In the last 10 years, I have made a lot of mistakes while developing a reliable system.

Here are 6 Software Engineering Lessons I Wish I knew when I was 20.

1. Read atleast 3 software engineering books every year:

Reading a book thoroughly has always helped me level up in my craft. I wish I had read following books earlier:
-SICP
-Designing Data Intensive Applications
-The Joy of Clojure

2. Go deeper into the language you are using at work:

To scale up our servers cost-effectively, I had to go deeper into the NodeJS engine and understand how it works. It was the best decision I made. The more you know, the better you can evaluate their strengths and weaknesses.

3. Consistently pair with your fellow developers:

I was always hesitant to do it earlier. Because I wanted to be perceived as a better programmer than I actually was. Getting rid of the ego and willingness to take the hits from others helped me actually be better at it.

4. Start by writing the unit tests:

To appreciate the value of unit testing, you need to grunt your way through and write those tests. It enabled me to refactor your code with no fear, hence improving your codebase in the long run.

5. More experience you gain, the better you will be as a software developer:

I was intimated by other programmers. They saw bugs in my code that I didn't. After 10 years I realized the best engineers have the right mix of learned knowledge and real-world experience.

6. Educate others about what you have learnt:

The best way to learn is to teach. I was forced into it when the startup I worked for started growing and I had to teach new recruits about our existing stack. The earlier you start giving back and teaching, the more natural it is.

If you are in your twenties, I hope this thread helps you inculcate a few habits to be a better DevOps engineer.

Thanks for reading this.

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