now, there's a lot of gamer stuff there that if you don't understand that, that's okay. We're going to question you a little bit because most developers have some sort of gaming knowledge, but that is a different topic. Um, this is this is part of why the developer site of all of this stuff that we do exists is because we are knowledge workers. We if we're going to be better developers, we have to be lifetime learners. We also need to be challenged ourselves on a regular basis to grow because if you're not growing, you're dying. Especially with technology because technology is just marching, marching, marching, marching and so you can be able to keep up with that. You need to set a pace that you know you don't have to know everything but if you can be regularly growing and learning new things that are available, it's going to help you out quite a bit. And this is this comfortable but stuck. I was literally talking with somebody about this not too long ago that did a complete career change and was at a company that they left a good job. Part of it was because of this is there's a certain point where um you're going to look at it, you're like, "Okay, I'm doing the same thing I did last year or you know, two years ago or six months ago even sometimes to say I'm not really growing." Now, it doesn't mean that you have to like always be doing the latest whisbang fancy stuff and be on the bleeding edge, but you do need to be growing. And that it's not necessarily in technology. So, it may be that you're maybe you're not coding as much as you were before, but maybe now you're doing more design work or maybe you're doing some mentoring or leadership or things like that. There needs to be a growth path for wherever it is that you're at, whether it's your company or whether you know, whoever your employer is or whether you're doing it yourself through your side hustles and the things that you do outside of work. Now, if you're doing it outside of work, then that may be enough. you may be able to like just continue moving forward, which is maybe the best of all worlds is because now you have a safe, you know, safe job, a steady paycheck and all that goodness and you're able to grow as well. The problem is that takes time and if you're spending 40 to 50 or 60 or 70 or 80 hours of work, you know, on your regular job and you're trying to spend even 10 or 15 hours extra on your other job and you have, I don't know, this thing called a family, whatever the heck that is. I heard those exist somewhere. um stuff's going to fall apart. It is not going to work well. Just trust me on that. You need to be able to find that balance. And this goes back to some of the things we've talked to, some of the things we've talked about in the past. It's like you've got to change gears sometimes. You're going to end up burning out or getting stuck in a rut. You're just not going to be as good. So, you need to be looking for ways to steadily grow. If your company, if your employer doesn't provide it, then look for some ways to do so. And if it's something that's too much of a strain, then maybe it's time to start looking for a job that will allow you to grow. Thoughts on that? >> Yeah, you kind of set the stage really well for this one. Um, interestingly enough though, you know, the comfortable feeling stuck. One of the things you have to be careful about if you are feeling comfortable in your job but not going anywhere, you may want to do a little bit of self-reflection first. make sure that you are doing basically are you doing the bare minimum to make to do the job or are you really trying to challenge yourself with the job because I've been in some positions where um they gave me tasks and I got bored. I would get my work done and I would have hours and I have to sit there at my desk um before the work from home situation helps. But you run into situations where you might feel comfortable in the job, you know, is it going anywhere? But are you being challenged? And there was one company I worked for where the work was okay, but very quickly it got boring and there I wasn't moving up. I wasn't going anywhere. Uh so I actually started looking for problems to solve within the company. So I instead of going external I went internal and I was like well how can I grow with myself within the company. So I actually looked for things within this company that were outside of my wheelhouse. I was a um front end client server application developer. So I saw these new signature tablets were coming out. This was way before they're like everywhere. And I was like hey what's this? Uh company had one sitting in a storage room. I picked it up and I started playing around with it. And next thing you know, I wrote a little module app for our check-in software. And then a couple months later, um, the same type of software that they were, it was patient engagement, and it was like, hm, we've got these webcams laying around over here. C, can I make that work? So, I went outside of my wheelhouse and figured out how to do things. Now, end of the day, that job went nowhere. I I was I I finally reached a point where I I could not go anywhere within this company. I hit a ceiling. And the moment I looked outside that company, I found a job with a lot more pay, a lot more challenge, and a lot more fun within weeks. It did not take long. So, step outside of your wheelhouse. I would say start internally. If you have like good relationships with the company you're with, start there. Try to see if you can grow. If you start by asking yourself, are you doing enough or are you doing the bare minimum? If you're doing the bare minimum because you're not challenged, see if you can challenge yourself within the company and that might help you move up within the company and get out of your wheelhouse. But like I said, if you reach that point where you aren't, it's time to look elsewhere. There's a lot of good points there. I'm going to move forward though instead of diving back, getting lost on a couple of those rabbit trails. So, let's move on to the next one. So recognizing the plateau symptoms haven't learned a new framework, tool or pattern in six plus months. No increase in responsibilities or ownership. You can do most tasks on autopilot. Why this is dangerous? Industry moves fast and coasting is really falling behind slowly. I think this is um this is actually my first job that I worked myself out of a job is I think this is a natural kind of uh progression is that we had something and we I helped them build a solution uh we we had the solution we were using it and then started using the next phase of growth basically I had I was like is now refining that solution simplifying it automating it doing the things that makes it easier to do and require less resources or at least human resources and very quickly over a period of you know probably six months or so we had something that took you initially when I started it took like 30 something days to get it done and we got it down to like I think under three days is basically where I think we got less but it seems like three days was the number that we got to so that's a huge change but it also meant when you know it was when it was 30 days it was a full-time developer role when it's three days that means basically because you're doing about one of these a month. It had to do with release management. You had about one a month. Well, 30 days fills up your month really well. Three days does not. So, very quickly it became all right, I've got 27 days to lay around and do nothing. I don't want to do that and moving on. So, I think that's very well a good example like your plateau. It's like you may feel that you're okay. So you've plateaued. But part of it is like if you've ever worked, you know, entry level like you know restaurant or something like that, they'll always say a man if you say I don't have anything to do. Manager will always be like well grab a broom, go you know wipe a table, clean a floor. We can always in a similar sense we can always do some automation do some code review see if you like documentation code review maybe build a bit of some you do a little unit test or some testing around that and then finding ways to do it better performance tuning and automation in particular to like like make this not just a good solution but like maybe an almost perfect solution. Work on that for a while. Now, if you get that, if you've gone through that, now you've basically exhausted your, you know, what you can do with in that area or with that application and then all right, maybe you need to move on. But there is definitely some things you can do um to help you even if you're if you're starting to see these little red flags of like, oo, I feel like I'm plateauing. Those are a couple things you can do to maybe get you off of that plateau and and growing again at least for a little bit. What are some of the things you've run into and and how you've tackled them like that? Yes, I this is actually kind of an interesting one for me right now given that we are in kind of an AI revolution where software development in and of itself is changing almost daily uh right now and it really I I really struggle when I work with developers who tell me that oh I don't I won't use AI I won't learn it I don't want to touch this and they're like what I'm working on is going to be around forever and so they're not learning those new frameworks, they're not learning those new tools, and they while they are perfecting their skills at what they have, they're going to run into a situation where they're going to be many uh fish in a very small pond of jobs. Um, a great example of this was there was so many developers that went and learned uh like Cobalt and Forran for the Y2K panic and then the moment that was done uh we had the '90s bubble where all these people got laid off. It's like oh hey uh we don't need you anymore. We need real developers and new real skills. So um not putting shade on for train cobalt because that uh language has evolved. Um but that's just one example. Or if you're like a DevOps or a network engineer, working with old technologies is great, but if you don't stay up to date on what's coming out and what's new, eventually you're going to be working with tools that you're not going to know what to do with and you're going to be out of a job. And that's a that is I guess another area that we haven't really talked about is sometimes it's just take the same thing and use a new tool. Uh one of the things I ran into this is now a couple years ago I've been doing a lot of Python and I had been working with it in uh Visual Studio Code and there was a project that made good extent that was some of the doing the same sort of thing but I used PyCharm. I was like all right I'm going to go do this or I I also did a similar thing. I know you hate you know Intelligj but I'd used Eclipse. I way way back I used my Eclipse and I used Eclipse and I used springs STS. So I'd done a lot of that and I finally was like you know what I'm going to go do intelligj I'm going to use their stuff because I'd used some of their other tools. So just learning those tools can be u you know in itself can be a big change. Uh back in the day there was a point where I was building some APIs and I used this tool called Postman that that was sort of new at the time and it's turned out to be something that I use all the time. I sometimes I'll change up my uh my database browser tools and things like that. Those are helpful because it also will help you get better. You're going to pick the ones that work most like you and be able to, you know, to to be the most productive version of yourself. Uh breaking through acceleration strategies. So stretch projects, volunteer for complex or cross team challenges, skills stack expansion, add complimentary skills, UX basics, DevOps tools, leadership, mentorship 2.0, 0 not just finding a mentor but mentoring others to solidify leadership skills visibility boost speak at internal brown bags contribute to open source or write about your learnings those wow those are all like excellent excellent ideas we sort of talked about the first one about uh like volunteering or finding your own project somewhere else internally um or anything like sometimes you'll hear about like we're getting a research group together to think about doing this with a project or or do this direction with our company. Those are great. Um, volunteer in a um a charitable sense, whether it's working for some local charity or whether it's uh mentorship like you can work at your maybe there's like a local college you can work with. I combine that a lot with brown bag sessions and things like that. Find excuses whether it's a brown bag session at work or maybe there's a meetup that you can go present at. That stuff is huge. If you go back to our mentor and mastermind stuff that we've done over the years, I don't know how far back you got to go now. It's like it's a couple years old, but you can go back out on the YouTube site and you can find a lot of our old meetings and uh some of the discussions we had there and a lot of that did for quite a while talk about things like get out there, you know, whether it's you could write a book, you can have a podcast, you can now I mean like you can do a YouTube channel. Uh, but the things where you're out there presenting, talking about your ideas, even it's just a simple blog are in themselves a great way for you to to really solidify your knowledge. And then hopefully you get feedback. [email protected]. Hopefully you get feedback and you're going to be able to, you know, refine that knowledge and you're going to be able to grow that knowledge because you're going to have conversations with people and talk to them about what you know and they're going to tell you what they know and that's going to help you grow quite a bit. Uh before we I pass this you I we've not talked enough about complimentary skills in a long long time. Um but that is something that it is all over the software development the developer book talk about those about how you can take the things you're doing and sort of shift into a slightly different area. CI/CD and and build management is great because whatever app you're building, you can find a way to deploy it and work on some way to uh to automate that process whether it's through some you know pipelines whether it's through ant whether it's through batch and shell scripts there's or write your own installer or things like that those help you stretch your skills and also they are you know the bonus are based on something that you you it's helpful to the project that you're building because now you've built a tool to help those that are deploying your tool, your application. Thoughts on that? >> So, I'm going to stick with kind of the mentorship and the visibility boost because one of the biggest things that I found personally with my growth expansion over the years was I left college and I was like, I'm never going back to an education institution again. I am done. five years of college, you know, shifting majors. I'm just done with teaching, done with teachers, done with everything. Six months later, I had to eat those words. I end up getting a job at a vocational school, working with people that did not have that formal education, and it was a lot of fun. You you learn so much more by teaching others and seeing their point of view in a way that you typically wouldn't look at a problem. the more people that you can be exposed to for teaching, the more demographics, the more uh you know just different um languages or different you know whatever they know. Uh you can kind of absorb that as you're teaching them. It it really uh helps the more to walk in someone's shoes and then help them understand what it is that you're teaching is a viable resource and it helps you. It really can help you for your communication skills and it can also help you with your troubleshooting and debugging because helping someone debug something is you learn so much from that. It's like oh yeah I forgot about this or oh I don't I didn't know that. So you can always try to learn something new and the visibility boost. Um, yes, speaking at internal uh brown bag events, things like that. You know, it it's actually funny that stretch project and the visibility boost. To me, I think of hackathons. I think go out to a hackathon, go out to like, heck, go out to like a hobby. So, like if you're into video games, go out to like E3 or go to a local Gamecom. Uh, go out and talk to people. Go out and network. And again try to find people with similar skills, similar mindsets and then you can work together to maybe build a project or hey you might come up with the next uh you know Microsoft or Apple. >> I think those are Yeah, I think as we wrap this one up I you guys all probably know if you listen to us at all that I love side hustles as a way to grow your skills. I love like that's that's now granted that's exactly how I learned best. I learned by doing. So from the very start when I was learning new languages, one of the things I would do is I would look at a language and say what is something this is supposed to do really well and I would go build that app with that language and it forced me to learn the language and usually it was like sort of learn it and then I'd go build another app and I would you know eventually I could say I sort of had mastered the language because now I've built a couple of things with that and I understand some of its ins and outs and then as as you grow then you're going learn more ins and outs. As Michael said, if you start debugging stuff, that's I think the part best part about building that little side hustle project is you're going to have bugs. You're going to have situations and I have so many of these when I've screamed and cussed and done all kinds of stuff where it's like this worked and then you do something and now nothing works and you got to go debug it and figure all that stuff out. And sometimes it takes a while. Sometimes it takes quite a bit and you learn that things get cached or things didn't get loaded right or things don't have the right permissions or something moved its, you know, something is case sensitive or whatever all the different things are that can cause to not work. You start building up this list of like, okay, here's all the things I got to check. It makes you better. And so I I cannot say enough about like find yourself a little side project. Like Michael said, you can do it internally. you can go find something that's like find some work to do within your business where maybe there's something somebody's complaining about a little problem that you can solve or go out and scratch your own itch. Uh or if there's just something that you just are like, "Hey, it would be cool if I had this tool." Go build it because it's going to help you grow and get you off that plateau. That being said, it is time to wrap this one up. I've already mentioned, but I'm going to mention again, [email protected]. Shoot us an email if you have any questions, comments, suggestions, recommendations, all of that goodness. We are getting towards the end of this. Uh we got a few more episodes on this season. Not sure exactly where we're going with the next one because hey, that's who we are. Although, this has worked really well. Maybe we'll just do like evergreen content and come back and do AI uh on some of these past topics because they are topics that no matter where you are in your career, you're going to bump into them over and over again because we have done so over and over again. You can also reach out to us on developer.com. There is feedback forms. You can leave a feedback a comment on any of the articles that are out there. You can go out to YouTube. There's a developer channel. Check out stuff there. Uh on X, we are developer. Anywhere that you see podcast or listen to podcast, you can download podcasts. You can leave us a review and we will get back to you that way as well. We as well, we appreciate your time. We appreciate all that you've done for us and we just want to do for you as well. As always, go out there and have yourself a great day, a great week, and we will talk to you next time. Now, this time we didn't do all of our bonus material before we even started. So, I will let you dive into where do you want to go with the in the bonus world here? Oh, I guess with this one, one of the things I would say, you know, the last one we kind of talked about avoiding social media, things like that, but with this one, I would almost engage you to go out and look for like LinkedIn groups that kind of fit within your business or your particular field. Look for networking events. Look for things that will help get you out of your box and help you grow. Um, again, could be gaming, could be things like that, but look for like Java 1 or Spring Source or Microsoft's Big Expo that they do every year. Those are great learning opportunities and great networking opportunities. Just make sure that if you go to them, make sure you go to the networking events and talk to people. Don't just go to the classes and then go back to your hotel room because you're not going to get as much out of those as you would uh with the interaction that they do. If you don't know anyone, one of the best trade secrets is if the conference has a trade show, go down and talk to all the vendors, ask them if they have a card and then ask them if they have any vendor parties that they are doing in between the event. That are great networking opportunities. Um, every so often, like if there's an IBM booth, I talk to them. They have some event. I meet some IBM people. I learn about some new stuff coming out from IBM. So, talk to people. You never know who or where your next networking opportunity will come from. >> Or you can be like me and don't talk to anybody. Do the best job you can to avoid human beings where possible. Uh, which does not work as well. You really doesn't help your networking. Trust me. Um, I do want to talk about one of the things that it mentioned that we did not get to. Um, is regular career audits. And they say like check every six months where you stand on SC. >> You hit your mic >> in satisfaction >> or you cut out. >> Let me do this while we're here. Let me just plug in and see because I did not have a mic. So, I'm not sure why it changed. But now we're going to do this little sucker here. And we're going to change this. Uh, >> that's better. I had a whole bunch of feedback while you were removing it. >> Okay. Is that better? >> Yeah. There you go. >> Good, good, good, good, good. All right. Uh, change this. Move this because it's a little bit too much in my face and it's a little bit annoying. All right. Test, test, test. Is that good? Loud enough. All right. Sometimes you have technology issues like that. Um, check in on your skills every six months. I think this is something that you should be doing uh just like we tech owner business and everything else is talk about or look at what are you doing where do you want to go this is your career roadmap that we've talked about many many times I would say um it's useful I think it's better to actually do it once a quarter sit there at the beginning of the year put together your road map for the year what do I want to get done in first quarter second quarter third quarter fourth quarter and then at the end of each is like am I making that progress and if not and you know what to focus on. Uh and there should be progress in each of those. So like one year I did um the first quarter I was going to learn swift programming. I was going to spend some time and learn Swift programming. So I I had that I was going to spend 15 minutes a day doing that. Uh and then the second quarter I was going to be build a Swift app. Uh build a an iPhone or I watch Apple Watch app uh because I'd never done one. And then the third quarter was um build a build a app and then have it integrate with something. I can't remember what it was that went on with that, but it's like a nice progression of skills. It's something that you can check off that you can either say yes, I've done it or no, I haven't. Especially if you've got a milestone like a test or a certification or if you've got some sort of an application or something like that that needs to be in a certain state, obviously you can use that. I think those career audits are huge is to say, am I am I doing what I want to do? Am I happy? Am I growing? And if not, what changes do I need to make? Because sometimes you're going to have a your career road map's going to be like, I want to learn Cobalt. And then you're going to realize that nobody cares about cobalt after you're six months into it. And you're like, so punt, say, you know what, now I don't want to learn cobalt. I want to go learn something else. Um, last little bonus thing is it does say challenge listeners to pick one stretch action this week. And I just want to throw that out there. Uh, not for challenges, but like spend a couple minutes after this wraps up and just think about what is something you could do that would be 5, 10, 15 minutes and just like get you to grow even just a little bit. Uh, it may be thinking about that side hustle application. It may be like brushing off that old side hustle application. It may be uh automating something that you knew you should have automated months ago. Those kinds of tasks. It's like just give yourself in this self self something this week that is going to help you grow. And then rinse and repeat every week moving forward. And then next thing you know, you're going to be in a lot different place than you are uh today. That's what we did years ago when I did the first blog for developer. And now we've got thousands over a thousand that are out there. Granted, a lot of our podcast episodes and stuff like that, but we've got all this stuff that over time it does add up and the next thing you know, you're, you know, you've got piles and piles of stuff and your your biggest challenge is navigating through all of the content that you've produced. As always, appreciate your time. I appreciate you guys being here and all that you've done for us. And so, we just want to do for you as well. Go out there, have yourself a great day. And we are not done with the season. We're still doing more with AI. We will be back next time after I figure out how to hit the stop button. [Music]
Transcript Segments
[Music]
All right. So, let me go back to Oh, we
just hit record and we are going to find
this episode
title podcast ideas. Here we go.
Breaking through career plateaus tips to
accelerate your growth as a developer.
Wow, this will be a fun one. Um, let's
see.
>> We must have done these close to GLS
last year.
>> Oh, I don't know when we did this.
I would have to look at how far back
this was.
>> Oh, three seasons
might have been
>> because we had I mean we've done a lot
of that kind of stuff. I think I trying
to remember what came out of GLS last
year.
Episode title, Breaking the Plateau.
Level up your dev career like it's the
final boss.
[Laughter]
>> All right. It's going to be fun. Oh, no.
No, you don't get to share. Thanks for
mentioning that because I wasn't about
to.
There's you. Let's do this one.
We go. Cool.
>> And let's do this. Let's do this. And
we're going to do our little countdown.
What was the original one? That's what
it was. We're going to go th Oh, no.
Ola. We are back again. We are
continuing our season where we are doing
a prior season doing all of our uh
topics that had to do with becoming a
better developer basically and now we're
doing it with AI. We're taking those
topics and we are putting them through
AI. We're getting its results, its
recommendations, and we're basically
telling it what we think about it. We're
adding on to uh that conversation just
like we've added a new guest to talk
about that subject. So far, it's been
working really well. We'll see how it
goes today. Uh this time, we're going to
talk about breaking through career
plateaus, tips to accelerate your growth
as a developer. But before we do that,
this is the developer podcast. Building
better developers is also our name. I am
one of the founders. My name is Rob
Broadhead. I'm a founder of developer,
but also the founder of RB Consulting,
where we help you do technology better.
Let's face it, technology is a big ugly
must out there. If you go to
developer.com, you're going to see all
these different topics, all these
different things that have evolved over
the years. uh whether it's AI, whether
it's the latest in you know streaming
technology, whether it's the latest in
UIs, all of that stuff. There's a lot of
technology out there. We spent a lot of
time with it. We've also spent a lot of
time in businesses across a wide range
of of areas and lines of business. We
sit down with you, help you un like
really define your business. Make sure
first that you get that stuff out of
your head, get it on, you know, paper or
digitally. And then we can talk through
your processes, your procedures, and
through simplification, integration,
automation, and even innovation, we can
help you craft a plan, special recipe.
We're going to call it a road technology
roadmap that comes out of this
technology assessment that helps you get
a good plan for today but also for
tomorrow and growing forward to match
the needs of your business. Good thing
and bad thing. Oh boy, this is like I
got to think of what has been going on
lately because it has been it has been a
lot of stuff. Um
very much in this thing. So, good thing
is is that I have been uh as I've been
shifting gears a little bit at the RB
consulting world and and doing a little
more working on my business. Um there
are a lot of those things that I enjoy
and that suck me in. Even some of
aspects of networking. I'm an introvert.
I'm not normally I'm not into the whole
networking thing. Forget that. But there
are pieces of it I do like. there is
like the the problem solver in me, the
you know get to know the deep details of
a problem, that kind of stuff. It's
really fun. I've been doing a lot of
that and so I've been able to do some
things that are different as we've
talked about in the past. Helps me out
because now I'm doing a little bit of
different work. Uh the downside is that
is sucking up a lot of my time. And so
like every day I will get stuck into
something where I'm like, "Oh, I got all
these meetings that I've lined up that I
really need to do, but also I've got
this other work that I need to do. So,
I'm actually working on my business when
at times I like I really need some time
to work in my business. So, I'm getting
into that good thing, bad thing. Uh, the
good thing though right now is that
Michael is going to introduce himself
and allow me to take a breath. Hey
everyone, my name is Michael Malash. I'm
one of the co-founders of Building
Better Developers, also known as
Developer. I'm also the owner of
Envision QA. We help startups and
growing businesses build software that
works the way it's supposed to from day
one. You probably heard stories of
software projects going over budget,
launching late, or breaking once the
user gets their hands on it. That's
where we come in. At Envision QA, we
make sure that your project is tested,
stable, and ready for the customers. We
handle the behind-the-scenes quality
checks, and support development so you
can launch faster, avoid costly
mistakes, and protect your reputation.
In short, we help you build software
that doesn't break your business. Learn
more at envisionqa.com.
Good thing, bad thing. Uh, let's see.
Good thing, bad thing. Uh, well,
I'll go with good thing this time
because really I talked about the bad
thing and thankfully so far nothing else
bad has happened since that. Um, good
thing we finally got some rain
yesterday. Uh, the grass was looking
dead, looking dry. Uh, got just enough
rain, not for the grass to grow, but for
it to be a little bit greener. So, that
was very cool. And then I got a little
notification that in a couple months
Pokemon Legends comes out. So I'm very
stoked for that.
I am stoked to go through this
conversation today because
it started out with okay. It recommended
a different topic. So it recommended
breaking the plateau. Level up your dev
career like it's the final boss. Opening
hook. You've been coding for years.
You're good at your job, but lately it
feels like you're stuck on the same
level. Today we're talking cheat codes
for your career and no, not the kind
that gets you banned from the server.
Episode flow, first part, setting the
stage. The comfortable but stuck
feeling. Projects are fine, paychecks
fine, but growth growth feels flat. Why
plateaus happen? Routine work, lack of
challenge, or not marketing yourself
internally. Analogy. Your career's XP
bar is filling, but the level up screen
never pops. Now, there's a lot of gamer
stuff there that if you don't understand
that, that's okay. We're going to
question you a little bit because most
developers have some sort of gaming
knowledge, but that is a different
topic. Um, this is this is part of why
the developer site of all of this stuff
that we do exists is because
we are knowledge workers. We if we're
going to be better developers, we have
to be lifetime learners. We also need to
be challenged ourselves on a regular
basis to grow because if you're not
growing, you're dying. Especially with
technology because technology is just
marching, marching, marching, marching
and so you can be able to keep up with
that. You need to set a pace that you
know you don't have to know everything
but if you can be regularly growing and
learning new things that are available,
it's going to help you out quite a bit.
And this is this comfortable but stuck.
I was literally talking with somebody
about this not too long ago that did a
complete career change and was at a
company that they left a good job.
Part of it was because of this is
there's a certain point where um you're
going to look at it, you're like, "Okay,
I'm doing the same thing I did last year
or you know, two years ago or six months
ago even sometimes to say I'm not really
growing." Now, it doesn't mean that you
have to like always be doing the latest
whisbang fancy stuff and be on the
bleeding edge, but you do need to be
growing. And that it's not necessarily
in technology. So, it may be that you're
maybe you're not coding as much as you
were before, but maybe now you're doing
more design work or maybe you're doing
some mentoring or leadership or things
like that. There needs to be a growth
path for wherever it is that you're at,
whether it's your company or whether you
know, whoever your employer is or
whether you're doing it yourself through
your side hustles and the things that
you do outside of work. Now, if you're
doing it outside of work, then that may
be enough. you may be able to like just
continue moving forward, which is maybe
the best of all worlds is because now
you have a safe, you know, safe job, a
steady paycheck and all that goodness
and you're able to grow as well. The
problem is that takes time and if you're
spending 40 to 50 or 60 or 70 or 80
hours of work, you know, on your regular
job and you're trying to spend even 10
or 15 hours extra on your other job and
you have, I don't know, this thing
called a family, whatever the heck that
is. I heard those exist somewhere. um
stuff's going to fall apart. It is not
going to work well. Just trust me on
that. You need to be able to find that
balance. And this goes back to some of
the things we've talked to, some of the
things we've talked about in the past.
It's like you've got to change gears
sometimes. You're going to end up
burning out or getting stuck in a rut.
You're just not going to be as good. So,
you need to be looking for ways to
steadily grow. If your company, if your
employer doesn't provide it, then look
for some ways to do so. And if it's
something that's too much of a strain,
then maybe it's time to start looking
for a job that will allow you to grow.
Thoughts on that?
>> Yeah, you kind of set the stage really
well for this one. Um, interestingly
enough though, you know, the comfortable
feeling stuck. One of the things you
have to be careful about if you are
feeling comfortable in your job but not
going anywhere,
you may want to do a little bit of
self-reflection first. make sure that
you are doing
basically are you doing the bare minimum
to make to do the job or are you really
trying to challenge yourself with the
job because I've been in some positions
where
um they gave me tasks and I got bored. I
would get my work done and I would have
hours and I have to sit there at my desk
um before the work from home situation
helps. But you run into situations where
you might feel comfortable in the job,
you know, is it going anywhere? But are
you being challenged? And there was one
company I worked for where the work was
okay,
but very quickly it got boring and there
I wasn't moving up. I wasn't going
anywhere. Uh so I actually started
looking for problems to solve within the
company. So I instead of going external
I went internal and I was like well how
can I grow with myself within the
company. So I actually looked for things
within this company that were outside of
my wheelhouse. I was a um front end
client server application developer. So
I saw these new signature tablets were
coming out. This was way before they're
like everywhere. And I was like hey
what's this? Uh company had one sitting
in a storage room. I picked it up and I
started playing around with it. And next
thing you know, I wrote a little module
app for our check-in software. And then
a couple months later, um, the same type
of software that they were, it was
patient engagement, and it was like, hm,
we've got these webcams laying around
over here. C, can I make that work? So,
I went outside of my wheelhouse and
figured out how to do things. Now, end
of the day, that job went nowhere. I I
was I I finally reached a point where I
I could not go anywhere within this
company. I hit a ceiling. And the moment
I looked outside that company, I found a
job with a lot more pay, a lot more
challenge, and a lot more fun within
weeks. It did not take long. So, step
outside of your wheelhouse. I would say
start internally. If you have like good
relationships with the company you're
with, start there. Try to see if you can
grow. If you
start by asking yourself, are you doing
enough or are you doing the bare
minimum? If you're doing the bare
minimum because you're not challenged,
see if you can challenge yourself within
the company and that might help you move
up within the company and get out of
your wheelhouse. But like I said, if you
reach that point where you aren't, it's
time to look elsewhere.
There's a lot of good points there. I'm
going to move forward though instead of
diving back, getting lost on a couple of
those rabbit trails. So, let's move on
to the next one. So recognizing the
plateau symptoms haven't learned a new
framework, tool or pattern in six plus
months. No increase in responsibilities
or ownership. You can do most tasks on
autopilot. Why this is dangerous?
Industry moves fast and coasting is
really falling behind slowly.
I think this is um this is actually my
first job that I worked myself out of a
job is I think this is a natural kind of
uh progression is that we had something
and we I helped them build a solution uh
we we had the solution we were using it
and then started using the next phase of
growth basically I had I was like is now
refining that solution simplifying it
automating it doing the things that
makes it easier to do and require less
resources or at least human resources
and very quickly over a period of you
know probably six months or so we had
something that took you initially when I
started it took like 30 something days
to get it done and we got it down to
like I think under three days is
basically where I think we got less but
it seems like three days was the number
that we got to so that's a huge change
but it also meant
when you know it was when it was 30 days
it was a full-time developer role when
it's three days that means basically
because you're doing about one of these
a month. It had to do with release
management. You had about one a month.
Well, 30 days fills up your month really
well. Three days does not. So, very
quickly it became all right, I've got 27
days to lay around and do nothing. I
don't want to do that and moving on. So,
I think that's very well a good example
like your plateau. It's like you may
feel that you're okay. So you've
plateaued. But part of it is like if
you've ever worked, you know, entry
level like you know restaurant or
something like that, they'll always say
a man if you say I don't have anything
to do. Manager will always be like well
grab a broom, go you know wipe a table,
clean a floor. We can always in a
similar sense we can always do some
automation do some code review see if
you like documentation code review maybe
build a bit of some you do a little unit
test or some testing around that and
then finding ways to do it better
performance tuning and automation in
particular to like like make this not
just a good solution but like maybe an
almost perfect solution. Work on that
for a while. Now, if you get that, if
you've gone through that, now you've
basically exhausted your, you know, what
you can do with in that area or with
that application and then all right,
maybe you need to move on. But there is
definitely some things you can do um to
help you even if you're if you're
starting to see these little red flags
of like, oo, I feel like I'm plateauing.
Those are a couple things you can do to
maybe get you off of that plateau and
and growing again at least for a little
bit. What are some of the things you've
run into and and how you've tackled them
like that? Yes, I this is actually kind
of an interesting one for me right now
given that we are in kind of an AI
revolution where software development in
and of itself is changing almost daily
uh right now and it really I I really
struggle when I work with developers who
tell me that oh I don't I won't use AI I
won't learn it I don't want to touch
this and they're like what I'm working
on is going to be around forever
and so they're not learning those new
frameworks, they're not learning those
new tools, and they while they are
perfecting their skills at what they
have, they're going to run into a
situation where they're going to be many
uh fish in a very small pond of jobs.
Um, a great example of this was there
was so many developers that went and
learned uh like Cobalt and Forran for
the Y2K panic and then the moment that
was done uh we had the '90s bubble where
all these people got laid off. It's like
oh hey uh we don't need you anymore. We
need real developers and new real
skills. So um not putting shade on for
train cobalt because that uh language
has evolved. Um but that's just one
example. Or if you're like a DevOps or a
network engineer, working with old
technologies is great, but if you don't
stay up to date on what's coming out and
what's new, eventually you're going to
be working with tools that you're not
going to know what to do with and you're
going to be out of a job.
And that's a that is I guess another
area that we haven't really talked about
is sometimes it's just take the same
thing and use a new tool. Uh one of the
things I ran into this is now a couple
years ago I've been doing a lot of
Python and I had been working with it in
uh Visual Studio Code and there was a
project that made good extent that was
some of the doing the same sort of thing
but I used PyCharm. I was like all right
I'm going to go do this or I I also did
a similar thing. I know you hate you
know Intelligj but I'd used Eclipse. I
way way back I used my Eclipse and I
used Eclipse and I used springs STS. So
I'd done a lot of that and I finally was
like you know what I'm going to go do
intelligj I'm going to use their stuff
because I'd used some of their other
tools. So just learning those tools
can be u you know in itself can be a big
change. Uh back in the day there was a
point where I was building some APIs and
I used this tool called Postman that
that was sort of new at the time and
it's turned out to be something that I
use all the time. I sometimes I'll
change up my uh my database browser
tools and things like that. Those are
helpful because it also will help you
get better. You're going to pick the
ones that work most like you and be able
to, you know, to to be the most
productive version of yourself. Uh
breaking through acceleration
strategies. So stretch projects,
volunteer for complex or cross team
challenges, skills stack expansion, add
complimentary skills, UX basics, DevOps
tools, leadership, mentorship 2.0, 0 not
just finding a mentor but mentoring
others to solidify leadership skills
visibility boost speak at internal brown
bags contribute to open source or write
about your learnings those
wow those are all like excellent
excellent ideas we sort of talked about
the first one about uh like volunteering
or finding your own project somewhere
else internally um or anything like
sometimes you'll hear about like we're
getting a research group together to
think about doing this with a project or
or do this direction with our company.
Those are great. Um, volunteer in a um a
charitable sense, whether it's working
for some local charity or whether it's
uh mentorship like you can work at your
maybe there's like a local college you
can work with. I combine that a lot with
brown bag sessions and things like that.
Find excuses whether it's a brown bag
session at work or maybe there's a
meetup that you can go present at. That
stuff is huge. If you go back to our
mentor and mastermind stuff that we've
done over the years, I don't know how
far back you got to go now. It's like
it's a couple years old, but you can go
back out on the YouTube site and you can
find a lot of our old meetings and uh
some of the discussions we had there and
a lot of that did for quite a while talk
about things like get out there, you
know, whether it's you could write a
book, you can have a podcast, you can
now I mean like you can do a YouTube
channel. Uh, but the things where you're
out there presenting, talking about your
ideas, even it's just a simple blog are
in themselves a great way for you to to
really solidify your knowledge. And then
hopefully you get feedback.
Hopefully you get feedback and you're
going to be able to, you know, refine
that knowledge and you're going to be
able to grow that knowledge because
you're going to have conversations with
people and talk to them about what you
know and they're going to tell you what
they know and that's going to help you
grow quite a bit. Uh before we I pass
this you I we've not talked enough about
complimentary skills in a long long
time. Um but that is something that it
is all over the software development the
developer book talk about those about
how you can take the things you're doing
and sort of shift into a slightly
different area. CI/CD and and build
management is great because whatever app
you're building, you can find a way to
deploy it and work on some way to uh to
automate that process whether it's
through some you know pipelines whether
it's through ant whether it's through
batch and shell scripts there's or write
your own installer or things like that
those help you stretch your skills and
also they are you know the bonus are
based on something that you you it's
helpful to the project that you're
building because now you've built a tool
to help those that are deploying your
tool, your application.
Thoughts on that?
>> So, I'm going to stick with kind of the
mentorship and the visibility boost
because one of the biggest things that I
found personally with my growth
expansion over the years was I left
college and I was like, I'm never going
back to an education institution again.
I am done. five years of college, you
know, shifting majors. I'm just done
with teaching, done with teachers, done
with everything. Six months later, I had
to eat those words. I end up getting a
job at a vocational school, working with
people that did not have that formal
education, and it was a lot of fun. You
you learn so much more by teaching
others and seeing their point of view in
a way that you typically wouldn't look
at a problem. the more people that you
can be exposed to for teaching, the more
demographics, the more uh you know just
different um
languages or different you know whatever
they know. Uh you can kind of absorb
that as you're teaching them. It it
really uh helps the more to walk in
someone's shoes and then help them
understand what it is that you're
teaching is a viable resource and it
helps you. It really can help you for
your communication skills and it can
also help you with your troubleshooting
and debugging because helping someone
debug something is you learn so much
from that. It's like oh yeah I forgot
about this or oh I don't I didn't know
that. So you can always try to learn
something new and the visibility boost.
Um,
yes, speaking at internal uh brown bag
events, things like that. You know, it
it's actually funny that stretch project
and the visibility boost. To me, I think
of hackathons. I think go out to a
hackathon, go out to like, heck, go out
to like a hobby. So, like if you're into
video games, go out to like E3 or go to
a local Gamecom. Uh, go out and talk to
people. Go out and network. And again
try to find people with similar skills,
similar mindsets and then you can work
together to maybe build a project or hey
you might come up with the next uh you
know Microsoft or Apple.
>> I think those are Yeah, I think as we
wrap this one up I you guys all probably
know if you listen to us at all that I
love
side hustles as a way to grow your
skills. I love like that's that's now
granted that's exactly how I learned
best. I learned by doing. So from the
very start when I was learning new
languages, one of the things I would do
is I would look at a language and say
what is something this is supposed to do
really well and I would go build that
app with that language and it forced me
to learn the language and usually it was
like sort of learn it and then I'd go
build another app and I would you know
eventually I could say I sort of had
mastered the language because now I've
built a couple of things with that and I
understand some of its ins and outs and
then as as you grow then you're going
learn more ins and outs. As Michael
said, if you start debugging stuff,
that's I think the part best part about
building that little side hustle project
is you're going to have bugs. You're
going to have situations and I have so
many of these when I've screamed and
cussed and done all kinds of stuff where
it's like this worked and then you do
something and now nothing works and you
got to go debug it and figure all that
stuff out. And sometimes it takes a
while. Sometimes it takes quite a bit
and you learn that things get cached or
things didn't get loaded right or things
don't have the right permissions or
something moved its, you know, something
is case sensitive or whatever all the
different things are that can cause to
not work. You start building up this
list of like, okay, here's all the
things I got to check. It makes you
better. And so I I cannot say enough
about like find yourself a little side
project. Like Michael said, you can do
it internally. you can go find something
that's like find some work to do within
your business where maybe there's
something somebody's complaining about a
little problem that you can solve or go
out and scratch your own itch. Uh or if
there's just something that you just are
like, "Hey, it would be cool if I had
this tool." Go build it because it's
going to help you grow and get you off
that plateau.
That being said, it is time to wrap this
one up. I've already mentioned, but I'm
going to mention again,
Shoot us an email if you have any
questions, comments, suggestions,
recommendations, all of that goodness.
We are getting towards the end of this.
Uh we got a few more episodes on this
season. Not sure exactly where we're
going with the next one because hey,
that's who we are. Although, this has
worked really well. Maybe we'll just do
like evergreen content and come back and
do AI uh on some of these past topics
because they are topics that no matter
where you are in your career, you're
going to bump into them over and over
again because we have done so over and
over again. You can also reach out to us
on developer.com. There is feedback
forms. You can leave a feedback a
comment on any of the articles that are
out there. You can go out to YouTube.
There's a developer channel. Check out
stuff there. Uh on X, we are developer.
Anywhere that you see podcast or listen
to podcast, you can download podcasts.
You can leave us a review and we will
get back to you that way as well. We as
well, we appreciate your time. We
appreciate all that you've done for us
and we just want to do for you as well.
As always, go out there and have
yourself a great day, a great week, and
we will talk to you next time. Now, this
time we didn't do all of our bonus
material before we even started. So, I
will let you dive into where do you want
to go with the in the bonus world here?
Oh,
I guess with this one,
one of the things I would say, you know,
the last one we kind of talked about
avoiding
social media, things like that, but with
this one, I would almost engage you to
go out and look for like LinkedIn groups
that kind of fit within your business or
your particular field. Look for
networking events. Look for things that
will help get you out of your box and
help you grow. Um, again, could be
gaming, could be things like that, but
look for like Java 1 or Spring Source or
Microsoft's Big Expo that they do every
year. Those are great learning
opportunities and great networking
opportunities. Just make sure that if
you go to them, make sure you go to the
networking events and talk to people.
Don't just go to the classes and then go
back to your hotel room because you're
not going to get as much out of those as
you would uh with the interaction that
they do. If you don't know anyone, one
of the best trade secrets is if the
conference has a trade show, go down and
talk to all the vendors, ask them if
they have a card and then ask them if
they have any vendor parties that they
are doing in between the event. That are
great networking opportunities. Um,
every so often, like if there's an IBM
booth, I talk to them. They have some
event. I meet some IBM people. I learn
about some new stuff coming out from
IBM. So, talk to people. You never know
who or where your next networking
opportunity will come from.
>> Or you can be like me and don't talk to
anybody. Do the best job you can to
avoid human beings where possible. Uh,
which does not work as well. You really
doesn't help your networking. Trust me.
Um, I do want to talk about one of the
things that it mentioned that we did not
get to. Um, is regular career audits.
And they say like check every six months
where you stand on SC.
>> You hit your mic
>> in satisfaction
>> or you cut out.
>> Let me do this while we're here. Let me
just plug in and see because I did not
have a mic. So, I'm not sure why it
changed. But now we're going to do this
little sucker here. And we're going to
change this.
Uh,
>> that's better. I had a whole bunch of
feedback while you were removing it.
>> Okay. Is that better?
>> Yeah. There you go.
>> Good, good, good, good, good. All right.
Uh, change this. Move this because it's
a little bit too much in my face and
it's a little bit annoying. All right.
Test, test, test. Is that good? Loud
enough. All right.
Sometimes you have technology issues
like that. Um, check in on your skills
every six months. I think this is
something that you should be doing uh
just like we tech owner business and
everything else is talk about or look at
what are you doing where do you want to
go this is your career roadmap that
we've talked about many many times I
would say um it's useful I think it's
better to actually do it once a quarter
sit there at the beginning of the year
put together your road map for the year
what do I want to get done in first
quarter second quarter third quarter
fourth quarter and then at the end of
each is like am I making that progress
and if not and you know what to focus
on. Uh and there should be progress in
each of those. So like one year I did um
the first quarter I was going to learn
swift programming. I was going to spend
some time and learn Swift programming.
So I I had that I was going to spend 15
minutes a day doing that. Uh and then
the second quarter I was going to be
build a Swift app. Uh build a an iPhone
or I watch Apple Watch app uh because
I'd never done one. And then the third
quarter was um build a build a app and
then have it integrate with something. I
can't remember what it was that went on
with that, but it's like a nice
progression of skills. It's something
that you can check off that you can
either say yes, I've done it or no, I
haven't. Especially if you've got a
milestone like a test or a certification
or if you've got some sort of an
application or something like that that
needs to be in a certain state,
obviously you can use that. I think
those career audits are huge is to say,
am I
am I doing what I want to do? Am I
happy? Am I growing? And if not, what
changes do I need to make? Because
sometimes you're going to have a your
career road map's going to be like, I
want to learn Cobalt. And then you're
going to realize that nobody cares about
cobalt after you're six months into it.
And you're like, so punt, say, you know
what, now I don't want to learn cobalt.
I want to go learn something else. Um,
last little bonus thing is it does say
challenge listeners to pick one stretch
action this week. And I just want to
throw that out there. Uh, not for
challenges, but like spend a couple
minutes after this wraps up and just
think about what is something you could
do that would be 5, 10, 15 minutes and
just like get you to grow even just a
little bit. Uh, it may be thinking about
that side hustle application. It may be
like brushing off that old side hustle
application. It may be uh automating
something that you knew you should have
automated months ago. Those kinds of
tasks. It's like just give yourself in
this self self something this week that
is going to help you grow. And then
rinse and repeat every week moving
forward. And then next thing you know,
you're going to be in a lot different
place than you are uh today. That's what
we did years ago when I did the first
blog for developer. And now we've got
thousands
over a thousand that are out there.
Granted, a lot of our podcast episodes
and stuff like that, but we've got all
this stuff that over time it does add up
and the next thing you know, you're, you
know, you've got piles and piles of
stuff and your your biggest challenge is
navigating through all of the content
that you've produced.
As always, appreciate your time. I
appreciate you guys being here and all
that you've done for us. And so, we just
want to do for you as well. Go out
there, have yourself a great day. And we
are not done with the season. We're
still doing more with AI. We will be
back next time
after I figure out how to hit the stop
button.
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