Engineering video
4:02 · 12 July 2024
The speaker explains: the speaker stopped attending long daily standups, opting out in favor of smaller meetings with close teammates or skipping them entirely to save developer time for problem-solving.
Hear it at 0:07 →The speaker explains: spending more than 50 percent of the day in meetings hurts skill growth, leading the speaker to enforce meeting-free days and reject meetings without a clear agenda.
Hear it at 0:41 →The speaker explains: junior developers often say yes to every request to prove themselves, but learning to say no is crucial for protecting time and getting things done.
Hear it at 1:23 →The speaker explains: the speaker stopped working past 7 p.m. and on weekends, prioritizing life balance over the constant hustle culture.
Hear it at 1:54 →The speaker explains: arguing over whether tools like React are better than Angular or Vue is a waste of time, as technology choice depends on use cases, team skills, and project duration rather than universal superiority.
Hear it at 2:29 →The speaker explains: after reaching mid-level, the speaker stopped building side projects in free time to avoid burnout and pursue real-world activities, choosing instead to test new technologies at work if needed.
Hear it at 3:13 →Here are six things I stopped doing after becoming a senior developer that will also help you go faster as a software engineer. Number one, long daily meetings or long standups. I once worked for a company where we had a 45 minute stand up with around 20 people reporting what they did. These days, if I join a company with this kind of daily meeting, I would directly approach my manager and opt out of it, instead I would propose a smaller daily meeting only with my close teammate, if they don't accept it.
Then I'll tell them I won't be able to make it and that they can update me once it's over. And sure, some people might think, oh, this is so self-centered or selfish, but it actually helps the company as instead of having expensive developers. Waste time in useless meetings, they will have them solving problems and delivering value to their users. The next thing I stopped doing as a senior engineer also has to do with meeting.
And that is spending more than 50% of my day in meeting time. This is a big one, because once you get a job as a software engineer, you think, hey, I will jump back in and start coding. When actually, most of your time it's spending meeting, syncs, talking about features, talking about code, but not actually writing code. Then six months go by and you realize your skills are not improving, maybe you're even falling behind.
As a senior dev, I made this role of having at least one day a week with no meetings at all. Maybe the daily meeting and not spending more than half of any given day in meeting. And you know what, if the meeting doesn't have a clear agenda, then I'm out directly because I have better things to do with my time. Just send me the memo. The next thing I stopped doing as a senior death, it's saying yes to everything.
So back in my junior days, whenever someone came into my desk and asked me for something, my default answer was, yes, sir. We can do that, can you help me test this? Where is the documentation for that? Hey, can you take a look at this other thing? I would say yes to everything. Because of course, I wanted to prove myself, the problem with that kind of attitude is that, again, you have very little time left to actually get things done.
A key skill that you want to develop as you move towards the senior level, it's learning how to say no and learning how to defend your time. Onto the next thing I stopped doing as a senior developer and that is that I stopped working past at 7:00 p.m. I even start working on the weekend. Because again, I realized that most people saying, hey, you need to grind and you need to hustle. I also realized that if I'm going to be a programmer for the next 20 or 30 years, depending on when the government wants us to retire, my life is going to pass in front of a computer screen.
And as much as I love coding, I also love to do other things. So these days, when a club hits 6:00 or 7:00, depending on the day, I just close my laptop and go on and do something else. The next thing I stopped doing as a senior engineer, and this is a big one, it's arguing over frameworks and libraries. Like many junior and mid-level developers out there, I used to have a bit of a obsession with React.
And whenever the discussion came or whether or not it is better than Angular or view, I would argue for hours. Trying to convince other developers of my preferences. And what a waste of time, first because there is no such thing as universally better framework or library. It all depends on the use case, on the skills that a team has, on the duration of the projects, and countless other variables. As a senior developer, I'm more interested into the problem itself than the framework or library we are going to use to solve it in the end.
Because that's what matters. And so, I've seen frameworks come and go and learned not to fall in love so fast. Okay? On to the next one. As a senior engineer, I stopped building side projects. Hate me on this one. But after around mid level, I found that most side projects are quite useless. And I just found myself tired and I wanted to do something else. I would rather go to the gym and go to my friends.
Go dancing, play chess, cooker healthy dish, or anything else in the real world, rather than coding on some side project. And if I wanted to try new technology, I would try to build that side project at my job, instead of just, you know, sinking my free time. Trying to add it to some feature or make sure it actually helps my company in the meantime, take it easy on those side projects. Trust me, you'll do just fine.
Okay, question for you now, what is one thing that you stop doing as you level up as a software engineer that actually turn out to be extremely beneficial for your growth? Let us know. with the comments. And I'll see you in the next one.
