Be Curious, Get Obsessive, There Is No Speed Limit

Being a software developer for years, I've seen many good people working with me. What do all these good people have in common? Can we learn something from them?

Be curious

As a software developer, you need to be curious. You need to ask yourself every time: "why is this code like this?" Why do we have this code like this? Can we improve this code? Can this code be optimized?

I remember many times when someone approached me and asked: "Why do we have this?" Just this simple question made me think more deeply about the problem.

Embracing curiosity makes you go deeper into the codebase, exploring possibilities for enhancement and efficiency. The constant questioning is what leads you to more elegant solutions, better performance, and, ultimately, higher-quality software.

Get obsessive

Although the word "obsession" might sound bad, there is a good part to it. It's a synonym for passion. Passion is often defined as an intense desire or enthusiasm for something.

Some people use this word when talking about improvement or getting better at something — for example, David Goggins. DHH has also written and tweeted about this.

People typically use the word "obsessive" because it signifies a strong enthusiasm or excitement for something. Being passionate about what you're doing brings a sense of purpose and fulfillment to your life. It motivates you to put in the effort and dedication needed to succeed — you're embracing your passion and letting it drive you towards your goals.

You should get obsessive with quality. That's what DHH means in Commit to competence in this coming year. Getting obsessive with quality, and being passionate about your pull requests, are important. Strive to do the best you can.

There is no speed limit

This article talks about the importance of pace, and how it shouldn't be compared to others'. It's important to remember that everyone has their own limits and pace, so comparing yourself to someone else isn't productive.

Although it's essential not to compare yourself with others, it's equally important not to limit yourself. Make sure to write the best code and do your best in everything you do.

Remember: you are the protagonist of your career. It is not your manager's job to take ownership of it — you should take ownership of your own career and be prepared to face the positive or negative consequences of your actions. This may sound like a cliché, but if you apply this mindset to every decision you make, you'll start taking each step in your career more consciously.

Expand your knowledge by stepping outside your comfort zone. As a software developer, it's critical to embrace challenges and explore unfamiliar areas — whether that means learning a new programming language or tackling complex problems. Cultivate a mindset of continuous growth and improvement.

Personal projects and self-improvement are crucial in a software engineering career. Devoting time beyond regular work hours to personal growth, exploring new technologies, and hands-on learning through personal projects can have a huge impact on your growth. This is an extra investment that often leads to advancement in skills — as Robert C. Martin puts it, reading and exercising are always good and will help you.

What are the things you want to improve?

• Don't feel comfortable with regex? Spend time studying and practicing.
• Don't feel comfortable with Ruby? Go spin up a Rails project and learn.
• Struggling with SQL? Go practice with your database.
• Not confident with Git? Practice branching, merging, rebasing, and resolving conflicts by collaborating on open-source projects or creating your own repository.
• Feeling challenged by debugging? Take a buggy codebase, intentionally introduce bugs, and practice systematically debugging and resolving each one.
• Want to improve performance? Identify a slow-performing part of your application and work on optimizing it by analyzing bottlenecks and applying performance techniques.
• Struggling to keep up with new technologies? Dedicate time to newsletters, blogs, podcasts, or courses related to your field to stay current with industry trends.

Get out of your comfort zone. Spend time with yourself and the code.

Many developers I know have, at some point in their lives, become deeply immersed in building things and focused on the process of learning. That time is often crucial for both their personal growth and professional development.

From the book The Clean Coder:

Your career is your responsibility. It is not your employer's responsibility to make sure you are marketable. It is not your employer's responsibility to train you, or to send you to conferences, or to buy you books. These things are your responsibility. Woe to the software developer who entrusts his career to his employer. [...] You owe your employer a certain amount of time and effort. For the sake of argument, let's use the U.S. standard of 40 hours per week. These 40 hours should be spent on your employer's problems, not on your problems. You should plan on working 60 hours per week. The first 40 are for your employer. The remaining 20 are for you. During this remaining 20 hours you should be reading, practicing, learning, and otherwise enhancing your career. [...] Presumably you became a software developer because you are passionate about software and your desire to be a professional is motivated by that passion. During that 20 hours you should be doing those things that reinforce that passion. Those 20 hours should be fun!

Conclusion

Be curious. It's what drives exploration, innovation, and problem-solving. Keeping that flame of curiosity burning leads to constant learning and growth.

Get obsessive with good quality. For programmers, that means poring over a pull request over and over again until it's as aesthetically pleasing as it is functionally correct.

There is no speed limit. It's about challenging yourself constantly and pushing through discomfort to achieve your goals — setting your own pace, driven by your own passion and dedication, instead of being bound by what's considered standard or typical progress.