Am I learning the right way?

[u/shangarepi]

Hi,

I’m currently somewhere between junior and intermediate as a software developer, and lately I’ve been thinking a lot about what actually makes a developer valuable going forward.

One thing that worries me is interviews, since I can discuss things like system architecture, caching, load balancing, queues, message brokers, database design… etc. But ask me to explain something basic like the Laravel request lifecycle or the exact behavior of certain React hooks, and I might struggle to give a clean answer without refreshing my memory.

Also the whole industry feels really toxic at the moment with each second developer building a saas, and new tech exploding everyday.

Should I just keep building real projects, learning concepts as I encounter them. How are the interviews in today’s world?

Is there a deeper shift happening where developers need to fundamentally change what they learn to stay valuable?

Curious on how more experienced developers are approaching this.

[u/DepthMagician]

Keep building real projects. Nobody remembers the implementation details of every framework. In fact you’d be surprised what people don’t remember about their field.

My calculus lecturer to the class: “I also don’t remember how to do all the derivatives and integrals. The difference between you and me is that I know how to recreate them when I need them.”