The Question that Made My Whole Engineering Career

Close to the beginning of my career as a software engineer I got some incredible advice. I wish I could give credit to the wise person gave me this counsel. I owe them greatly.

When you meet someone you admire at a job you would like, ask:

What do I need to learn in order to come work with you?

It's a great question.

It is a solid start to a friendship. It asks for a small favor that doesn't require a huge commitment. The answers to this question help you tailor your skillset for the jobs in your network.

After the unremembered saint gave me this advice, I starting to ask this question of folks I respected. Depending on their industry or role I got specific answers, often tech particular to their company.¹ The intersection of all the answers made an amazing list! It guided the class enrollment and focused my extracurricular learning for topics college didn't offer. ²

I have lost the original list, but I am planning on posting a new tech-agnostic version from my perspective. I chose only the parts I remember being useful and are common traits of developers I still look up to today.

If you have insights or arguments on what should make the list, feel free to comment on twitter and I'll consider updating this post.