If I could give advice to myself when starting as a software engineer 

years of wisdom delivered blazingly fast.

It’s amazing how life-changing it is to adopt a mindset where you can say “I don’t know that but I can learn it”.

As someone who did struggle for 1 yеar to learn, I had to come here to say: the best way to learn are books that have interactive content. Those that make you practice what they teach on еach chapter. And that's what you need as a beginner: practice instead of complex subjects and concepts. Focus on learning your first programming language and evеrything else will be much easier once you learn. Edit: For those asking, the books that made me learn were "Javascript In Less Than 50 Pages" and "Head First Javascript Programming".

"the more ways you see a problem solved, the more ways that you can solve that problem" - advice perfect for a software engineer and anyone in general.

A difficult thing about programming is that once you find a set of things that works, it's really difficult to get yourself motivated to learn other things because you can basically do anything with them, albeit inefficiently. Turing completeness is both a bless and a curse.

6 years ago, I forced myself to use i3, a window manager that is a bit on the hard-core side, but I wanted to give it a try. The huge amount of knowledge I've gain around Linux, bash, scripting is incredible! I use polybar to run custom scripts as widget, and I'm glad I made this choice, I've been daily driving it for 5 and a half years and could've been happier

100% agreed, the whole "growth mindset" for me is basically fighting against the "inertia" we build up over the years. I think fighting the day-to-day inertia is one of the best things software developers can do for themselves. Also, be open to learn from people younger/newer int he business than you! Never close the door to learning!

You're absolutely right Prime. The times when I had great growth in my career and personal satisfaction were when I was getting out of my comfort zone and learning new things. I somehow lost it along the way but I'm finding my way back. Thank you for such great advice here and on Twitch!

This is such good advice. Especially at a time where it seems like everyone is saying that folks need to "specialize" in a particular domain, having the experience to have seen lots of different problems and lots of different solutions is so valuable: "The more ways you see a problem be solved, the more ways that you can solve a problem. We often are limited by our experiences."

This is the message I needed. Your timing is amazing. Thank you!

When he said 5:29 - *We are often limited by our experiences* it brought to my mind an ol saying *La experiencia es el peine que te dan cuando te quedaste pelado* (experience is the comb they give you when you've gone bald).

I'd been stuck for a very long time with the same tools and languages, it had become such a comfort zone for me, I literally used the exact same thing for every project because I had become too damn lazy to even think about improving; and then I noticed people around me had actually changed, I was still stuck as a damn ape with rocks and they'd invented the wheel already. I realized that I was a niche developer, I was only good for one thing and I was becoming less and less valuable as a developer each day. Ever since I started watching you though, I stepped out of that comfort zone, I now consistently set goals for myself and ACTUALLY complete them. I'm learning more and more tools, learning when, where and how to use them. Safe to say, I'm a better as a developer and as a person today than I was at the start of the year. Honestly dude, thank you.

Appreciate the advice and wisdom. I’m still pretty junior (starting my second year professionally ) but started making the switch to neovim and i3. all my coworkers use Visual studio so it’s definitely hard at first but i know in the years to come i will be #blazingly better.

Also be weary of the other extreme with this thought pattern. Where you are constantly relearning the basics in a new language/tool as a way to avoid learning how to deal with difficult problems. The amount of times i see "polyglot" developers who can code in 20 languages struggle with simple functions and classes because they just learned hello world over and over is equally as problematic.

Another video about what didn't work for you in the past delivering extreme value for us. I struggle so hard with this and I am not a "top of the class" person at all. Its so helpful to see a high functioning professional grapple with this. Sometimes I feel like a mutant troll, a bundle of self righteousness and self doubt, and it zaps my will to keep forging forward in my path to get into tech.

Great advice, I have been in that place in the first 2-3 years of my career, And abandoning this thinking process is what allowed me to actually progress much faster.

Failure just sucks! And it is there to invite itself when we really need to win. But we learn the most from our failures. I recollect my biggest failures like they were yesterday. Some of them still hurt but they work their ironic ways to make me better at what I do and I am thankful for them (I think). Great video!

Bro, your truth as in individual is incredible. You're truly enlightened.

Great video. This is the first video I have seen of you, and no matter your background, this applies to us all. Love this. I’m saving this to revisit this advice in the future.

Hey man just watched this one, big fan here. I think that kind of over confidence has been a big part of my career and I have been eager to be uncomfortable as much as I can since I noticed a few years ago. Keep it real as always. Love ya.

It's really cool to see your channel blowing up. I learned vim in part from your videos over a year ago. You rock man.

I feel like i was in those years with you, thank you for this advice, comes at the right time

Wow, I don't have a story of my own, but I think I started following your advice (that one you are giving out in this video) one year ago. I was always baffled that people would still use vim, until I started googling, found your youtube channel, and showed me that there's a very good reason why, haha. Now I do try to understand things a bit better, before jumping to the conclusion of "it doesn't make sense, my way is easier". It's good to hear it from you, though. Kind of a confirmation on a feeling I had. Thanks again!

Good video, this is a great lesson for things even outside of programming or work in general. I struggle with similar things and it can be easy to brush things off when they get difficult or just assume you know the "best" way.

Loved that story, thanks for sharing. Writing my own code is super fun, but a feeling I get that is a hindrance to my motivation is that I KNOW someone out there has done it before, and it's probably better than anything I can come up with. I then need to remind myself that writing the code itself is an efficient way of learning new things.

This video is perfectly timed for me, I am starting my first job on the coming Monday. Great advice Mr Prime

Hi, Thank you so much for this content, I am a recent senior developer and sometimes I feel way in over my head. But its also put me into situations where I must learn and push myself. I am now 1 month into VIM and my coding speed, quality and quantity has increased multiple fold. So I can reflect myself in this video.

Love your videos. I'm about a month into my career in software development, and have always avoided the scary CLI in favor of fancy UI tools. Now that I'm out of school and in a professional environment, I'm seeing just how valuable it is to be exposed to these core utilities. Now off to check out vim! :)

Hey dude just discovered your channel and as a 28 year old guy that have just been programming for a couple of years(starting to get more serious now), and has struggled a lot in life with what i want to do/drugs/video games/etc. I really have to say that you've helped me a lot with my motivation and to find the strength i need to push through and keep grinding what can be a really tedious subject to master. I appreciate that a whole lot man so just wanted to let you know, peace

This is amazing and comes at the perfect time. I'm a self-taught developer with zero professional jobs in my background and I just accepted my first job as a software developer. You made me feel really good about where I'm at because I already really value the kind of problem-solving you speak of and I thrive on the Linux/vim/geeky ecosystem. I want to be the best developer I can be and I feel like having the beginner mind is so important for being your best and always pushing yourself.

Just found this channel from a recommendation from a friend and this is amazing, so much to learn and so helpful

Your interview story reminded me when a teacher asked to sort a list during a lab. I programmed selection sort in a few minutes and was sitting there with a smug face proud of myself. She said I should have used a library function instead.

*Just discovered this channel and love it so much!* I’ve always been tangentially around code through high school(HTML, lil bit of Java) and college. I knew enough to understand it but held it in high regard. More so than mech e, which is what I went to college for. One thing I noticed after graduating is that the young coders have an err of arrogance about themselves. It’s a function(lol) of youth and I’m sure I’d be the same if I were in their shoes. But still annoying none the less. I started getting into *real* programming relatively late(23). And I’m glad I have the maturity to take a long term outlook on learning programming, and not blinded by the bravado the younger me would’ve had.

Great content just stumbled across your channel! Definitely agree and enjoy your insight in the industry!

Great advice, i hope a lot of people take it to heart. I made the transition from windows to linux about a year ago. Best thing i ever did. It made me learn so many things. The only excuse for not going to linux before was games but there is Proton now. I feel there should be a hash tag movement for making the switch now.

This was a very solid advice, thank you

thanks for your tips. I'm from Brazil and I made a career transition. My wife and I created a plan where I could make this transition without harming the house's finances and this month I've been in the development area for three years and now the first jobs as a freelancer are starting to appear, it's not easy, but I always try to do what better and the right thing, one hour the return comes.

This is gold. It should be part of any book, course, readme, tiktok etc about learning to program.

glad I actually learned sed and grep in my systems programming class. I really struggled w/ that course in college. Now I'm a server-side SWE I and alot of my work is in the terminal. I was thrilled to show my SME on day-1 that I can fly around the terminal. That really booster their confidence in me immediately.

Solid advice. Made me remember the time I was the crazy guy in the office who used i3 wm, thinking back I think I was much faster even tho it was difficult at first.

I’m the new kid on the block. Only 3 years in. I can’t tell you how crazy it is to here this articulated in this way. Because I myself am still slightly struggling with this concept. Example I got good at css because I didn’t want to dive into JavaScript. That part about being able to perceive the difficulty. Idk why but I danced around it until I stopped feeling challenged by css and so on with react etc. if you keep thinking about something you know you should or will need to learn “ one day “ I’ll lend you this.. what could be done today shouldn’t be left for tomorrow. If you want the next level. You gotta be ok with doing it uncomfortable.

Amazing video! Subscribed, really helpful, you are just full of wisdom, keep it up! Love your videos, you are very inspiring, thank you so much ❤️

Graduated 5 years ago, and finally got my first programming position in January 2022. Love your content, working with Visual Studio, VSCode, Angular 5, C#, Kendo UI, Azure, and SCSS so far. Any content on Angular would be amazing, keep up the good work! Blazingly Fast! lmao

Thank you for advice. I am just starting out (I work for 6 months as part time Software developer while studying at uni). I am starting to use VIM because of you (right now just extension for VS code to start easily) and it is hard, I turn it off many times when I am in hurry to do something for a meeting but I try to use it as much as possible. But I can see the huge potential for next years. It seems to me as a very good investment.

Love to hear it from the experts. Thanks.

That is one thing I love about programming as a career as there is always something new to learn.

Love this video, I remember this year after I finished a 2 year technician degree on developing web apps I was doing a 3 months internship and I got too comfortable.. I wish I was at that time more proactive! Anyway now I am learning by my own React from 0..

Thanks! When I was younger I had a bit of an ego problem, I believed I knew better. Luckily I failed really hard at some important school exam, and thought "yeah, that's on me. It's time to do something about it". Today, whenever I offer my take or something, I regularly add "don't forget: I'm just a persons with biases and misconceptions. I could be completely wrong, don't trust anything I say if it hasn't been tested". I also ask "why" and "how" a lot: understanding for real has value me, while "not looking too dumb (by avoiding asking stupid questions)" isn't something I'm interested in. So far I'm happy with the results.

I think this is great life advice, even for those of us who are not professional devs. I love your videos even though I am only an amateur in programmer using mostly python. I'm a lawyer so it can be hard to find time to learn how to use a new tool to do something that I can already do in Django.

shit....I have the same mindset. Thanks for the advice man. That mind set shift can change your whole trajectory in life and work.

Thanks! I've been searching how to get it and this is brilliant :D

interesting timing. just decided yesterday to finally 'really learn' bash and vim.

I tutor CS students online. I often tell my students what makes good programmers "good", is that they have already made those mistakes, possibly even numerous times, that they know how to avoid them or know what to look for to fix those bugs quicker... Love the channel! Thank you for the great content!

LONG TERM DIVIDEND PLAY : Words of wisdom heard clearly and noted down. Thanks Primeagen!

100% agree. What helped my was doing the internship-time with new interns. I am the trainer in our company and i train sw-development. The intern can choose the first language we are using to talk about software and to write software in. This helped opening my mind lots of times...

I think that is where it is useful to start as an administrator. You learn the tools to administer the machines. For me it is now pivoting into Software Engineering, which has been a bit of a challenge. Mostly in convincing people to give me a shot. If I was to give myself advice it would be, build stuff no matter how imperfect it is.

Not just the best programming advice, but THE best advice--PERIODT. Be openminded and willing to play the long game. Thank you for this great video!

My favorite video of the year, you even deserved a suscription.

Thank you so much for this!

This is pretty good advice. I learned rust in my free time and it helped me to become a good programmer regardless of the language I use.

Love it, I’ve been there bouncing around OSes, distro hopping, but trying to hone in on expertises to just not end up like some soy dev… I did a lil vim in my assembly class, but next hitting neovim!

Words to live by. Yet again another great vid 👍

Loved this video! If you want to be a better engineer it's not just about Time In The Saddle! You also need to Practise Enough New Interesting Skills. You will become a well-rounded engineer and you will also have more fun ;)

Sup buddy, I been liking your vids for awhile; been coding since Senior year of highschool and graduated from College like 4 days ago. I am trying to do everything you say, even though sometimes I feel discouraged about the actual use cases. I am currently learning the syntax for ruby, similar to python but not, and I feel like it is a waste of time. I just know once I get to learning rails it will allow me to expand my range of stacks and that will be hype. I am going to build a Chess computer with Ruby on the backend and I am excited to get into that. I have had emacs installed on my computer for like a year, I may actually use it because you said I should. keep on posting buddy cause I will keep watching, love your content, and I cant wait to get a role in the field.

I've always had that mindset, maybe too much, trying very different things in my life and never excelling, but I learned a lot and had fun learning. One thing that I think people should try as soon as possible is a saner keyboard layout like dvorak or colemak (I use dvorak). Common layouts are the legacy of mechanical typewriters that had problems when pressing adjacent buttons, they easily got stuck, so the letters are positioned to make you travel more when you type and that's insane today

Thank you for the video, the absence of irrational intolerance based on "prejudices", treating technologies just as a tools based on their efficiency with no bias, being free - these are my thoughts

My experience was different. I started as a kid, I had no one to talk to about it. So I got any exposure, I soaked up everything I could. I hated reading other people's code and I would often rewrite things that I couldn't figure out. Most of that code was trash, but my code wasn't always great either. The thing is, the moment I learned something new, I wanted to upgrade everything old with it. I rewrote my first C++ game four times and never got past the intro screen. It took me years to realize that it's okay to let some things be sub-optimal. Bad code is going to exist, and if kept rewriting everything, nothing would get done. I still hate reading other people's code, but I'm getting better at that too. Just don't ask me to read Perl.

Not a programmer, and I’m 27 so I really don’t know anything and this process is ongoing - but I used to be very hard on myself when I had experiences that reminded me how little I know. I would kind of rush back to my bubble of ignorance and try to take some confidence. I was often very prideful and kind of fragile, and I would rather fake looking like I knew something before I accepted that I didn’t. It took me a long time to realize, and I still sometimes have to remind myself, but it’s okay to not know everything. It’s okay to be in a meeting and not know something and then go figure it out, even if you prepared and should’ve known it. It’s okay to pick up new things and suck for a while, as long as you have goals lined out. It’s much better for your mind to accept this and then choose to do the difficult task of learning than to be scared that you might miss something and never put in the work to learn it. Failing is really not as bad as I thought it was, except for when I gave up and didn’t try to learn where I went wrong. Keep going boys and know that I support you in your endeavors, as long as they build you up💪

this is so true, I started using vim when I discovered this channel, and I'm still having a hard time with it, but as you said: "it is ok to be uncomfortable"

After nearly 2 decades of experience, the main lesson I've learned is to expand your horizon. Not just change one framework for the other (react v svelte/solid/vue), or one tool for the other (vscode v emacs/vim/...), but to understand that there are realms that you've never touched before, that might be orders of magnitude more powerful to solve your problem. As an engineer coming from backend, into frontend, into blockchain, into compilers/ASTs/parsers, into AI, that's where the magic lies, the expansion of knowledge of problem areas. It's like understanding the different type of solution that exists between Constraint Solvers and AI. Or map-reduce frameworks and bash-scripting. Or programming a complex tool vs building a DSL specific to that problem. One web-framework and the next web-framework solve the same problem, just in a different way. Know that there are different ways to fix rendering components, but more so, know that there are problem areas with their own solutions you've never even touched upon. Think of it as "adjacent possible", combine everything you know, and then go outside that, to a problem/solution realm that's really new to you.

thanks for that, appreciate your insights.

Great advice, I appreciate it :)!

Louder in the back! How are we always in sync? It's crazy!

Man I love your videos

knowing how to pipe input and output places, knowing basic sql, being comfortable reading and writing kubernetes yaml files, being able to monitor and alert your own stuff, testing testing testing . . . There are so many things that go into making a good software engineer great that is not strictly code writing ability.

This guy is heaven sent

Bro just thought me how to be a software engineer in 5.55 minutes . I been searching for this motivation for the past 14 days cause my mental barrier stops me to explore other backend expect Node . Thanks U just motivated me to god level respect++

"seeing things done differently" thats how i calm myself when have to work with deprecated stuff

great video as always, thank you

I thought it was awesome you mentioned learning relative technologies. In college I would read multiple different math books on a topic. I found that authors had different angles of perspective that helped me understand it material faster..

Awesome words ! Totally agree .

inspirational - thank you for taking the time

Did this by ditching windows for 2 years. Learned a ton and i can say 100% it made me a better engineer

Makes me feel better about spending a lot of my time in my bootcamp setting up dotfiles, learning vin and emacs

Such good advice, thank you ! Me, years ago deep in PHP : Maybe I should give that "stupid" typescript thing a look

It makes sense, it's all about experience at the end of the day. Leaving an idea for a video: hot take on specializations

that is some good advice. i needed that

Spitting facts. Do not refuse sane challenges, even if you don't know how to do it, because you will always grow from it one way or another. Accept that you don't know everything, and strive to learn more along the road with eyes unclouded. Transgress dogmas if you understand why you are doing it.

This is like chess, you will learn way more by playing different openings than by sticking to the same one.

The last bit got me motivated

Awesome advice. Your content has blown my fragile little minds to bits. Great work.

I'm 4 years into fulltime programming, which means a lot of the basic advice on the internet isn't novel anymore, but this video is really helpful. Learning vim because of Prime right now :)

I think I start loving you: too much wisdom!

I like this trend of reflection that you're on.

Thank you for this advice im going to use nvim and linux instead of vscode and windows this summer, also you are very fun to watch i started this school year a software developer degree in college and they dont teach all of this important skills you talk about, i make huge progress becase it became my hobby

Interesting video! My road to comp sci was very different from yours but i have similar problems (altho for different reasons). I've certainly never had the experience of being smarter than my classmates or succeeding early lol

"we are limited by our experience" damn that is deep and true

1-2 years ago I (as non-cs student who just started programming) forced myself to use ubuntu, IT WAS HARD, but now I am comforable at using cli and I just love it

Thank you, it works perfect!

I'm a recent high school graduate going on to my first year of college and this is actually really good advice. It's just the kick I needed to start trying different IDEs and put some time into exploring Linux. I've been thinking about dual booting and I started dual booting recently. I haven't regretted it since and I've been obsessed with ricing my system. But I wouldn't have even tried Linux if it wasn't for the fellowship I'm currently in that pushed me. I think I've been feeling the same way about VSCode and React but after this video, maybe I could explore other IDEs, text editors, and frameworks. I've heard from a lot of people that Create React App is cringe so I've been trying to avoid it but I also didn't wanna learn anything new lol