What you can with what you've got

I hope your Friday went by smoothly!

Despite the trillions of course, articles and videos on the internet on how to become a better software engineer….

There are only 3 things you need to get to Senior Developer.

Once you put them in place, everything becomes a LOT easier, including live coding interviews.

They are a Senior Mindset, Solid Fundamentals, and the ability to deliver End-to-End.

Today, we are going to talk about the first one.

Mindset.

There’s a lot to mindset, but today we will dive deep into a not-so-obvious but very critical trait that great Senior Devs have.

That is… resourcefulness.

Your ability to do the best with what you have. To find solutions despite the things you lack or the gravity of the situation.

For example, when your wifi connection goes down and you use your mobile hotspot. That's resourcefulness.

But Senior Devs get this to a whole different level.

Resourcefulness means that instead of complaining that you need X or Y before you start coding, you find a way to work around it.

And it is a tricky one.

From my own experience, unless I get out of my comfort zone on a regular basis, I start becoming very fragile and not very resourceful.

I realized that after working for weeks from my home with a great internet speed and setup, I had to work from a cafe for a few days.

Once I was out of my “perfect” environment, I was unproductive.

Instead of just putting my noise-canceling headphones on and starting coding, I started complaining. Oh, the noise. Oh, the chair.

Everything was terrible.

So I didn't get anything done.

The same was true when I had to change my tech stack from React to Vue, or when I was on call helping the DevOps team with systems, I knew nothing about.

My mood was so “brittle” in a way.

I forgot one hard truth in life and nature: “The most adaptable to change is the one that survives”.

Not the one with a CS Degree or years of experience or knowledge in a specific tech stack.

All that stuff doesn't matter.

Unless you can also adapt to the crazy sh**t life throws at you.

Which is 10x more important given the current job market.

In my case, I wasn’t going to change until one day, my brother Bogdan told me, “Dude, you are pretty smart, but damn, you complain a lot.”

I hated being seen as a complainer because, most of the time, I am a pretty happy, laid-back person.

But he was right.

So, instead of looking at how things should be, I asked myself a different question.

“What can I do with what I’ve got right now?”

And you wouldn't believe what happened next. The creative juices in my head started flowing, coming up with creative solutions like never before.

For example, instead of passing the “hot potato” to the platform team whenever the deployment pipeline was down, I started digging and fixing it myself.

If there was an issue with our Design System, I jumped in and fixed it. If a Junior dev was stuck, I made time for them and helped them get unstuck.

Guess what, in 3 months after becoming more “resourceful” I was on the way to a promotion.

But it is not only that.

I was mentally in a better place. Life was still challenging, but for every problem there was a solution.

So here’s my tip for you.

Instead of focusing on what’s wrong, consider what you can do about it. Your tech stack, team, and company are not perfect—hell, the world is not perfect.

But, trust me, it is fixable.

You just need to find a way.

So go out there and find one :)

Until the next one, Dragos the “Can Do Attitude” Dev

P.S. A Few Essentials For Your Dev Journey ❤️

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